The questions for this week’s study were written by Dee Graves.
- As you pray for your study today, ask God for purity in your thought and motives. “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.” 1 Peter 2:1.
- Read Romans 2:17-29
- STUDY NOTE: At the time of the formation of the early churches, including the church in Rome, certain Jewish Christians were teaching the Gentile believers that “‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.’ This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them.” (Acts 15:1-2) “Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.’” Acts 15:5. In Romams 2:17-29, Paul gets to the heart of the problem with this way of thinking. (See also Galatians 2:15-16.)
- What do you think is Paul’s MAIN POINT in Romans 2:17-29?
- Some of the Jewish Christians who were relying on the law for their salvation, were also holding themselves in higher esteem and bragging about their relationship with God. Christ describes the hypocrisy of judging others in Matthew 7:3-5, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” What does Jesus’s teaching tell you about the sinfulness of even the most religious people in the world?
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