Ok, ok, so it's been well....entirely to long since I posted. Things have been very busy around here. Yes, Cherrie, the car is running. In fact the guy who put the new transmission in it specializes in hot rods, so it shifts like a race car - very short clutch throw. Nice.
Well, I can't find the lecture notes and I don't have time to search right now, so I will post something from what I am working on right now, a class on Romans. I am taking it via DVD because our Greek Exegisis prof. had quadruple bipass surgery (he is on the mend) and had to postpone the class. The prof. for Romans made a list of 62 study questions for me to answer in a, "thourough and scholarly" way.
(Q.) Romans 2:7, Is this not salvation by works?
(A.) If it were truly possible to lead a life of only doing good, then yes, but Paul will begin to build the argument that it is not possible to do this. In fact in 3:9-20 Paul quotes the Old Testament, arguing that not one person does good, and that “because by the works of the Law, no flesh will be justified in His sight;[and this is important to the question] for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” The Law established what “good works” are, but there is no man who has or will be able to fulfill the entire Law, and God planned it that way. We are to look to the Law to see we are incapable of only doing good, so that we would be “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” As Moo (the author of the commentary I am using for the course) says, the promise Paul makes in 2:7 can never be fulfilled because a “consistent, earnest seeking after good can never be realized.”
On top of all these, he wants a 12-15 page paper on the "meaning of Romans 6:3,4." I have my work cut out!
I should be able ( and would like to) post more when we are in Hawaii. Until then, who knows.