The Good News of Sin (Guest Speaker: Mark Russ)
Romans 7:14-25
Mark Russ is a queer Jesus-centred theologian from Birmingham, England. He is currently a PhD student at the University of Nottingham, researching how liberal Quaker theology in Britain is shaped by whiteness. From 2015 to 2022, Mark was a programmes coordinator at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre. Mark blogs at jollyquaker.com and is the author of Quaker Shaped Christianity: How the Jesus story and the Quaker way fit together (Christian Alternative, 2022) and the forthcoming The Spirit of Freedom: Quaker-shaped Christian theology (Christian Alternative, 2024).
Please click HERE to read Mark's full manuscript.
Romans 7:14-25 (NASB):
14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold into bondage to sin. 15 For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 However, if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, that the Law is good. 17 But now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me. 18 For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. 19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20 But if I do the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me.
21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. 22 For I joyfully agree with the law of God in the inner person, 23 but I see a different law in the parts of my body waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, the law which is in my body’s parts. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
Queries:
What is your experience of the term “sin.” Have you found it helpful or harmful?
Do you share Paul’s experience of wanting to do good but doing evil?
What’s your response to the idea that we are not called to be good, but to be faithful?
What does it look like to depend on God’s goodness instead of your own?
First Word: Marilyn Miller
Due to technical glitches, we have lost Marilyn’s audio. Please read the manuscript of her words HERE.