Reckless Love Biblical Review

¹For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. LORD, you have searched me, and you know me. ²You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. ³You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. ⁴For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, LORD, you know it altogether. ⁵You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me. ⁶This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it. ⁷Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence? ⁸If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there!

²²Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, “You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things. ²³For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription: ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, I announce to you. ²⁴The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands. ²⁵He isn’t served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath and all things. ²⁶He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons and the boundaries of their dwellings, ²⁷that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus: ²Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, ⁴even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without defect before him in love, ⁵having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire, ⁶to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved. ⁷In him we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace

²in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience. ³We also all once lived among them in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. ⁴But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, ⁵even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus; ⁸for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹not of works, that no one would boast.

¹Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming close to him to hear him. ²The Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, “This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.” ³He told them this parable: ⁴“Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? ⁵When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ ⁷I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance. ⁸“Or what woman, if she had ten drachma coins, if she lost one drachma coin, wouldn’t light a lamp, sweep the house, and seek diligently until she found it? ⁹When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost!’

²¹But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets; ²²even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe. For there is no distinction, ²³for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; ²⁴being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵whom God sent to be an atoning sacrifice through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness through the passing over of prior sins, in God’s forbearance; ²⁶to demonstrate his righteousness at this present time, that he might himself be just and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus. ²⁷Where then is the boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. ²⁸We maintain therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

¹⁸For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a law-breaker. ¹⁹For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. ²¹I don’t reject the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”

³⁶Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

⁷When they saw it, they all murmured, saying, “He has gone in to lodge with a man who is a sinner.” ⁸Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. If I have wrongfully exacted anything of anyone, I restore four times as much.” ⁹Jesus said to him, “Today, salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” ¹¹As they heard these things, he went on and told a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and they supposed that God’s Kingdom would be revealed immediately. ¹²He said therefore, “A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.

¹Now I Paul, myself, entreat you by the humility and gentleness of Christ, I who in your presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you. ²Yes, I beg you that I may not, when present, show courage with the confidence with which I intend to be bold against some, who consider us to be walking according to the flesh. ³For though we walk in the flesh, we don’t wage war according to the flesh; ⁴for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, ⁵throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, ⁶and being in readiness to avenge all disobedience when your obedience is made full. ⁷Do you look at things only as they appear in front of your face? If anyone trusts in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again with himself, that even as he is Christ’s, so we also are Christ’s.