When I sit down for breakfast, I don’t think much about my chair. My simple, wooden, dining table chair has always been solid, and I am far more concerned about spilling my tea or stepping on the cat than I am about my chair. The past sturdiness of my chair gives me confidence about the future sturdiness of my chair.
This track-record link between the past and the future is important when we as Christians consider God. As we seek out ways to grow in hope, in this post we’ll find instruction in an aside found in Romans 15.
The Context: a United People
In Romans 14, Paul warns against passing judgment on or despising others. He commands the people not to put stumbling blocks in anyone’s way.
As Romans 15 opens, Paul exhorts the people to please their neighbors, not themselves (Romans 15:1-2). He notes that Christ did not please himself but took reproach on himself for the sake of others (Romans 15:3). Paul quoted Psalm 69:9 to show the Romans that Jesus’s work fulfilled an Old Testament foreshadowing.
Here is the aside that follows this reasoning.
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)
I say this is an aside because while Romans 15:5 references verse 4 (see “endurance” and “encouragement”), the themes of unity and welcoming dominate the rest of Romans 15:5–7. This section of Paul’s letter is not primarily about how we use the Scriptures.
How the Scriptures Give Hope
However, what Paul writes here as an aside is quite interesting, particularly to someone who has been writing about hope for no small amount of time. We can learn several things from Paul’s comment.
First, what was written has been written for our instruction. The Law, the Writings, and the Prophets are not just dusty, historical documents. We are naïve and we need instruction, and the writings of the Old Testament give us just that.
Specifically, the result of this instruction is hope for God’s people. These writings should help us endure, and the Scriptures should encourage us to hope.
I’ve been defining biblical hope as the joyful expectation that God will keep his promises. If that’s correct, then we can make some sense of why Paul’s mind went to this comment after quoting a Psalm about Christ.
Paul notes that Scripture is being fulfilled in the way Christ did not please himself. The same God that kept this promise will keep all of his promises. And this is why we can have hope.
Much like the faithful wooden chair, when we see example after example of God keeping his promises, we can lean into other promises with expectation. We don’t need to question or wonder if he will come through. He is a promise-keeping God, so when he makes promises to his people, he will keep them. That’s who he is.
A Lens for Reading
Even though it is an aside in his larger argument, Paul provides us with a way to grow in hope. When we read the Old Testament, we can take note of the promises God makes to his people. Not all of these promises will have an obvious fulfillment found elsewhere in the Bible, but many will.
When we encounter such fulfilled promises, we can take a small moment to praise and thank God. Our future hope, ultimately, is based on his faithfulness and his unchanging nature.
Then, when we encounter a promise that is yet to be fulfilled, we can remind ourselves of the God who promised. And maybe, perhaps, our minds can run ahead a bit to imagine what the world will look like when he keeps this specific promise.
