By Romans 3:1-8
So what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted with the spoken words of God. What then? If some did not believe, will their unbelief cancel God’s faithfulness? Absolutely not! God must be true, even if everyone is a liar, as it is written:
That You may be justified in Your words and triumph when You judge.
But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? I use a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world? But if by my lie God’s truth is amplified to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, just as some people slanderously claim we say, “Let us do what is evil so that good may come”? Their condemnation is deserved!
All people must stand somewhere to make a statement about anything. What ground does the Apostle Paul stand on? He stands on the word of God. We would call him a presuppositionalist. He presupposes that God is true even though the whole world may lie. He presupposes that the Bible contains the truth of God. He stands on these truths and defends God by who God has declared himself to be from the Scriptures. Some may say that Paul uses circular reasoning because he would argue for the truthfulness of Scripture from the Scriptures. Yet the humanist would do the same; he would argue for the truthfulness of human reasoning based upon his human reasoning; and so the story goes.
Paul answers three objections that the Jews raise to him by using the truth of God from the Scriptures. The Jews to whom Paul was writing had just heard that the true Jew is one inwardly who has been circumcised in the heart and not merely the flesh. So naturally they wanted to know if being a Jew by nationality had any value at all anymore.
We are to answer objections to the Christian faith by using the Scriptures. This is our book of truth by which we can destroy all arguments raised up against the knowledge of God. There is indeed still an advantage the Jewish people have, they were given the Old Testament, and that alone is sufficient blessing. For the Old Testament revealed the promised Messiah to come, our Lord Jesus Christ!
- The question naturally comes that if we are to defend the faith by using the Scriptures, how well do you know your Bibles?
- Do you think it would be a good idea to commit to reading a certain amount of Scripture every day? Do you think it would be a good idea to commit to studying a certain portion of Scripture every day? I do, and that is why we do these Bible lessons.
Leading Family Devotions 