Paul listed many specific examples. Here are a few selections from his list.

• Our physical bodies have many members with different functions. In Christ all believers are one body and each member belongs to all the others.
• Each of us is called to make the most of the unique gifts God has given us.
• Don’t lack in zeal but keep your spiritual fervor in the service of the Lord.
• Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.
• Practice hospitality.
• Live in harmony with one another.
• Do not take revenge—leave that to God.
• Don’t be overcome by evil—overcome evil with good.

(Chapter 12)

DIALOGUE

What gifts has God given you? How are you using these gifts?

By opening the path of righteousness to Gentiles, God could arouse his own people (the Jews) to follow that path. If the Jews’ rejection of the Way led to the reconciliation of the world, what might their acceptance lead to?

Israel experienced a hardening until Gentiles were empowered by the Gospel to become a part of God’s chosen people. But now: “All Israel will be saved.”

God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.
(Chapter 11)

DIALOGUE

What is Paul’s understanding of God’s strategy to save the world?

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. I can testify about them that they are zealous for god, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. They failed to understand that Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

For Jew and Gentile alike, added Paul, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Paul then asked: How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them. Paul quoted from the prophet Isaiah, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
(Chapter 10)

DIALOGUE

What would a church that effectively demonstrated God’s good news look like?

I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons, theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised!

Paul affirmed that things happened in the history of the Jews so that God’s purpose in election might stand. For example, this is what the King of Egypt received as God’s Word: “I raised you up for this purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
(Chapter 9)

DIALOGUE

Does God see either Jews or Christians as a “chosen people”?
Why or why not?

“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”

The coming of Jesus made explicit the depth and inclusiveness of God’s love. Jews and Gentiles alike are included. Those who respond will be transformed to the likeness of Christ. God also endowed us with the freedom to say “No thanks!” and to carve out our own approach to a life that ignores God’s Lordship. What Paul wrote next helps us gain a perspective on the above statements. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
(Chapter 8)

DIALOGUE

What is needed for you to feel that nothing can ever separate you from the love of God?

• We have every reason to be hopeful.
• The Spirit will help us in our weakness.
• The Spirit will help us to pray for what we ought to pray for.
• God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

(Chapter 8)

DIALOGUE

What does it take for Christian congregations to reflect the triumphant life Paul described?

Paul proclaimed that not only are we rescued from sin and death and have the Spirit of God within us, we are God’s children—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. If we share in Christ’s sufferings, we share also in his glory.
(Chapter 8)

DIALOGUE

Do you feel like a child of God? If so, what does that mean to you?

Paul felt this about himself. “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. In my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

Paul was quick with the answer: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”
(Chapters 7-8)

DIALOGUE

How would you translate this message of Paul to a teenager?

Paul conveyed through this analogy that we were once married to sin, but when the power of sin died we were freed to marry another and, in this case, a better spouse, Jesus, the Christ. “When we die to the law, we belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit to God.”
(Chapter 7)

DIALOGUE

If you wished to convey the meaning of Paul’s analogy to another person, how would you describe the benefits of this bonding to Jesus?

Our baptism is like dying with Christ and then being raised from death in order to live a new life. If we have been united with him in his death, we will be united with him in his resurrection. We are no longer slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Offer yourself to God, as those who have been brought from death to life. Sin shall not be your master.

(Chapters 5-6)

DIALOGUE

Have you ever felt yourself to be a slave to sin? Explain.