Living Out Scripture Meme

The new “Living Out Scripture Meme”—or simply “Bible verse meme” as Chris Tilling calls it—is spreading. Andy Goodliff got the meme started with a quote from David Ford, but he didn’t offer his own verse. While I have not been tagged (as far as I know), I will break the rules and post my own contribution to the meme anyway. Jason Goroncy and Sean Winters both already picked my favorite passage from Scripture (2 Cor. 5:11-21), so I will pick a different passage instead.

My own choice for this meme will be Rom. 5:1-11. The whole chapter is wonderful, but this section in particular is very important to me. With Eberhard Jüngel, I view the justification of the ungodly as the center of the Christian gospel. Here is the passage:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.