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Words From the Middle

At the intersection of Sacred and Profane

2020/06/28

What are you working for?

Bob Dylan had a song a long time ago called “You gotta serve somebody” or something similar. It is a binary I’m inclined to accept. At least when I think of it the terms or our Romans passage for today (Romans 6:12-23), especially the last verse, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 6:23 NRSV)

If we look at the whole passage Paul is talking about the power sin can have in our lives but suggests there is a way for us to limit or remove that power. When we skip to that last verse it becomes obvious it is in our best interests to remove the power of sin because the pay off isn’t anything we want. No one wants to be rewarded with death for doing what they probably don’t want to do anyway.

But what about the flip side? What are the other wages? As it turns out there aren’t other wages, turns out however much a binary we might be looking at it no longer applies. The wages of sin is/are* death but there is no discussion of the wages of not-sin, rather the opposite is a gift from God, namely eternal life. If there is anything more opposite to death than eternal life I’m not sure what it is. So this blog post isn’t very well named because we aren’t working for the better option, we get the better option as a gift but only if we stop doing the work of sin.

Does this post seem confused? Well, I don’t think the sermon is confused but if it is, make sure to let me know.

“Last week grace, this week wages?” Knox and St. Mark’s Presbyterian joint service (to download, right click and select “Save Link As . . .”)

https://s3.amazonaws.com/wftm.media/wp-content/uploads/200628_Joint_Online.mp3

Blessings,

 

 

 

 

*so is “wages” singular or plural? You tell me.

Article by Barry / Pentecost, Preaching, Sunday, Year A / eternal life, Paul, preaching, Romans, sin, wages Leave a Comment

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