barney wiget

“… even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them. ” — ROMANS 2:14-16

God coyly installs invitations inside every person in the form of a conscience. If people have “the requirements of the law are written on their hearts,” Someone must have done the writing! Right? It’s not a perfect rule of thumb because it can be skewed or silenced by relentless inattention. But when it’s in good working order, the conscience points directly to the One who installed it.

I have no doubt that in the quiet of her heart Rahab knew that her trade corroded her soul and that Someone had something more for her than this. When she looked inside she saw Someone looking out.

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“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” Romans 10:9-10

This passage, a favorite of many, I propose is one terribly misunderstood and misapplied for the sake of an easy believe-istic approach to salvation. Just believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, say it out loud and boom, heaven’s your new home! It’s a classic case of tearing the passage out of its historical and theological context like a page out of a magazine.

Paul’s first readers were Roman citizens who were law bound to assert tyrannical Caesar as “Lord” and obey his every dictate or die. Their confession of the Lordship of Christ would then have sounded more like:

“I no longer accept or follow any lord…

I wonder if Job’s “friends” had ever personally sat at the Sufferers’ Club table. If they had never been exposed to their own “valley of shadows,” it’s no wonder that they were limited in their ability to relate to his. They started out well when they “sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.” If only they had remained there on the ground, lips sealed.

There’s nothing like having a friend with whom very little needs be said. Silence, in such cases is “golden.” That’s real fellowship!

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– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway