WWUTT 2475 Q&A The Romans 7 Debate, Pastoring In This Economy, High Church vs Low Church

Romans 7 and the Question of Paul’s Struggle

In Romans chapter 7, was Paul talking about his struggles before or after he got saved? It's difficult to live on a pastor's salary in today's economy. How can you get by? And high church or low church, which one is the most biblical?

The answers when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of God. We thank you for listening and for telling others about our program. Let them know about our website, www .wtt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome.

Psalm 133, behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. It is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes.

It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore. Babe, I'm sorry that you will not get to know what it's like for oil to run down into your.

Beard.

Yeah, I'm hoping anyway.

I'll let you know how it feels.

Thanks.

I remember when I started doing Bible reading, this was a number of years ago, but I was looking at Hermon, like Mount Hermon, the dew of Hermon. I was like, I don't want to say Hermon. That sounds weird.

Hermon, Mount Hermon.

Okay.

It's like I knew a guy named Hermon. I have to say Mount Hermon? And then I heard a preacher one time say Mount Hermon, and I was like, oh, that's it.

I can get behind that.

Now I feel good about saying that word.

That's funny.

Hermon, that's the way to say it.

Isn't that so strange that some words are like, no, I'm not saying that one. But others, you're like, okay, I can do that.

Some of them kind of sound American.

Like buzz.

There's a guy named Buzz.

Yes.

Yes.

What's the other one? Salmon. S-A-L-M-O-N. It's spelled like salmon, but I refuse to say salmon. So I'll say Salmon. It's in Jesus' genealogy. So just a slight hint of L in there. Just a little bit.

Okay.

Salmon.

Okay.

Not salmon. He's not a fish.

Yeah.

Adventures in enunciating words.

Are you sure he wasn't a fisherman?

Yeah.

It could have been. Maybe. That's where the fish is named after. This guy was a fisherman, and now we have salmon.

Sure.

Because of Salmon in the Bible. This is the Friday edition of the broadcast where we take questions from the listeners, and you can submit those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com or send us a voicemail.

Go to the website, www .tt .com, click on the voicemail tab, and record a voicemail either through your phone or through your computer. We would love to hear from you. I tend to give priority to the voicemails.

I try to play as many of them as I get.

Yeah. Yeah.

As a matter of fact, because I only started doing this a couple of years ago.

Yes.

Not quite two years ago.

Right.

And we just hit our 100th voicemail message.

What?

Yeah.

That's awesome.

So this is voicemail number 100, and it comes from James.

Okay.

So James, when we get to your voicemail, you are officially the 100th voicemail.

That is so cool.

That we've ever received it when we understand the text. So don't forget to record a voicemail to us or send us an email, and we'll get to your questions as we are able. If I can't air a question, I try to respond to it.

That's what I was going to say.

Yeah.

Right.

On the email. So here we go. This first one, this is a voicemail. This comes from Michael in England. Are you ready?

Sure.

Good afternoon, Pastor Gabe and Becky. My name is Michael. I'm from Birmingham in England. My question is about Romans 7, 14 through to 25, since I know that you are preaching on that now. There are views that says this is about Paul while he was a Christian.

There were other views that say that it was before he was a Christian. And there are views that say it relates to Israel and the law. Whatever view you have, please enlighten me and all your audience.

Thank you very much. God bless you.

God bless you, Michael.

Oh, thanks.

Love that accent.

Definitely.

And I could tell by that. Yes, I could tell by that accent. It wasn't Birmingham, Alabama.

Yes. No joke.

Birmingham.

Birmingham, England.

That's a different accent.

So his question regarding Romans 7, 14 to 25, as Providence would have it, that's exactly the passage that I'm preaching on this coming Sunday. Now if you're listening to the Sunday sermons as they pop up on the podcast, those are actually about a month back.

So I'm still in chapter six on the podcast. But coming up this Sunday in church, I'm in chapter seven. You can hear the sermons like within minutes of me finishing them if you go to the church website.

I think it's up by like noon or 1215 or something like that. They get them up there pretty fast. So if you go to ProvidenceCasagrand .com, there's the sermon tab on there, so you can click on that. Find the sermons not just from me, but from the other teachers at the church as well.

And I think it's through our sermon audio page. So if you have sermon audio and you look up Providence Church in Casa Grande, you can also get the sermons that way.

And YouTube.

YouTube as well.

YouTube does it live.

That's right.

Yeah.

Then you can listen to it even as I'm preaching it.

Yeah.

It's only like there's a little lag, but not much.

It starts, at least the preaching portion of it, I start about 11 o 'clock. So 11 to 1105, somewhere right in there is usually where I begin. We're almost always kind of right on the money with that. But if you find our YouTube page for Providence Church, then yeah, the live stream's always up there on Sunday morning.

We got some folks that can't make it or because our seating is so packed.

You know, we're a bit snug.

We are, since we've outgrown our space. So they might stay home and watch the sermon, but you can catch it online as well. Follow the live stream. Definitely. All right. So the question is about Romans 7.

Let me go ahead and begin reading here in verse 13. We'll go to the end of the chapter and then I'll respond to Michael's question.

Okay.

The Apostle Paul says, did that which is good then bring death to me by no means. So he's talking about the law, the law being good, because that was what was just said in verse 12. The law is holy. The commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Even though it was through the law that sin came alive and I died. That was the argument that he was making before. So is the law a bad thing?

No.

Is the law sin? By no means. But if it had not been for the law, then I would not have known sin. So I probably should have given the kind of a little bit more, the back passage before we get to the passage we're reading here.

So did that which is good, then the law bring death to me by no means. It was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

Now here's verse 14. This is kind of beginning where Michael was asking his question for. We know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh sold under sin for. I do not understand my own actions for.

I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my own flesh.

For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law.

Of sin.

So what is Paul talking about in this passage? Back in chapter 6, Paul said that we are no longer under the law, but we are under grace. So we're not going to be judged by the law. We have the grace of God that covers us.

We're not supposed to be enslaved to sin any longer, since in Christ Jesus we've been set free. So do not submit your members, the members of your body, as slaves to unrighteousness, but instead we are to be slaves of righteousness.

So if we are slaves of righteousness, how could it be that Paul is struggling in this way between what he wants to do, which is the right thing, but he keeps going back to the thing he doesn't want to do, which is the wrong thing?

Why this struggle in his body? Why does it seem that Paul is so unsanctified? So there are two main views regarding Romans 7. Michael threw in a third one there, but I'm just going to stick with these two main views.

Is Paul talking about the struggle that he had in himself before he was a Christian, and as a Jew, having the law of God, being unable to keep the law and follow it? So is Paul referring to his pre-conversion self, or is Paul talking about post-conversion?

Like me as a Christian, this is what I struggle with every day. I want to do the right thing, but it seems like there's still something in my flesh that drags me back to the wrong thing. And if that's what Paul's talking about, we tend to find that passage very, very relatable because we're like, yes, I go through that every day.

Right.

I also want to do what is pleasing to God. So why is it that I still seem to be struggling with doing the sinful thing rather than the righteous thing? How many times have you gone through that? Why did I do that?

Right.

A lot.

I knew that was wrong, but I did it anyway.

About all day long.

Why did I raise my voice at my kids?

Yeah.

Why did I lose my temper over that?

Right.

When later it seems really silly, it's like, oh, that was dumb.

Or even getting lazy and not doing what I know I'm supposed to be doing.

Yes.

And then a whole hour goes by and I'm like, I just lost that whole hour.

Yes.

Why did I do that? I knew not to do that, but I did it anyway. Even things like that. So there could be losing your temper, it could be giving into lust, it could be just not doing anything at all and just kind of sitting there and wasting away the hours.

So all day long we have these problems, or controlling our tongues. That's a big one.

Yeah, that's a big one.

So what is Paul talking about here? And where's the debate? If you read Tom Schreiner's commentary on the book of Romans, he actually takes the view that Paul is talking about his pre-conversion self.

Okay.

Now, I've heard from somebody that Schreiner's actually since changed his view on this, but at least in his commentary on Romans, that's what you get.

Okay.

That Paul is talking about his pre-conversion self and the struggle that he had with the law before he had the spirit of God dwelling within him. Because the argument he's going to make coming up in chapter eight is that if you do not have the spirit of Christ, then you're not even capable of keeping the law.

Right.

So he used to have that view, at least when he wrote his commentary, he had the view that this was about Paul before he became a Christian.

Okay.

I don't hold that perspective.

I don't either, honestly. My thought was that because he wants to do good, that comes from the Holy Spirit.

Yes. Right. Exactly. The desire to want to do good even comes from the spirit.

Yes.

And so, because otherwise I'd just be lost in my own sin forever. And yeah. So for the fact that he wants to do good and it's a battle.

Yeah.

I just feel like that would be after he's saved. Or even he's in the hands of God anyway, but he's just not reached that point where he's given the Holy Spirit yet. You know what I mean?

Well, if he's in the hands of God, why would he not have the Holy Spirit?

No, no, no.

You know how we say that before we're saved, but

God never let us get too far away from him or something like that.

Right.

Yeah.

I get what you're saying.

Right.

So right around that point. Or after.

Yeah.

Well, you're onto something though when you're talking about, when you're saying, he is saying this. He is saying that he struggles with this.

Right.

These are present tense verbs.

Oh, yeah.

That's true.

Paul is not saying, I was trying to do the right thing and I couldn't. They're all present tense.

That is true.

And so that's why I hold the view that Paul is talking about a present struggle, something that he presently is struggling with and can't seem to do it. Now, Martin Lloyd-Jones kind of added to that view a little bit.

So we're taking the view that this is a post-conversion. Paul. He is a Christian. He desires to do what is right, but sometimes he gets weak in his flesh and he ends up doing what he knows is wrong, but he goes right back to the wrong thing.

Right.

Why do I have that tendency in myself? So Martin Lloyd-Jones kind of added to the present tense view. This is a post-conversion Paul. And Lloyd-Jones said that if you're really arguing about whether this is pre-conversion or post-conversion, you're kind of missing the point.

Because the point is really, you cannot sanctify yourself apart from the spirit, no matter.

What.

Amen.

Doesn't matter if it's a pre-conversion Paul or a post-conversion Paul.

Right.

Because a person who tries to be sanctified through the law is not going to be sanctified by the law.

Right.

And so if you see chapters three through six, giving the argument of justification by faith alone, then here in chapter seven, we're reading about sanctification. And that sanctification is by the spirit.

Your justification was by the grace of God. You did nothing to justify yourself. It was not by your works, but it was by God's grace. And then chapter seven is making the argument, you're not sanctified by your own efforts as well.

That is also by the grace of God.

Right.

And it is by the spirit working within you. You try to sanctify yourself, whether you're a believer or an unbeliever, you try to sanctify yourself through the keeping of the law, and you're going to fail at it.

So Paul's saying, I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. So there's still a tendency to want to sin that's still in there.

There is the state of mind that he wants to do what is right and go after. But if he's trying to do it by his own efforts, then he's never going to get there. He tries and he tries and he tries by himself to get there and can't even get the sanctification thing down.

Right.

And so that frustration leads him in 24 to say, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? The body of death that I'm in, the body that is still subject to corruption and is going to die and be buried in the ground.

This thing is still dragging me into stuff that I don't want to do. So who's going to deliver me from this body of death? And the answer is, thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh, I serve the law.

Of sin.

So we commit our minds to God and we commit ourselves fully to him so that our bodies therefore would be enslaved to the thing that controls our mind and our hearts, which should be the Holy Spirit of God.

But yeah, chapter seven is totally a relatable chapter to all of us.

Yes.

That we can read this and see, yeah, right. The good I want is not what I do, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Yes.

I once wrote a song about this.

Yeah?

You just played it for the church a couple of weeks ago.

Yep.

Unbeknownst to me. A week and a half ago or whatever this was.

I'm a little sneaky.

Yeah.

I did a song years ago, uh, 20, 20, oh, seven, 2007 was when I recorded it and it was called something good. And the second verse is, uh, I get myself into all kinds of trouble. I do the things that I don't want to do, but when it comes to clear out all the rubble, there might be something here worth holding to.

That was the line.

Yes.

And it came directly from Roman seven, my own sort of struggles with Roman seven. And that was, that was the inspiration behind that lyric,. Michael, I appreciate your question and you can, uh, call in with a question anytime with an accent like that.

It's fun listening to as well as diving into God's word.

But I wonder how odd that we sound like, cause he's in the area where they all talk with the accent.

So he doesn't think of having an accent.

Yeah. Right.

So, so I wonder if he finds us interesting, like our, um, dialect or yeah, our American.

Accent.

Yes.

I have, I have visited with an English man before who said, I don't have an accent. You have an accent.

So yeah, I think that's so funny.

Anyway, this next question is anonymous. I think you will be able to have some good insight on this one too.

Okay.

This is from a pastor's wife.

Okay.

Hi, Pastor Gabe. My husband is pursuing pastoral ministry. I guess you could say she's a hopeful pastor's wife.

Okay, sure.

But in the sense that they're still looking for a pastor, not that she's looking for a pastor to marry.

Okay.

Fair.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

Okay. We are both concerned, she says, how to make it financially while staying away from childcare and planning to homeschool to keep our kids out of public schools. Inflation has been insane and we are struggling as it is.

Most pastor jobs seem to pay from around 35 to 55 ,000 a year. We aren't sure how a family can survive on those wages. While I don't mean to inquire about your personal finances, I'm hoping that you would give us some insight into this.

How do pastor's families make it on such low income? And if you're comfortable with answering this, how do you guys make it? By the skin of our teeth.

Sometimes.

That's how we make it. Now, we're doing well. Our church is generous to us. The financial shortcomings that we were having last year is because we were paying rent on the house that we were in here and still having to pay our mortgage on the house that we had in Texas.

Which, to be fair, I think anybody would be tight at that point.

Unless you're making a six-figure salary. I don't know how you could have been comfortable with that sort of arrangement. It was pretty tough. We thought that the house was going to sell much quicker than it did because of the way the market was when we moved.

And then it just, yeah, did not turn out to be that way. But the Lord took care of us. The church was great. You guys were great.

Amen.

And we leaned on the Lord all the more.

Oh, yeah.

All the more.

It really made us trust in God.

Yes.

And to see the way that he provided for us in the midst of that, it was very, very amazing. We're at a church called Providence, and we were seeing Providence.

Yes.

One thing after the other.

It was beautiful.

Right.

It was kind of like things would happen, and we're looking at, how would the stars align to make that happen, to get that to happen?

There's no way.

Yeah.

There was no way.

All by the hand of God.

Yes.

It was just amazing to see.

It was beautifully orchestrated.

Right. So in saying that, step out and do it. Don't just step out there, though, expecting, okay, I'm just going to step out in the midair and hope I can fly.

Right.

Let people know. Tell people what you're doing, because if there are needs there that need to be met, you never know. You'll have somebody in your orbit somewhere. The Lord lays on their heart to help you financially with something.

When Becky and I first got started, it was her idea that I was going to become a pastor.

You're welcome.

And when we took the job that was offered to me, I was an associate pastor. We took the job offered to me. I mean, you had veto power there.

I did. I did.

But it just sounds really weird.

We took the job offered to me. You weren't in that job, but we accepted it.

Yes.

I would not take a job that you just felt like. There's no...

Yeah.

If my wife was not going to be happy with it, because sometimes she just has a good intuition about things. She sees something that I don't see. And a lot of times you've been right.

Yeah. The Lord has blessed me with that discernment. It doesn't have any rhyme or reason. And I can't put my finger on it half the time, or maybe even more than half the time. But I just know something's off.

You don't rub it in.

No.

You're not cocky about it. It's just sometimes my wife will say, I don't have a good feeling about this, or I think you should second guess that or something. And most of the time, I'm like, okay, that was good, because I was ready to just go head strong right into it.

But then on my own judgment and my own things, it's not so great.

Whenever you're helping me make the decision, it's great.

It's awesome.

But it doesn't quite translate to yourself so much.

No, it doesn't.

Yeah.

I learned very early in our marriage that if I don't make the decision, no decision is going to be made.

Exactly.

So, yeah.

I'm like, both would work.

Yeah.

And I can't decide which one would be better.

Right.

So, just go with it.

So, we were in a smallish church. It was over 200 people, but I was one of three pastors on staff, three full-time pastors.

Right.

And in the associate pastor position, so I'm not making as much money as the guy who's handling all the preaching and everything.

Right.

I'm the worship pastor. They still took care of us. We had health insurance. Our healthcare was covered. We had housing was covered and things like that. But the income was still so low.

It was very, very low.

That we were not able to make ends meet from one month to the next. We were always in the red every month.

Yeah.

And we were, what, a family of three at that time?

Yes. And then you got pregnant pretty much right away.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, then we quickly added a fourth.

Yes.

And then got pregnant with our third while we were still, but that was, I was a senior pastor by then.

That was later.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was later.

I had moved up in salary by that point.

Right.

But in the beginning, it was tough.

It was really hard.

We were still borrowing money from my parents.

We managed to knock out all debt. So I took care of all my debt before we got married and then we had to take care of your.

Debt.

Do you remember that?

No.

Yeah.

We still had your student loans and stuff like that we were paying off.

Student loans, but I think that was it.

I think so.

Yeah.

There wasn't like credit card debt or anything like that.

Maybe a car.

Yeah, that's right. There was a car payment.

Car payment.

Yeah.

And then when we got rid of that, I think when we finally settled that debt, it took about two or three years.

Yep.

And then we got the van, took a car payment again, but we were only paying on the van for about two years.