Practice what you preach. Except sometimes you can’t.

Practice makes perfect. Except sometimes it doesn’t.

In this week’s epistle text, Paul continues with his discussion of the relationship between God’s law and human sinfulness. Although Paul testifies that the law is a divine gift, in fact “holy,” and all God’s commandments “holy and just and good” (Romans 7:12), the consequences of the law for humanity have been disastrous. Indeed, the consequence of the law is nothing less than a death sentence.

There is considerable disagreement over the identity of the “I” in today’s text as well as the time period, past or present. Some scholars have read Paul’s “I” as an intensely personal confession of his own experience while others insist that this reference is a continuation of the generic…