mattnews.biz — When In Rome, Read Romans
Our world is filled with controversy. We can not escape it. One person believes that life should be done one way, and another a different way. However, the problem is when we reach over into other territories telling someone what is right and wrong when that person does not subscribe or adhere to your way of thinking. This is one of the problems with our society. The United States is an entire country that is made up of different states that all differ on, not only, the way they view how life should be lived, but also live out their lives differently. I’ve often heard it said that going from one state to the next, in the U.S., is like entering into another country. However, instead of allowing those different ways of life to play out in the manner in which they choose we feel the need to control them and interject our way of living onto them.
It was very much the same to Jesus. Jesus rarely spoke to those outside of the Jewish community, and when he did the conversation usually ended with his astonishment at their faith and not discontentment on their way of living. To Jesus, grace was this invitation to something greater. A freedom from the way everyone had been doing life. However, the ones Jesus disciplined the most were the ones who were supposed to be bought into the way of living from the beginning. They should know better, however they persecuted the people that were buying into their own movement.
Later, when Paul enters the scene Jewish people are beginning to include themselves in the Jesus movement. They are finding themselves in homes throughout the Roman Empire surrounded by Gentiles (non-Jewish believers), slaves, and women. It’s quite possible that the letter Paul had written to the believers in Rome is being read to them by a woman. These things would make any good Jewish man at the time uncomfortable and I’m sure they would have a lot to say about it, which is one of the reasons that Paul has written this letter.
Romans is probably one of the most known and quoted epistles (letters) in the Bible. Most Christians use what’s known as the “Roman’s Road” to lead people to Jesus. However, reading this letter, written by Paul, I find less instruction for the entire world and more instruction, advocation, and discipline to those that would call themselves Jesus followers. This is not to say that Paul does not recognize and juxtapose the previous life of believers, however he is communicating to them as converts and not as one unaltered.
I originally wanted this article to be a response to a video sermon a friend of mine put out, but I found my point by point dismantling of his point of view to be unhelpful. Not only after reading it, and recording it did I find that it would probably be unhelpful to him, or anyone that assumed his viewpoint, it was unhelpful to me, in so much as convincing me further, of anything that I already accepted. So this article is a little overdue, but for good reason and one I believe the Spirit has led me. Two letters that were brought up in the sermon my friend published were Romans and 1 Corinthians, both letters written by Paul. He used passages from these two letters, rightly, because they both contain passages that seemingly pertain (or don’t) to the subject he felt very passionate toward. So I started reading both, but only as someone that is preparing an argument. The conviction that came over me at that time was that I was no better than him, because he prepared his sermon as an argument and it shows. That was not what I am supposed to do with scripture. So I felt it necessary to choose one and read it for what it was worth. I chose Romans because it felt like the one I was being drawn to. So now, what I want this article to be is just a discussion of a key theme in this letter to the Romans by Paul.
I accepted Jesus in my life when I was 17 years old in October of 2001, and I was baptized in November. I’ve been a Christian now for 18 years, and I have been called to ministry for 17 years. I haven’t read my Bible every day for those 18 years, but every time I am drawn to it’s probably the most intense reading any “normal” Christian has ever been called to do. The one thing I can say is that when I read my Bible, I want to understand it as deeply as possible. I want to know what the authors who wrote this compilation originally intended when they wrote down the words they were inspired to write by the Holy Spirit. This is a book I would never dream of ripping pages from, in whatever form, because every written word is one divinely inspired by the very being that brought me into creation. Also it would serve no purpose of communication.
I take every word in this book seriously, so seriously that I don’t take it’s words for granted. I don’t assume the English translation I use is the most accurate at conveying the nuances of what is being said however, I do not dismiss the work and dedication it has taken to accurately portray the message that is being relayed.¹
So what does this have to do with Romans? The Jewish people have been reading the Tanakh for generations, and the new followers of this Jesus movement consider themselves to still be Jewish and follow the Tanakh. Gentile believers are now inserting themselves into synagogues and home meetings to participate in this Jewish Jesus movement, however a lot of them are not giving up on their old gentile ways, their old gentile diets, and some have not taken up on the Jewish practice of circumcision. All of these things are becoming cumbersome obstacles for the Jewish believers and they are not afraid to point these things out, because if this movement is still Jewish, their feeling is that the law should still apply to them.
The first eight months of me going to church before being “saved” I remember carrying around the first Bible I ever owned which was a small paperback version of the New Testament called “The Cowboy Bible”. At the time I was hanging around my sister a lot and one of the families we frequented invited me to church and gave me that Bible. I treasured it in my new commitment to church. I also wore shorts, t-shirts, and sandals every weekend and no one said anything to me, for a while. Then whispers came out of the woodwork. “You should at least wear some pants,” one friend told me. So I started wearing pants. “You should wear shoes with those pants,” said another voice. And finally I was given a leather bound study Bible as a gift and was told it was time for me to have a “proper Bible”.
So here are these new Christians in Rome. They still have idols set up in their house, they still eat pork and in front of the Jewish members of their local body, and they are uncircumcised. So imagine being seen as an outsider, now imagine being a gentile slave, or gentile woman. You’re not only an outsider, you’re an outside outsider. This community that has drawn people to itself is being very exclusive, divisive, and dominant.
One meeting this group comes together at a home, and there before them, quite possibly, is a woman by the name of Phoebe, and she has a letter from Paul, THE Paul. These believers have been hoping to hear a word from him. As a Jew he may want Paul to agree with and complement what he has been saying. As a Gentile he may not want to give up his statue in his lararium², or his bacon for dinner. As a slave he may be there because this is the home in which he serves, or perhaps he is a believer himself and, too, wishes to hear from Paul. The Roman Empire itself is made up of 40% slaves at this time, and as Phoebe opens this letter to read, perhaps, after dinner she reads this opening statement from Paul, “Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus.”³
“What is this?” He may ask. “This Jewish man, a renowned figure in this Jesus movement is equating himself to me?” Maybe he feels comfort in this statement, or perhaps it perks his attention to hear that a free Roman citizen considers himself a slave to Jesus, just as he himself is a slave, or was a former slave, to his Gentile master. This is the first block that Paul has begun to chip at in this letter. It will be a repeated theme throughout his discourse.
Now Paul has been commissioned by Jesus himself to preach to the Gentiles⁴, and Paul lets the people in Rome know that, though he has been absent from them having never met them, he is, “obligated both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome⁵.” Paul talks about the power of the gospel for salvation to “everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.”⁶ Now here Paul begins addressing the situation in Rome, that the Jewish community of believers and the Gentile community of believers seem to have different standards.
Paul states that God is evident through creation so that no one is without excuse and because, “they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God,”⁷ He delivered them over to their corrupt minds and to do what is not right. He lists of some things that are normally performed by Gentiles, and the Jewish believers know it, and the Jewish believers are probably feeling very comforted at this moment. “Therefore,” Paul says, “everyone of you who judges is without excuse.”⁸ Paul reveals they have no excuse because they themselves practice the same things. Paul continues, “There will be affliction and distress for every human being who does evil,” then he repeats this phrase he used positively at first, “first to the Jew and also to the Greek. For there is no favoritism with God.”⁹ God has just leveled the playing field for Jewish and Gentile believers. All evil done has been done by both, and all are guilty. Notice that the actions stated in the previous verses are not permissive. Paul is saying that all of these actions carry judgement from God to all people, and therefore all people have no justification. Just because the Jews know the because they heard it does not mean they do the law and are justified in it. Paul tells them, “You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? For, as it is written: The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”¹⁰
But Paul does not leave them without hope, “The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”¹¹
The phrase Paul uses, “God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right,”¹² reminds me of a phrase repeated twice in Judges, “everyone did what was right in his eyes.”¹³ Just as Eve, “saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom,”¹⁴ Eve saw the tree as good in her own eyes, the Judges saw what was good in their own eyes, and the Gentiles were given to their own corrupt mind. Paul is not afraid to call sin what it is, and that is sin. However it’s not this thing we do on our own volition it is this force that subjugates us. Paul uses the imagery of slavery again, because of his flesh he is, “sold as a slave to sin.”¹⁵ Paul says that those, “who are in the flesh cannot please God,”¹⁶ but that we are not obligated to live according to the flesh, meaning we are no longer slaves! Paul says, “you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead receive the Spirit of adoption,”¹⁷ “The Spirit himself that testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children.”¹⁸ Turning our attention back to the slave, these words would have resonated. That we are no longer slaves, but we are children of God, and we can call ourselves heirs.¹⁹ Equals, whether Jews, or Greeks, or slaves, or women.
After leveling this field, letting everyone know, through his letter, that they have all sinned, calling sin what it is. They are all equally sinners as well as equally justified. Paul does not stop there. He encourages them to love one another, and by doing so fulfilling the law,²⁰ but also encourages them to, “walk in decency, as in the daytime,”²¹ he says, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and don’t make plans to gratify the desires of the flesh.”²²
There’s a lot of controversy in this world, different belief systems and ways of life, and we can’t really speak into those and tell them how to live, because they do not prescribe to what we do. We can tell them what we hold to be true, that there is one God that sits above all and He will judge their actions, but we can not urge them to do what is right if they do not wish to partake in what we believe to be the justification to those actions. However, if there are those that wish to be justified, and wish to prescribe themselves to follow Jesus then they have to do the one thing that Jesus asks them to do, “let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”²³ We can no longer do what is right in our own eyes, because the Spirit has put those things to death. We no longer have to live according to the desires of our flesh, and Paul lays out those desires early on in his letter to the Romans.
Reading Romans has really convicted me, and has really made me convinced that those of us that think we know the Bible don’t and the proof of that is the blatant misinterpretations of particular scriptures found here, in Romans, and in other passages to bring permission to actions that have no justification in scripture. If I have learned anything it is that I can not judge what is good on my own terms, and that I find myself, more often than not, under the condemnation of scripture rather than justified. I can’t exegete myself out of truth that God is revealing by his Holy Spirit, and neither can you, not even if it’s in the name of love.
“The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. This is the message of faith that we proclaim: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. Now the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on Him will not be put to shame, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, since the same Lord of all is rich to all who call on Him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”²⁴
Thank you for reading and I hope you join me next time as we explore more…matt news.
[1] Kingdom Roots with Scott McKnight — Episode KR 3 — The Inspiration and Inerrancy of The Bible — https://bit.ly/2Nl5hEk
[2] Beverly Roberts Gaventa “Listening to Romans with Junia and Her Sisters” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD-zGxapNcw
[3] Romans 1:1 HCSB
[4] Acts 9
[5] Romans 1:14–15 HCSB
[6] Romans 1:16 HCSB
[7] Romans 1:28 HCSB
[8] Romans 2:1 HCSB
[9] Romans 2:10–11 HCSB
[10] Romans 2:23–24 HCSB
[11] Romans 3:22–23 HCSB
[12] Romans 1:28 HCSB
[13] Judges 17:6 & 21:25
[14] Genesis 3:6 HCSB
[15] Romans 7:14 HCSB
[16] Romans 8:8 HCSB
[17] Romans 8:15 HCSB
[18] Romans 8:16 HCSB
[19] Romans 8:17 HCSB
[20] Romans 13:8–10
[21] Romans 13:13 HCSB
[22] Romans 13:14 HCSB
[23] Matthew 16:24 HCSB
[24] Romans 10:8–13 HCSB
