Reaction from Christian Bible - Essay Example

He assumed that the church in Rome was beset by in-fighting within itself which required for them to become united and work with each other and not against each other. The other assumption that was in Paul’s letter was that the Christians in Rome needed to have the faith interpreted to them in a way that made sense to them and in a way that strengthened their faith and belief in Christianity. Another assumption was that there was a lot of misinformation about the Christian faith in Rome and he needed to explain the truths and inner workings of Christianity in a way that made sense to the Christian group in Rome and in a way that made their stand on ethics, their lifestyle and their beliefs clear and understandable to all and sundry.

He assumed that the Christians needed advice on how to live with each other and how to live with their Roman rulers. Finally he made clear his assumption that he was not the only one with all the answers but that he also needed the prayers and support of the Christians in Rome (Bright and Simons 4). In “Resident Aliens”, several assumptions are made. The first one is that the Christian life is much like life in a colony of believers immersed in a sea of unbelief. It assumes that though libertarian theory promises freedom it instead endowed society with self-centeredness, exclusivity, loneliness and an ever-challenging environment full of crime and all sorts of inequity and inequality (Hauerwas and Willimon 50).

The article assumes that life in the Christian ”colony”, far from being a smooth journey was instead a treacherous adventure full of unknowns and likens it to jumping onto a moving train (Hauerwas and Willimon 52). Another assumption made is that Christians do not know what’s in store for them when they join the Church or go through baptism. It assumes that Christianity promises a never ending journey whose details are vague and whose promises may not always be realized. It assumes that Christianity is made up of nothing more than stories usually with a happy ending at the end of the misery and drudgery of life as we know it.

The similarities between the Christian life article and Paul’s letter to the Romans are quite stark. In both narratives, the Christian community lives in a world where they are surrounded by unbelievers who make it both difficult for them to practice their faith as detailed in the Bible but also affect relations within the Church itself. The story of Shady Grove and its slow but definite assimilation of the black population is similar in many ways to the way the early Roman Christian church included the non-Jews or Gentiles in their ranks.

The assumption of the “restlessness” of the Christian journey today has similarities to the uncertainties of early Roman church life. Even the whole conundrum of whether or not to have children and the kind of sexual lifestyle that one adopts are likened to the struggles of the Christian minority in Roman times against a very un-Christian standards of the external Roman community. Matthew’s description of the life of Jesus Christ, which is in many ways quite similar to those of Mark and Luke, takes the form of an introduction to the life and times of Jesus Christ, placing it firmly in the Jewish society of the time and relating what the coming of Christ, his life, teachings, his suffering and resurrection.

The book is detailed and well laid out, placing the