David Bahn – Reflections

Today’s readings are Romans 7; Deuteronomy 5; Psalm 1; 1 Kings 21; 2 Kings 10. I’ll be away for the next few weeks. I will, however, attempt to post a link to the readings for the 49 Week Bible Challenge so you can follow the plan easily. During this time there will be no audio versions of these blog posts.

Romans 7:14-24

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! .

St. Augustine – the 5th Century reluctant convert to Christianity – is famously to have said, “Give me chastity, but not right now.” He was living a profligate life while his mother was praying fervently for his conversion. God answered that prayer and Augustine became a great figure in the Early Church, impacted deeply by Paul’s letter to the Romans. Augustine delighted in God’s grace but didn’t see it anymore after his conversion as an excuse for sin.

Many would identify themselves with Augustine in thanking God for his amazing grace. So how is it that we still struggle with sin? We who are no longer under God’s law and who live under God’s grace still battle with temptation and fall prey to the lure of sin and Satan. We read these words of Paul in Romans 7 and say, “That’s me!” The good we would do we do not do. The very evil we hate we do.

The surest sign that we are not fully awake to God’s holiness and our sinfulness is if we claim not to have to fight battles against temptation. The greatest evidence that we have been brought to faith and have the Holy Spirit within us is that we struggle with sin and temptation.

Still it is a battle. And we rightly wish we didn’t have to fight the war. But there is deliverance. And One Day we will be fully delivered – thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ! So, don’t give up the fight!