Technical theological words used to irritate me - why all the fuss about minutely parsing the inflected meanings of Paul’s language, when what I wanted was a breaking into my life of the life of Jesus?
I feel differently now - not about Jesus breaking into my life, He is welcomed! - but about the technical language.
My thinking now is this: We are called to have our minds ‘renewed’; there are layers to that call, of course, but one major factor in that renewal is to understand what the true meaning of history is - not just for the Christian, but for all people.
A great part of that truth is understanding the earth-shaking importance of Paul’s explanation of the covenant with Abraham!! THAT is what God has been up to - and Paul goes to great lengths to show that the covenant was to deal with sin, and not just for the Jews, but for all the rest of us. God has been faithful all these thousands of years to the promises he made to Abraham (the faithfulness Paul calls the 'righteouness of God), up to the climax of the covenant in His messiah Jesus our Lord.
So - as Paul lays all this out in Romans 1-4 especially, he uses words that have to do, not with our inner experiences or emotions, but with words that do describe ‘what’s been going on’, and though they do not bear on our daily struggles and feelings much, they DO help to ‘renew our minds’ so that we are thinking God’s thoughts, in a sense. Paul is telling the real history of the world, which is counter to all the stories we hear in culture and in school and etc.
Hey Dave, been reading N.T. Wright much???
Yes indeed - working through his long commentary on Romans in the New Interpreter’s Bibe - a thrilling ride to be sure.