{"id":3202,"date":"2023-10-22T02:47:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-22T02:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3202"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:46","slug":"half-a-verse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3202","title":{"rendered":"HALF A VERSE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every seasoned believer can quote Romans 3:23 (especially the Calvinists):\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But how often does the second half of that sentence get quoted?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What some editor has determined to be a separate verse (24) is actually a continuation of a single thought:<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;And are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The whole sentence is a wonderfully concise statement of the gospel.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First half: problem. Second half: solution.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet so many Christians read the first half very literally (as I agree is appropriate) and then remain mum on the second half.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Could it be that it is problematic because the two verbs share a single subject: All?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All fall short. All are justified freely.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now that might shut the Calvinist up, but there&#8217;s no reason the rest of us should share just half a verse with a broken world.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every seasoned believer can quote Romans 3:23 (especially the Calvinists):\u00a0 &#8220;For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God&#8221;. But how often does the second half of that sentence get quoted? What some editor has determined to be a separate verse (24) is actually a continuation of a single thought: &#8220;And are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3203,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3202\/revisions\/3203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}