So the right book for the right time can be a really helpful way to think through, where should I start with Paul?

Logan, you mentioned something on Romans.

The purpose of the letter largely being to address this issue of unity in the church.

One of the most immediate issues that arose when the gospel started being taken to Gentiles is how do we now bring these two very different people into this one body? You have people who, by genetic lineage, are viewing themselves as the people of God and now having to reconcile the fact that Joe Schmo down the street is a part of that same body.

And I think what makes Romans then such a powerful book to go through in that context of maybe a family worship Bible study is it shows how someone in 21st century so far removed from the biblical landscape is still part of God's plan.

That it's not just about You know, obviously within the contents, it's about Jew and Gentile reconciliation.

But we are a part of that story as well as Gentiles ourselves.

Um, just so much is in that, that to me, I think Romans eight is probably just, just immediately as I think of it, it's sort of in kind of an apex of, of, uh, Pauline soteriology, but I

And then verses like Proverbs 15.33, uh the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom and humility comes before honor and so we see that god and and the bible also says this and i can't quote a reference god honors humility but will strike down pride and that's a theme that really goes through the whole uh the whole of scripture i think

yeah there are maybe two things that are closely related, if not just very basically the same as what has already been said.

But one thing to emphasize would be the intertextuality of these letters.

We've discussed in previous Thinklings discussions Things like James, which when you read James, then you go back and you read Matthew, you start to see such similarity in what's being said from Jesus and then by James, the brother of Jesus.

And so it seems like there's a textual reference perhaps there.

um but really throughout all of the general epistles you look at hebrews and it's just chock full of old testament um first peter he just can't help himself but say as the scriptures say and then he just rattles off reference after reference um and so you know where maybe there's a small difference would be with the letters of John.

But if you read the letters of John and go back to the gospel according to John, you start to see very similar themes emerging once again.

The incarnate Christ.

Share with us a passage in the Gospels, or maybe it's a particular broader framework of a Gospel that... impacts you still that maybe has for even decades, for some of us who have been believers for quite some time, still casting a shadow of something you keep coming back to?

I think for me, really the structure of Matthew, what seems to be one of the particular emphases within the discourses of Jesus in the gospel is the perfection of God, the wholeness, the oneness of God that is then held up as a standard for the believer.

And I think that that is demonstrated particularly within discourses like the Sermon on the Mount or the woes to the Pharisees But that's a passage for me that I keep coming back to both as demonstrative of how much I need God's grace.

I need someone to fulfill the demands of the law on my behalf.

but also as a course of discipleship, a way of teaching what the Christian ought to be like, how he ought to pray or give or fast, how he ought to examine himself and the sort of person that is going to be blessed by God, really to say that Jesus teaches how one ought to be one of his peoples.

But brothers, any particular lines of thinking, recommendations you might make for interpreting the gospels? One or two principles and how those can be illustrated?

Yeah.

Read them in the genre that they are.

Reflect for just a moment the Psalms, the situations of life, and how they help in our discipleship and our Christian growth.

Yeah, there's many things.

Just think of, you mentioned Psalm 127, just thinking pretty practically there.

Anybody that's married knows when your wife is about to have a baby, she starts nesting.

And she wants you to do these projects on the house.

She might want things changed or rearranged or painted or replaced.

Some of it is preference.

So, so good.