12. God Works All Things Together For Good With Those Who Love Him - Fr. Michael Flowers 08.18.24

St. Aidan's Anglican Church, Kansas City - weekly talks

As we locate ourselves in the entirety of Romans 8, it seems clear that God calls Christians to be where the world is in pain so that in them, God, by his Spirit, may be where the world is in pain. Let’s look at a few ways to translate Romans 8:28: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ESV In everything, God works for good with those who love him. RSV We know, in fact, that God works all things together for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. NT Wright Drawing from NT Wright: The verse doesn’t say that ‘all things work together for good to those who love God’, which seems to give God’s people a kind of inside privilege of knowing that things will turn out how they want them to. I think a better translation is the NT Wright’s and the RSV, which assigns God as the subject of the main verb: it is God who is ‘working,’ rather than the ‘all things.’ This avoids a sort of Deistic determinism and places God as the subject and at the center of working out his eternal purposes, not centered on merely the here and now but on the overall outworking of God’s purpose. Paul is saying that ‘those who love God’ are those in whose hearts the wordless groans of the spirit and Abba Father is going on—those who love God are God’s co-workers, or co-laborers, related to the metaphor of labor pains. God is working all things together WITH US for His ultimate ends.