ROMANS Chapter 1, Vs 1-7

My wife and I are working our way through Tom Nelson's, the teaching pastor at Denton Bible Church in Denton, TX, current sermon series on the book of Romans. You can download it for free on iTunes, just search podcasts for "Denton Bible Church". I will post my notes on his sermons (currently he is somewhere in the 20's, and the series began back in October!) as we delve into his teaching on this book.

Tommy Nelson Study- ROMANS

OVERVIEW
1. Most important book in Bible

2. Theme- How a perfect, holy God can get an imperfect man into a perfect, holy place and yet remain perfect without compromising His holiness.

3. Purpose- Paul had never been to Rome, and word on the street was that he was afraid to go to Rome because he couldn’t preach it to Rome, the height of culture, the “enlightened” philosophers, the classic “city of Man”, and hold up to Rome’s (man’s) intellectual attack on it. But Paul had wanted to go to Rome, but God had not allowed him to do so yet, thus the writing of this letter.

Chapter Breakdown by Subject:

• Ch 1-3: Condemnation
• Ch 4-5: Justification
• Ch 6-8: Sanctification
• Ch 9-11: Vindication of God’s Sovereignty
• Ch 12-16: Application
  
  CHAPTER 1: Vs 1-7 Faith’s Foundations
  

Vs 1: The Author- Paul

• A servant and apostle- one who saw and was sent forth
• Was given a message by God himself
• He is not a mystic, a thinker

Vs 2: The Source

• Promised beforehand by his prophets- not in man, but of God
• In the Holy Scriptures- purpose of the Old Testament was to show you your sin and point you to Christ
• If Moses, David, or Elijah were here, they would believe in Christ

Vs 3-4: The Focus

• Regarding His Son- Jesus- perfect humanity and deity
• He was fully man- a descendent of David
• He is also fully God
• He died and was resurrected- proving/declaring his deity- declaring = “horitzo” in Greek- translated into appointed, determined, something clearly marked out
• He showed that death has no power over him
• Thus, Jesus is the Son of David who was resurrected- He is the Messiah- he fulfilled the prophesies, thus He is our LORD

Vs 5: The Purpose

• Human salvation depends on obedience by faith and this only

Vs 6: The Scope

• God has commanded all mankind to repent- those that worship the earth, idols, other things are to abandon that way of thinking and repent of that and come to their Creator or risk being judged accordingly

Vs 6: The Recipients

• Those who were called- God summoned the Christians, they are the objects of His grace, even though he commanded all to repent, only the Christians have obeyed
• Has nothing to do with moral or intellectual superiority or any other characteristic of man

Vs 7: Benefits of Being Saved- Sainthood

• He LOVES us and because of this we are to be progressively changed in Christ throughout our lives in a process that will culminate with our resurrection to be with Him on the day of judgment to join the family of God. When He looks at us He sees His Son, and His righteousness has been imputed to us through our faith in Him alone. We are thus reconciled to God.

Doctor's Don't Listen and MRI's Lie

Here is a cool listen on NPR's Fresh Air on a recent book by a New England physician who states how MD's easily err in their thinking and misdiagnose by failing to listen to patients and hanging their hats on what are often poorly reliable imaging. The book is "How Doctors Think" by Jerome Groopman, MD.

Deductive Reasoning for Prevention

As an allied health care professional- a physical therapist to be exact- it amazes me how passive so many people are when they go see a practitioner in any of the vast medical fields- from RN's to MD's to DC's to PT's. A system has been created, from as far back as ancient tribal shamans to the father of modern medicine, Galen, where a patient tells the practitioner what is wrong and expects the practitioner to heal them. In fact, this model is thoroughly utilized every time you go see your family physician- you have some symptoms and he/she prescribes an antidote, typically pharmaceutical, and you're told to call if you do not improve. It works most of the time, even with the expectation that there may not be a response to what has been prescribed, especially if the patient follows as he or she has been advised.

So here's my scenario- a patient walks in last week with a prescription for rehabilitation for spinal pain from an orthopedic specialist. He has private commercial insurance, and as a favor my company always researches his medical benefits prior to his appointment just so he will know what his costs will be for utilizing my services. While we do this he chooses to wait to see what they are before he schedules his initial evaluation.

We get through to his insurance company fairly quickly (and by this I mean in under 20 minutes) and find that he will have a $250 deductible that must be met before his insurance company will pick up 80% of the bill. He declines to schedule.

So this is a man who probably started out at his primary care physician for complaints of back pain. He was then most likely prescribed pain medications, either steroidal or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications, and possibly muscle relaxants to relieve his symptoms because 80% of spinal complaints resolve in less than 1-2 weeks (thus the use of medication- it gets you through those two weeks). But for this guy, we can only guess it did not work, because he was sent on to a specialist, maybe even after his primary care doctor ordered a series of imaging (X-ray, MRI) to better assess what he or she was treating.

So he now arrives at his second physician appointment, a specialist in the care of back pain we would imagine. This physician most certainly would order imaging of some sort if it had not been done before, might also again try some medications, and in this case determined that he should try rehabilitation in the form of physical therapy as well.

Let's recap: 2 physician appointments, great chance for the use of medications, probably some imaging of the spine involved, and our patient still has complaints of pain in his back. A specialist, who he chose to visit after being referred by his primary care physician, tells him to go to therapy.

BUT...when he finds out that he will have to pay for at least a few visits out of his own pocket- and I know that $250 can be a lot of money for some people, which is why we have a payment assistance program for those who need it- HE DECLINES TO BE SEEN!

I want to ask him, "Why did you take the time to go through the hassle above when you were not going to follow the physician's advice anyway?" Obviously what he has tried himself has not been working, else why would he have sought out care?

The sad thing is that in someone who has gone this far through the system, he likely will not return to the specialist until his case becomes so involved that he would require surgery. And this surgery will cost him the deductible plus a whole lot more, especially when you think about the time off work required and the fact that his deductible probably will go up in the coming years, for something he may have been able to prevent if he had not worried so much about that $250 right now.

Are you up on your Sesame Street?

Do you know the name of Big Bird's wooly friend? Take this quiz at one of my favorite MD blogs...

No More Ice Cream For Ann...

We have finally figured out the key to the Bailey family's fertility: ice cream.

It appears that a recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health published in the European Journal Human Reproduction showed that eating full-fat ice cream and other high-fat dairy items (Ann loves her cream cheese too!) may lower the risk of one type of infertility.

Sherbet and frozen yogurt for this family for here on out! And hey, how bout some non-dairy creamer for that coffee!