Download truth(2:2-3)

Saemoonan English Bible Study
2014-12-14
http://niv.saemoonan.org
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Purpose of English Bible Study
• Study the Bible in English.
• Study English through the Bible.
Focus on;
• Proper pronunciation
• Scripture reading/comprehension
• Listening/speaking/conversation
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Time table
8:30
8:40
8:45
8:50
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9:45
9:47
Praise time: 2 ~ 3 songs
Greetings and Announcements
Psalm Reading and Prayer
Lesson
Bible reading
Verse memorization
Today’s Phrase
Conversation
Lecture
Discussion
Pop quiz
Lord’s prayer
Dismissal song
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NIV Bible Study Class
• Learn God’s Words through the NIV English Bible
• Text
– NIV Bible 1984 version (Latest ver. 2011)
– Rev. John Macarthur’s Commentary
• Home pager : http://niv.saemoonan.org.
• Download and listen to John MacArthur’s sermon,
http://www.gty.org
• Membership fee: 10,000 won for 6 months, voluntary.
• Please attend English Worship Service at 11:30AM
~12:30, in the same room as NIV class.
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Organizing members
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Teachers: C. Justin Lee, Hong Bong Kim
Team Leader: Hong Bong Kim
General Secretary: wanted!
Associate Secretary: wanted!
Treasurer: In Hye Kim
Advisor: Kye Hee Lee
Contact:
– C. Justin Lee: [email protected], 010-2825-7128
– Hong Bong Kim: [email protected], 010-7109-3308
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Greetings
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Today’s Announcements
• SEM Christmas Dinner Party: 12/25
• Pop Quiz Festival: 12/28
• 12/21 prayer: Ja Sook Lee, Psalm 37:21-40
• 12/28 prayer: Kye Hee Lee, Psalm 38
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Today’s New Members
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Apostle’s Creed
I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ,
His only Son our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hell,
The third day He rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit;
The Holy Catholic Church;
The communion of saints;
The forgiveness of sins;
The resurrection of the body;
And the life everlasting.
Amen
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Today’s Psalm Reading: Jung Hee Pyo
Psalms 37
1 Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do
wrong;
2 for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they
will soon die away.
3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy
safe pasture.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of
your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice
of your cause like the noonday sun.
7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret
when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their
wicked schemes.
8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret-it leads
only to evil.
9 For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the LORD13
will inherit the land.
Today’s Psalm Reading: Jung Hee Pyo
Psalms 37
10 A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look
for them, they will not be found.
11 But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.
12 The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at
them;
13 but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is
coming.
14 The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down
the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright.
15 But their swords will pierce their own hearts, and their bows
will be broken.
16 Better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of many
wicked;
17 for the power of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD
upholds the righteous.
18 The days of the blameless are known to the LORD, and their
inheritance will endure forever.
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Today’s Psalm Reading: Jung Hee Pyo
Psalms 37
19 In times of disaster they will not wither; in days of famine they
will enjoy plenty.
20 But the wicked will perish: The LORD's enemies will be like
the beauty of the fields, they will vanish-vanish like smoke.
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Today’s Prayer
Prayer by Jung Hee Pyo
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This Week’s Verse
• Or do you show contempt for the riches of his
kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing
that God's kindness leads you toward
repentance?
• (Romans 2:4) (Dec 14)
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Next Week’s Verse
But because of your stubbornness and your
unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath
against yourself for the day of God's wrath,
when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
• (Romans 2:5) (Dec 21)
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Today’s phrase
• True to his integrity, the chief sentenced his mother to
the forty lashes.
• True to ______ integrity, ___________ sentenced
_____________ to _______________. (Dec. 14)
• To their horror, the thief turned out to be the chief’s
aged mother.
• To their __________, the __________ turned out to
be the _________________. (Dec. 21)
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This Week’s Conversation
A: Do you know what “hypocrite” means?
B: Yes. “Hypocrite” refers to someone who acts
differently from what he or she believes.
A: That’s what the Webster’s dictionary says. But literally
it means “less criticism.”
B: That’s right. Hypo means less and critical means
ciritical.
A: I think the meaning comes from the fact that
hypocritical person is less critical to himself than to
others.
B: That’s an interesting interpretation.
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Next Week’s Conversation
A: I heard this story of a wise chief of ancient Russian
tribe.
B: Really? What is the story about?
A: It’s about the chief who wanted to stop theft among the
tribe by punishing a thief by 40 lashes on the back.
B: That sounds like a harsh punishment.
A: It was almost a death sentence, one that only the chief
could endure. But one day, his own mother was found
to be guilty of stealing.
B: How terrible! What happened then?
A: If you want to know what happened, come to the NIV
class.
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Today’s Reading
Romans 2:1~5
1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone
else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning
yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
2 Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things
is based on truth.
3 So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the
same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment?
4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and
patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward
repentance?
5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are
storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when
his righteous judgment will be revealed.
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Principles of God’s Judgment Part 1
(Romans 2:1-5)
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Introduction
• After reading Paul’s severe condemnation of those who
have abandoned God and plummeted into the gross sins
mentioned in 1:29-31, one naturally wonders about how
God deals with the more upright, moral, and religious
person who has a sense of right and wrong, and leads an
outwardly virtuous life.
• Many such ethically upright people would heartily
concur with Paul’s assessment of the flagrantly immoral
people he has just described.
• They obviously deserve God’s judgment.
• Throughout history many pagan individuals and societies
have held high standards of conduct.
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Introduction
• As F. F. Bruce points out, the Roman philosopher Seneca,
a contemporary of Paul, might have listened to Paul’s
indictment and said, “Yes, that is perfectly true of great
masses of mankind, and I concur in the judgment which
you pass on them—but there are others, of course, like
myself, who deplore these tendencies as much as you
do.”
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Introduction
• Paul imagines someone intervening in terms like these, and
he addresses the supposed objector…. How apt this reply
would have been to a man like Seneca! For Seneca could
write so effectively on the good life that Christian writers of
later days were prone to call him “our own Seneca.” Not
only did he exalt the great moral virtues; he exposed
hypocrisy, he preached the equality of all men, he
acknowledged the pervasive character of evil, … he
practiced and inculcated daily self-examination, he
ridiculed vulgar idolatry, he assumed the role of a moral
guide. But too often he tolerated in himself vices not so
different from those which he condemned in others—the
most flagrant instance being his connivance at Nero’s
murder of his mother Agrippina. (Romans [London:
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Introduction
• Most Jews of Paul’s day believed in the idea that
performing certain moral and religious works produced
righteousness.
• Specifically, they could earn God’s special favor and
therefore eternal life by keeping the Mosaic law and the
traditions of the rabbis.
• Many even believed that if they failed in the works
effort, they might forfeit some earthly reward but were
still exempt from God’s judgment simply because they
were Jews, God’s chosen people.
• They were firmly convinced that God would judge and
condemn pagan Gentiles because of their idolatry and
immorality but that no Jew would ever experience such
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condemnation.
Introduction
• They loved to repeat such sayings as, “God loves Israel
alone of all the nations,” and “God will judge the
Gentiles with one measure and the Jews with another.”
• Some taught that Abraham sat outside the gates of hell
in order to prevent even the most wicked Jew from
entering.
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Introduction
• In his Dialogue with Trypho, the second-century
Christian Justin Martyr reports his Jewish opponent as
saying, “They who are the seed of Abraham according to
the flesh shall in any case, even if they be sinners and
unbelieving and disobedient towards God, share in the
eternal kingdom.”
• Even the unregenerate have the basic knowledge of
good and evil built into them and into society.
• Consequently, many people today recognize and seek to
uphold the moral standards of Scripture and profess to
be Christians.
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Introduction
• But also like Seneca, because they are not true believers
in God, they lack the spiritual resources to maintain that
divine morality in their lives and are unable to restrain
their sinfulness.
• They trust in their baptism, in their church membership,
in their being born into a Christian family, in the
sacraments, in high ethical standards, in orthodox
doctrine, or in any number of other outward ideas,
relationships, or ceremonies for spiritual and even
eternal safety.
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Introduction
• But no one can understand or appropriate salvation
apart from recognizing that he stands guilty and
condemned before God, totally unable to bring himself
up to God’s standard of righteousness.
• And no person is exempt.
• The outwardly moral person who is friendly and
charitable but self-satisfied is, in fact, usually harder to
reach with the gospel than the reprobate who has hit
bottom, recognized his sin, and given up hope.
• Therefore, after showing the immoral pagan his lostness
apart from Christ, Paul proceeds with great force and
clarity to show the moralist that, before God, he is
equally guilty and condemned.
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Introduction
• In doing so, he presents six principles by which God
judges sinful men: knowledge (v. 1), truth (vv. 2–3), guilt
(vv. 4–5), deeds (vv. 6–10), impartiality (vv. 11–15), and
motive (v. 16).
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Knowledge
• Therefore refers to what Paul has just said in the
last half of chapter 1, and specifically to the
introductory statement: “For the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth
in unrighteousness, because that which is known
about God is evident within them; for God made
it evident to them, … so that they are without
excuse” (vv. 18–20).
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Knowledge
• Addressing the new group of moral people, the apostle
says, you also are without excuse, every man of you who
passes judgment.
• As becomes clear in verse 17, he was speaking primarily
to Jews, who characteristically passed judgment on
Gentiles, thinking them to be spiritually inferior and even
beyond the interest of God’s mercy and care.
• But every man of you encompasses all moralists,
including professing Christians, who think they are
exempt from God’s judgment because they have not
sunk into the pagan, immoral extremes Paul has just
mentioned.
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Knowledge
• Paul’s initial argument is simple. In that you judge
another, he points out, you condemn yourself, because
you obviously have a criterion by which to judge,
meaning that you know the truth about what is right and
wrong before God.
• Even the Gentiles know the basic truth of God’s “eternal
power and divine nature” through natural revelation
(1:20).
• They also have a sense of right and wrong by conscience
(2:15).
• The Jew, however, not only had both of those means of
knowing God’s truth but also had the great advantage of
having received His special revelation through Scripture
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(3:2; 9:4).
Knowledge
• Not only that, but almost all Jews of Paul’s day would
have known something of Jesus Christ and of His
teaching and claims even though they would not have
believed He was the promised Messiah.
• Such knowledge would have made them still more
inexcusable, in that their greater knowledge of God’s
truth would have made them more accountable to it
(see Heb. 10:26–29).
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Knowledge
• If relatively unenlightened pagans know basic truths
about God and realize they deserve His punishment
(1:19–20, 32), Paul was saying, how much more should
Jews?
– The same principle applies to Christians, both nominal and
true.
– Because they have greater knowledge of God’s truth they are
more accountable to it and more inexcusable when they selfrighteously judge others by it.
– James gave a special warning to those who aspire to be
Christian teachers, reminding them that, because of their
greater knowledge of God’s truth, they will be judged more
strictly by Him (James 3:1).
– And the fact is, the moralists who condemn others’ sins are
filled with their own iniquities which demand judgment by the
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same standard.
Knowledge
• But it was not simply that those who are judgmental are
wrong in assessing the moral standing of others but that
they also are wrong in assessing their own moral
standing.
• You who judge practice the same things, Paul insists.
• The self-righteous make two grave errors: they
underestimate the height of God’s standard of
righteousness, which encompasses the inner as well as
the outer life (the theme of the Sermon on the Mount),
and they underestimate the depth of their own sin.
• It is a universal temptation to exaggerate the faults of
others while minimizing one’s own, to notice a small
speck in someone’s eye but not the log in one’s own eye
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(see Matt. 7:1–3).
Knowledge
• Many self-sanctified, blind Jews who read these words of
Paul would immediately have concluded that what he
said did not apply to them.
• Like the rich young ruler (Luke 18:21), they were
convinced they had done a satisfactory job of keeping
God’s commandments (cf. also Matt. 15:1–3).
• It was that self-righteous spirit that Jesus repeatedly
undermined in the Sermon on the Mount.
– After declaring, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of
the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of
heaven,” He charged that the person who is angry at or insults
his brother is as surely worthy of punishment as the murderer
and that the person who lusts is guilty of adultery or
fornication just as surely as the person who physically commits
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those immoral acts (Matt. 5:20–22, 27–28).
Knowledge
• Many Jewish men tried to legalize their adultery by
formally divorcing their wives and then marrying the
woman they preferred.
• Because divorce had become easy and commonplace,
some men repeatedly divorced and remarried.
• But Jesus warned: “I say to you that everyone who
divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity,
makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a
divorced woman commits adultery” (v. 32).
• If one has enough knowledge to judge others, he is thus
self-condemned, for he has enough to judge his own
true condition.
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TRUTH(2:2-3):
2 Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on
truth. 3 So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same
things, do you think you will escape God's judgment?
• Know translates oida, which carries the idea of
awareness of that which is commonly known and
obvious.
• As Paul has already pointed out, even the pagan Gentiles
acknowledge that “those who practice such things [the
sins listed in 1:29–31] are worthy of death” (v. 32).
• Surely then, the more spiritually enlightened Jews know
that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who
practice such things.
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TRUTH(2:2-3):
• Everything God does is, by nature, right and according to
the truth.
– Paul declares, “Let God be found true, though every man be
found a liar,” (Rom. 3:4), and, “There is no injustice with God, is
there? May it never be!” (9:14).
• God is not capable of doing that which is not right or
saying that which is not true.
– David declared that the Lord “dost sit on the throne judging
righteously …. He will judge the world in righteousness; He will
execute judgment for the peoples with equity” (Ps. 9:4, 8).
– Another psalmist exulted that God “will judge the world in
righteousness, and the people in His faithfulness” (Ps. 96:13; cf.
145:17; cf. also Isa. 45:19).
• There is always distortion in human perception, but
never any in God’s.
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TRUTH(2:2-3):
• Men are so used to God’s blessings and mercy that they
take them for granted, not realizing that they receive
those things purely because of God’s longsuffering and
grace.
• God would be perfectly just to blot out any person or all
persons.
• But human nature trades on God’s grace, believing that
everything will work out all right in the end because God
is too good and merciful to send anyone to hell.
• As someone astutely observed, “There is some kind of a
still little voice in everybody that constantly convinces
them that in the end it’s going to be OK.”
• That little voice speaks from a person’s fallen nature,
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which constantly seeks to justify itself.
TRUTH(2:2-3):
• Paul sternly warns against such false confidence.
– Although he was conscious of no specific unconfessed sin in his
life, even he knew better than to rely on his imperfect human
judgment, declaring, “I am not by this acquitted; but the one
who examines me is the Lord” (1 Cor. 4:3-4).
• He knew that every person’s discernment is hopelessly
distorted and cannot make a proper evaluation even of
his own spiritual health, much less that of someone else.
– “Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time,”
the apostle goes on to say, “but wait until the Lord comes who
will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and
disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s
praise will come to him from God” (v. 5).
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TRUTH(2:2-3):
• Man’s judgment never squares completely with the
truth, because he never knows the complete truth.
– When the proud moralist judges and condemns others, while
thinking he himself is acceptable to God, it is only because he is
judging by his own perverted perspective, which fallen human
nature always skews to its own advantage.
• But God’s perspective and judgment are always perfect.
– The writer of Hebrews therefore warns, “There is no creature
hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to
the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13).
• Every sin that every individual has ever committed
flashes on a life-sized screen before God, as it were, with
no detail missing from His view.
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TRUTH(2:2-3):
• The secret hope of the hypocrite is that God will
somehow judge him by a standard lower than perfect
truth and righteousness.
– He knows enough to recognize the wickedness of his heart, but
he hopes vainly that God will judge him in the same superficial
way that most others judge him and that he judges himself.
– He plays a kind of religious charade, wanting to be judged by
his appearance rather than by his true character.
• And because most men accept him for what he pretends
to be, as most hypocrites he assumes God will do the
same.
– But as God cautioned Samuel, “Do not look at his [Eliab’s]
appearance or at the height of his stature, … for God sees not
as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the
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Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).
TRUTH(2:2-3):
• The secret hope of the hypocrite is that God will
somehow judge him by a standard lower than perfect
truth and righteousness.
– He knows enough to recognize the wickedness of his heart, but
he hopes vainly that God will judge him in the same superficial
way that most others judge him and that he judges himself.
– He plays a kind of religious charade, wanting to be judged by
his appearance rather than by his true character.
• And because most men accept him for what he pretends
to be, as most hypocrites he assumes God will do the
same.
– But as God cautioned Samuel, “Do not look at his [Eliab’s]
appearance or at the height of his stature, … for God sees not
as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the
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Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).
TRUTH(2:2-3):
• And do you suppose this, O man, when you pass
judgment upon those who practice such things and do
the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of
God?
• Logizomai (suppose) carries the idea of calculating or
estimating. (It is related to the English term logic).
• The moralist falsely calculates his own sinfulness and
guilt.
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TRUTH(2:2-3):
• The hypocritical, self-righteous man who passes
judgment upon those who practice the sinful things that
he himself practices brings greater judgment on himself.
– God not only judges him for those evil practices but also for his
hypocrisy in the self-righteous judgment of others.
– Such people “are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside
appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones
and all uncleanness” (Matt. 23:27).
– “You are foolish and self-deceived,” Paul says, “if you think that
you will escape the judgment of God.”
• If a man cannot escape his own judgment, how can he
escape divine judgment?
• If we are forced to condemn ourselves, how much more
will the infinitely Holy God condemn us?
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TRUTH(2:2-3):
• The only way any person, no matter how outwardly
moral and religious, can escape God’s judgment is to
receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, receiving in faith
the provision He made on the cross by His paying the
penalty all deserve.
• It has been told that nomadic tribes roamed ancient
Russia much as American Indians once roamed North
America.
• The tribe that controlled the choicest hunting grounds
and natural resources was led by an exceptionally strong
and wise chief.
• He ruled not only because of his superior physical
strength but because of his utter fairness and
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impartiality.
TRUTH(2:2-3):
• When a rash of thefts broke out, he proclaimed that if
the thief were caught he would be punished by ten
lashes from the tribal whip master.
• As the thefts continued, he progressively raised the
number of lashes to forty, a punishment that everyone
knew he was the only one strong enough to endure.
• To their horror, the thief turned out to be the chief’s
aged mother, and speculation immediately began as to
whether or not he would actually sentence her to the
announced punishment.
• Would he satisfy his love by excusing her or would he
satisfy his law by sentencing her to what would surely be
her death?
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TRUTH(2:2-3):
• True to his integrity, the chief sentenced his mother to
the forty lashes.
• But true also to his love for his mother, just before the
whip came down on her back he surrounded her frail
body with his own, taking upon himself the penalty he
had prescribed for her.
• In an infinitely greater way, Christ took the penalty of all
men’s sin upon Himself.
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Today’s Prayer Topic
Thank Jesus for taking the penalty of my sin
upon Himself.
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The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
for yours is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever.
Amen.
(Matthew 6:9-13)
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God will make a way
God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way....
He will make a way
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