Note: I'm indebted to Joshua Jipp and his excellent work in his paper Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and Us in Romans 4 for the insights on Romans 3-4 in particular and to Matthew Bates and his conceptualization of pistis in the New Testament as embodied fidelity as developed in his two excellent books Salvation by Allegiance Alone and Gospel Allegiance . I'm convinced that Romans 1:17 is the banner that flies over Romans: δικαιοσύνη γὰρ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ ἀποκαλύπτεται ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν , καθὼς γέγραπται· Ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται. In [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from pistis [of Christ] for pistis [of the nations, 1:5, 16:26] , as it is written "The righteous from pistis shall live." Notice how Romans 3:26 starts to explain how this works: ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ, πρὸς τὴν ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ It was to show his righteousness at the present tim
As the people of God, we must hold to apostolic tradition (2 Thessalonians 2:15, 3:6) but reject human tradition (Colossians 2:8). Jesus criticized the religious leaders of His day for making void the word of God for the sake of their tradition (Matthew 15:6). And He said they did this in many ways (Mark 7:13b). We are not immune to this error today. This blog exists to test (1 Thessalonians 5:21) our modern Christian traditions against Scripture to discern where we might have done the same.