Daily Bread Romans 1
Daily Bread Romans 1
God’s Anger at Sin
18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. 27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.
28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.
Observation:
As you remember from yesterday, Paul left Rome discouraged that the Jews there were not open to the Good News, and he pledged to take the Good News to the Gentiles. We can see in Romans 1:5 that Paul now is ministering full time to the Gentile faith community. He acknowledges that he has longed to return to Rome to encourage all of them with some spiritual gift. He also says that he will likewise be encouraged by them. Apparently this young church was thriving (see Romans 1:8) because they were being talked about for “their faith in Christ”. This was one of the first success stories in Paul’s mission to the Gentiles, which was great because it was in such a strategic place (Rome was one of the main hubs of Christianity, and today is the home of the Roman Catholic Church).
The book of Romans is Paul’s attempt to educate and encourage this young church in all of the basics of the faith. Paul is not only one of the greatest missionaries in the church, but also the church’s first theologian (theology= is the study about God). In many of the letters (epistles) to the early churches, Paul is correcting wrong practice, but in this letter he focuses on “right belief” also called “orthodoxy”.
In this first chapter, after opening greetings and explaining the nature of this letter, Paul starts by describing God’s anger at humankind for the inherent sinful nature we possess. Although Paul was a Good News kind of guy, he first addresses the bad news. In describing our inherent sinful nature, Paul outlines the most basic form of our sinfulness as an error in worshipping things created, rather than the Creator. Paul describes this as, “People who suppress the truth about God by their wickedness”.
He argues that we can know God merely by observing the Creation; ie the sun, moon and stars. But instead of worshipping God as Creator, humankind made things and worshipped them instead (this is called “idolatry”). Then it says that God basically gave people what they wanted. It says He gave them over to their lusts. It is as if God said, “If this is really what you want I’ll give it to you.”
The first example given by Paul (remember this is the 1st century) is that women exchanged natural sexual relations with men and had sex with each other. Men did them same thing as well and did shameful things with each other. Then it says they received the penalty they deserved for this behavior. We aren’t told what this penalty is.
But it would be important to see this is just one symptom of the sinful nature. In the next paragraph we see many other forms of it like: greed, hate, anger, murder, envy, gossip, laziness, pride, boasting, disobeying parents, not keeping promises and being merciless (okay that about covers it).
While it is clear Paul is saying homosexuality is a sin, it is not the only sin and no worse than the others. Verse 32 says that those who do any or all of these things deserve God’s justice, or deserve to die. This is supported by Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin (all sin) is death”. Sin is in its most basic explanation our nature which is set against God and the truth rather than accepting and obeying it.
Application:
Although Romans starts out with some bad news, the basis of the Good News is first we must acknowledge before God the bad news, before the Good News can be truly Good News for us. Romans 1 is a description of what we see in our news headlines every day. But the Good News, as we will see from this great book, is that God saw our condition and did something about it. He gave us a solution for the problem.
But we also see that if we want to sin bad enough, God will allow us to do it and allow us to suffer the consequences of our disobedience. God doesn’t “micro-manage” anybody.
Paul’s mission is to bring the Good News that we don’t have to live this way! His mission is also to instruct the Christians at Rome that they are set apart for the Gospel. Therefore, their lives should be antithetical to this kind of description of the human condition. The power of God, Paul describes in Romans 1:16, is for salvation for all who believe. Salvation is a word that means healing. As we believe in Christ by faith the healing begins. We are healed from all of the things described in the rest of the chapter. As we are healed and begin to fulfill our purpose as the “set apart ones”, we are Good News to a world badly in need of Good News.
Prayer: God thank you for sending Jesus to save us from wages of sin, which is death. As we have received this great gift, may Your Church be built up so the world might see what this new life in Christ looks like! As we look out on the world, which is beset by this sin problem, may we not be ashamed of the Good News that Your Son Jesus Christ came to bring through the Church in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
God’s Anger at Sin
18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. 27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.
28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.
Observation:
As you remember from yesterday, Paul left Rome discouraged that the Jews there were not open to the Good News, and he pledged to take the Good News to the Gentiles. We can see in Romans 1:5 that Paul now is ministering full time to the Gentile faith community. He acknowledges that he has longed to return to Rome to encourage all of them with some spiritual gift. He also says that he will likewise be encouraged by them. Apparently this young church was thriving (see Romans 1:8) because they were being talked about for “their faith in Christ”. This was one of the first success stories in Paul’s mission to the Gentiles, which was great because it was in such a strategic place (Rome was one of the main hubs of Christianity, and today is the home of the Roman Catholic Church).
The book of Romans is Paul’s attempt to educate and encourage this young church in all of the basics of the faith. Paul is not only one of the greatest missionaries in the church, but also the church’s first theologian (theology= is the study about God). In many of the letters (epistles) to the early churches, Paul is correcting wrong practice, but in this letter he focuses on “right belief” also called “orthodoxy”.
In this first chapter, after opening greetings and explaining the nature of this letter, Paul starts by describing God’s anger at humankind for the inherent sinful nature we possess. Although Paul was a Good News kind of guy, he first addresses the bad news. In describing our inherent sinful nature, Paul outlines the most basic form of our sinfulness as an error in worshipping things created, rather than the Creator. Paul describes this as, “People who suppress the truth about God by their wickedness”.
He argues that we can know God merely by observing the Creation; ie the sun, moon and stars. But instead of worshipping God as Creator, humankind made things and worshipped them instead (this is called “idolatry”). Then it says that God basically gave people what they wanted. It says He gave them over to their lusts. It is as if God said, “If this is really what you want I’ll give it to you.”
The first example given by Paul (remember this is the 1st century) is that women exchanged natural sexual relations with men and had sex with each other. Men did them same thing as well and did shameful things with each other. Then it says they received the penalty they deserved for this behavior. We aren’t told what this penalty is.
But it would be important to see this is just one symptom of the sinful nature. In the next paragraph we see many other forms of it like: greed, hate, anger, murder, envy, gossip, laziness, pride, boasting, disobeying parents, not keeping promises and being merciless (okay that about covers it).
While it is clear Paul is saying homosexuality is a sin, it is not the only sin and no worse than the others. Verse 32 says that those who do any or all of these things deserve God’s justice, or deserve to die. This is supported by Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin (all sin) is death”. Sin is in its most basic explanation our nature which is set against God and the truth rather than accepting and obeying it.
Application:
Although Romans starts out with some bad news, the basis of the Good News is first we must acknowledge before God the bad news, before the Good News can be truly Good News for us. Romans 1 is a description of what we see in our news headlines every day. But the Good News, as we will see from this great book, is that God saw our condition and did something about it. He gave us a solution for the problem.
But we also see that if we want to sin bad enough, God will allow us to do it and allow us to suffer the consequences of our disobedience. God doesn’t “micro-manage” anybody.
Paul’s mission is to bring the Good News that we don’t have to live this way! His mission is also to instruct the Christians at Rome that they are set apart for the Gospel. Therefore, their lives should be antithetical to this kind of description of the human condition. The power of God, Paul describes in Romans 1:16, is for salvation for all who believe. Salvation is a word that means healing. As we believe in Christ by faith the healing begins. We are healed from all of the things described in the rest of the chapter. As we are healed and begin to fulfill our purpose as the “set apart ones”, we are Good News to a world badly in need of Good News.
Prayer: God thank you for sending Jesus to save us from wages of sin, which is death. As we have received this great gift, may Your Church be built up so the world might see what this new life in Christ looks like! As we look out on the world, which is beset by this sin problem, may we not be ashamed of the Good News that Your Son Jesus Christ came to bring through the Church in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment