Reflections on My Romantic Journey

       

     I remembered getting excited and signing up for this class because of my personal experience with Romans at age 19. I had questioned my faith in God because I was suffering and God was silent. It was only after this airport experience (Those in the class would remember this. LOL) that I learnt I was going through my first wilderness experience. Romans gave me hope then. After these two intensive weeks, God gave me a deeper insight of His love for me and challenged me to express this love explicitly.

Relationship between Grace, Sin and the Law

       Verses 12 and 13 of Chapter 6 remind me that I have to make a conscious effort to live a righteous life. I learnt that our obedience to God should always be motivated by our relationship with Him. It should not be legalistic and forced by external pressures. And we needed the law because it states God’s standards. The problem is sin as it rebels the law. I used to think that I need to “die to myself” constantly. However, I was relieved to learn from Isaac that I don’t have to do that. We’re already dead to old self and righteousness comes from God. So let God do it. Phew…

     Knowing this helps me in my mentoring and discipleship with the youths. Instead of merely rebuking them when they sin, I will remind myself to point them back to their relationship with God. I need to demonstrate grace. Many a times, we sin because we allow ourselves to drift away from God. Thus, I will remind these younger ones and even myself to spend more time in His presence reading the Bible and worshipping Him. Indeed, grace should motivate us to live a righteous life.

“Knowing” me and Adoption

This is the chapter that illuminated me at the airport almost 20 years ago. Then I only knew that I have a hope and a future. After 2 weeks of classes, my understanding of Chapter 8 has deepened. This adoption idea and God “knowing” me struck a chord in my heart. Bro. Casey told us that Roman’s adoption is serious business. When we are in Christ, everything that belongs to God belongs to us because we’ve been adopted by God. Since we’re “co-heirs with Christ”, everything is ours legally.

God knows me. He knows me because of our relationship. Initially, I was confused about this verses too. Is it talking about predestination? I’m glad it’s been clarified by Bro Casey that predestination here is not about salvation but it has to do with spiritual maturity, to be more like Christ. I was further intrigued by this Arminian Theology of “middle knowledge” or Molinism and did a little research from reading some articles online. The theologian who came out with this doctrine is Luis de Molina. According to him, since God knows me, He knows how I will react and respond to situations. He also gives me the free will to make my own choices. It's kind of complicated to explain but it makes me see how I should handle my relationships with the people around me, especially those I mentor. Since I "know" them, I tend to "know" what choice they will make. Even though I have warned them of the dangers, they would still wanna take the risk coz young people like to rebel and test the limits. In times like this, I have to learn to allow these little ones to make mistakes since God has given me a choice too. 

Hospitality

Hospitality is a command and not a spiritual gift. I’m glad Sis Davina gave us a mini-lecture on this topic. Many people thought it was a spiritual gift and conveniently pushed the responsibility to others whom they perceived to have this gift. We were challenged to reclaim this obligation as a church during the class. I find the examples listed by different groups very helpful. Housing missionaries and offering dinner before cell meetings are just two. It shows how far we wanna run this extra mile for our Christian community. Ultimately, it’s how we make the other person part of the family.  I must start to tidy up the empty room in my house in case I need to house missionaries! =)

Stronger vs Weaker

The Romans church is similar to our current church situation. Since the Romans church has more gentiles than Jews, a certain atmosphere is formed within the church. Throughout Romans, Paul constantly reminded the stronger not to stumble the weaker and think too highly of themselves. This reminds me of the minority groups in our churches today. Do we really care about their thoughts and feelings? As the majority in the church, have we really tried to include these minority into our gatherings and activities. Sometimes, this also includes newcomers and new believers. Some of us are so busy on Sundays that we neglected them. We run from worship service to ministry to meetings. I'm challenged to do a self-check after this module. I must lookout for such people in the congregation and make meaningful conversations with them.

Last but not least (I'm sure this is not counted in the 800-word count)

I'm ever grateful to my group members, my new-found friends. =) Without them, I wouldn't be able to submit my paper since I've left school for so long. Everyone contributed their best! Thanks, Jen, Olivia, Myung Duk, Wai Lan, Rachel and Silas! Till we meet again! =)