I learnt a few new things tonight.

The first being that there is this little suburb near Richmond called Cremone. Killer location. I like Richmond.

This evening Geoff and I went to visit our friends Andy and Ros who used to be at our church until they moved. We went to join-in for the evening with their very new homegroup (currently mostly made up of housemates).

It was beautifully refreshing. I dislike the word refreshing, but it needs to be used.

We had dinner together, made faces at their cats, one of who had a strange fascination with candles hence singed whiskers, competed with a car alarm, had a really real worship (music) time and dug deep into Romans 2:1-16.

God’s judgement. Not so light stuff.

What resulted was a very interesting conversation around conscience, God’s impartiality ie. no favourites, moral obligation, faith and works, works and faith, consequences, ‘being in sin’, the law and grace in a new dimension.

There’s a lot of worth to be found in thrashing out something a bit familiar – or not so familiar – with a few heads, particularly when you’ve got the variety of a caterer, accountant, historian, database administrator and communication designer (In various stages of expertise). This kind of stuff thrills me to bits and it’s something I find quite difficult to do on my own.

Do bother taking a bit of extra time now and then to truly consider context, other parts of the Bible and what the heck God is on about with our lives.

It made me think hard about how I judge others, replacement theories and the evidence of grace in my own life, establishing and enforcing that I really can do nothing off my own bat.

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?” – Romans 2:1-4