Website Goals --biblereexamined.com

Introduction

The analysis of Romans here focuses on presenting and justifying a new look at Romans with information essentially obtained by the content of Romans. An understanding of the main purpose of Romans was stumbled upon which then revealed the flow and themes throughout Romans in a manner that may not change much doctrine but helps clarify some confusing passages. The goal now involves the search for confirmation or confrontation of the ideas presented here.

So the content herein will not focus directly on inspirational encouragements and doctrines. Many sites provide such material. Instead, the effort will be to provide the accurate framework to properly arrive to the inspirational and doctrinal conclusions. And it seems that a whole new avenue of insight can be found after learning the framework of Romans.

My early viewpoint

I used to be really cautious about Biblical scholarship. Much of such bias came as the result of my initial church experience in college, being in a group that basically felt that seminary training and scholarship merely contributed to a religious attitude rather than true Christian experience. Their emphasis was on the idea of reading scriptures for yourself and get the education directly from the Bible. Well, like any other viewpoint there can be truth and misconception mixed together. Indeed a benefit results from the independent study of scripture and as such I had not originally referred to commentaries on Romans, where if I had I may not have found the insights gained and now presented. The obvious fallacy of that church group's teaching was that we would not even have an English (or various other languages) translation of the scriptures without scholarship.

In reality the overall church benefits from a mixture of approaches. Each member of the body contributes in a different fashion. One group pushes conservative (traditional) views, another advances the field, and a third group pushes the bible only. The conservatives act against change and is a protector against over zealous rewriting of ideas, even against people adding a harmful element according to the current cultural situations. The alignment of powers that combines a modern propensity to think toward a convenient change with a general tendency to accept such change is a recipe for disaster. The waves of change could send the ship aground without the anchor of conservatism. Yet the same anchor provides resistance against reasonable progress just as when a ship sets sail for sea with the anchor still set. This is why the bible is our navigational guide.

The contribution of scholarship, beyond the starting point of providing a readable translation (for the general population), basically provides the general perspective that keeps us from making the same stupid errors again and again. There even must be some philosophical study or thought into interpretation of the scriptures -- this of course refers to Exegetics. Are we each to interpret scriptures on the whim of impressions as we feel that the Spirit guides us? Well, if there is any benefit toward scripture as our basis, against any other book, it would be upon the reliance of scripture with logic, otherwise, any other book could be used as well for the Spirit to direct us. (This example is just exploratory, not based on bad experiences.) Again, there must be concepts of balance, of every joint supplying.

I think we shall find surprises in just a logical analysis of Romans that will explain the context and flow. There shouldn't be much controversy in explaining the long misunderstood context of Romans as derived from the text.

Goals

One of the objectives (assuming that a general objective can be assumed) of scholarship is to remove illogical thought and to show scripture in proper context. There will always be people injecting controversy yet the cards are then on the table so that those of a sound mind can discuss the issues in proper light. The goal here then would be to dessiminate (not decimate, as stated in earlier versions of this webpage) information for people to make sound decisions. Many issues about Romans are interesting for scholarship as well as for home bible study. The questions that arise in scholarly papers and writings can also help spur the home bible study by the promotion of curiosity that people would say "I haven't thought of that before."