{"id":1295,"date":"2009-10-18T20:58:47","date_gmt":"2009-10-19T02:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1295"},"modified":"2009-10-18T20:58:47","modified_gmt":"2009-10-19T02:58:47","slug":"romans-33-ya-gotta-believe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/romans-33-ya-gotta-believe\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 3:3 – Ya Gotta Believe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Romans 3:3<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Salvation and our relationship with God are all about faith.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The word translated \u201cnot believe<\/span>\u201d is apiste\u014d<\/span><\/em>, a compound word made up of the privative a<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cnot\u201d and piste\u014d<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto believe\u201d or \u201cto have faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

The noun \u201cunbelief<\/span>\u201d is from apistia<\/span><\/em>, made up of the privative a<\/span><\/em>, <\/span><\/em>meaning \u201cnot\u201d or \u201cun\u201d and a form of pistos<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cfaith\u201d or \u201cbelief.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFaithfulness<\/span>\u201d is translated from pistis<\/span><\/em>, which comes from the verb peith\u014d<\/span><\/em> meaning \u201cto win over\u201d or \u201cto persuade.\u201d In other words, it means \u201cto be persuaded,\u201d that is, \u201cto believe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul is very fond of using words playfully (meaningfully, but playfully). Here he is playing on the word pistis<\/span><\/em> (faith) and its verb forms pisteu\u014d<\/span><\/em> (to believe) and apiste\u014d<\/span><\/em> (to not believe). In the previous verse the passive form of pisteu\u014d<\/span><\/em> was used to indicate that God \u201centrusted\u201d the Holy Writings to the Jews. And here he asks if the \u201cunbelief\u201d (apistia<\/span><\/em>) of the Jews would cancel out the \u201cfaithfulness\u201d (pistis<\/span><\/em>) of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the first chapter of this letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul clearly articulated the fact that the Gentiles are sinners and that they are guilty before God and without excuse. In the second chapter he made a very clear case against the Jews, showing that they also were guilty before God without excuse. And, even though many of the early Christians were converted Jews, Paul makes it very clear that when it comes to being righteous before God, the Jews had no advantage over the Gentiles.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first verse of this third chapter, Paul posed a rhetorical question and he proceeded to answer it in verse two. He now poses another rhetorical question that a Jewish Christian might ask him. <\/span>Since there were so many Jews who did not believe in Jesus, the Messiah, when He came, what good did it do for the Jews to be keepers of the oracles?<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul says, in effect, \u201cSo what if some (many) did not believe in Jesus? <\/span>Does that mean that God is not faithful in saving His special people (the Jews)?\u201d <\/span>As he showed in general during the first two chapters, Paul will point out several verses from now very specifically that both Jews and Gentiles are guilty of sin. Because there is none righteous, Jew or Gentile, neither group is deserving of salvation.<\/p>\n

Do you notice that? <\/span>None of us deserves<\/strong> salvation. <\/span>Paul will make this abundantly clear. <\/span>God doesn\u2019t judge any of us to be righteous based on our actions or our deeds, but on a single deed of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sooner or later each one of us has to face the question: Are you good enough for God to let you into heaven? There are many people who, when asked this question, will say, \u201cOf course, I\u2019ve done the best I can. What more can God expect of anyone?\u201d But \u201cthe best I can\u201d isn\u2019t good enough because God expects perfection. Since none of us is perfect, none of us deserves heaven. God has entrusted us with the Holy Bible. If we ignore it, we\u2019re lost. If we read it and believe that Jesus died to pay for our sins, then God judges us to be perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about believing (pisteu\u014d<\/span><\/em>).<\/span><\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2009 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 3:3 For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Truth to Learn Salvation and our relationship with God are all about faith. Behind the Words The word translated \u201cnot believe\u201d is apiste\u014d, a compound word made up of the privative a, meaning \u201cnot\u201d and piste\u014d, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[556,557,204],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-belief","tag-believe","tag-faith"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-kT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}