Romans 3....The Universal Relational God

So this one time, I was swimming with a group of friends in my neighborhood pool. We had decided to go swimming for one reason or another, and we were playing a game of Marco Polo. So were playing Marco Polo and I notice that there is this little boy swimming all by himself in the pool. The boy notices us playing this game and he begins to try and play with us. I mean, he's a little kid, probably around 6 or 7 and were all high schoolers. As he tries to play with us, one of my friends, who now that I recall, had a reputation for being really mean, pulled me aside and basically told me that she did not want that boy playing with us. So I was in this weird position, because I didn't want the boy to feel left out like we didn't like him, but I didn't want my friend to get mad at me either. Needless to say, I never said anything to the boy and I just kind of let him try and fit in, occasionally getting nasty looks from my other friend. What startled me though was that during this swimming experience, there was this instance where I looked at him, and I promise as honestly as I'm sitting here right now, I heard this voice say "Thank You" from nowhere. SO immediatly, I freak a little because I have no idea where this voice came from, and then it hit me mentally. I had this bible verse come rushing through my mind, and it was something that Jesus had said (Paraphrasing) "For whatever you do unto the least of these, so you have done it unto me"

Today I'm reading Romans 3, and God is really trying to open my eyes to His universal nature. When I was younger, and still even today. I struggle with understanding how God related to everybody else. I mean, I knew that as Christians, we had recieved God's messiah revelation, and that through God's prodding and the Holy Spirit, we come to accept Gods truth and we now live in a right standing and right relationship with God. So, I would wonder; well, what about everyone else?

In Romans 3, Paul is essentially talking about the relationship of the Jew to the Gentile, and the relationship between the Law and the Jew, and the Law and the Gentile. Some of the Jews were having issues accepting the Gentiles, because they weren't well, Jewish, and some of the Gentiles, were totally lost on this whole Jewish thing because they weren't Jewish. SO Paul is trying to get some kind of understanding established between the two groups, he's trying to explain that as a Jew, you have been trusted with this special knowledge of God, and with of course maintaing the Law and the knowledge of the scriptures, and he is in addtion, trying to explain the inclusion of the Gentiles into God's family, through Christ.

The Message translation of the bible has Paul saying this:

20 So where does that put us? Do we Jews get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it:

There's nobody living right, not even one,

nobody who knows the score,

nobody alert for God.

They've all taken the wrong turn;

they've all wandered down blind alleys.

No one's living right;

I can't find a single one.

Their throats are gaping graves,

their tongues slick as mudslides.

Every word they speak is tinged with poison.

They open their mouths and pollute the air.

They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,

litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,

Don't know the first thing about living with others.

They never give God the time of day.

This makes it clear, doesn't it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it's clear enough, isn't it, that we're sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God's revelation doesn't put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else's sin

In essence, Paul is saying that God is universal, he's saying that we are all sinners, from the time were born to the time we die, we are sinners, everyone of us. He says that we all start off in the same indentical postion, and that essentially our understanding of Gods word and His law doesn't save us, or seperate us from one another, but yet opens our eyes to see how wrong we ALL are. We are all created in the image of God, and are all children of God. Osama Bin Laden, is a child of God, Adolph Hitler was a child of God, Saddam Hussein was a child of God. Granted these men went really wrong and did horrible things which God was against, and I'm sure God wasn't for them doing these things and probably did everything He could to stop them. But I mean, right now there is a Muslim praying to God in a Mosque somewhere in the middle east. God is hearing him, and wants to help him. Of course, God is trying to stear them to toward Jesus, and the right understanding of God, but none the less, just because you don't believe in God, or don't have the right understanding of God, doens't mean that He doesn't love you any less. Do we do this as Christians? Do we negate and not accept people who are different from us? I mean, Jesus from what I remember loved and cared for EVERYONE, because He understoold the notion that we are all from God, and therefore are all apart of God's plan and love. For Jesus, people weren't divided by what they were and how they thought. They were all children of God who were in desperate need of saving. If Osama Bin Laden came to your church one day, and wanted to become a Christian, would you help him?......