Recently, I've been going through the book of Romans on my own, a chapter at a time. There is some great stuff in there. I think over the next few weeks I'll be going through Romans on this. Hopefully it'll get me to start posting more. That'd be cool.
Go ahead and read Romans 1 for me. As always, take your time. Take notes. Write questions. Underline, highlight, mark up. Actually get into the text. Don't just read it, have a conversation with it. Take 10 minutes, take an hour. Just actually get into the text.
Now I may do a chapter at a time, or maybe a passage at a time, but as I said there is a lot here. So let's dive in.
Chapter 1 as a whole has one theme in it: The Gentiles are sinners. Great start in a letter to a church.
Verses 1-7 are Paul greeting the church as a whole though, Jews and Gentiles alike. In verse 1 he calls himself a servant, which he does in many of his letters. I love seeing this because Paul, the author, is one of the greatest missionaries this world has ever seen. Through him the Church has exploded to exponential proportions and he had endured so much suffering for the Church. He was top dog, widely respected, great at his job, and hand picked by God. Yet he called himself a servant, a lowly being in the grand scheme of things. This is something we should always remember, that we are no more than mere servants of Christ. Verses 2-6 we see the essentials, the aspects of the Gospel.
- Promised beforehand by God through prophets and other scriptures
- Concerning his Son (Jesus)
- Who came from the line of David
- And was declared the Son of God in
- Power
- According the the scriptures
- His resurrection
- Through whom we have received grace
- To bring obedience of faith for his name to all people
What all of that means is that Jesus was promised from the beginning. He was declared the Son of God by the power he had, the scriptures, and his resurrection. By him we have received grace, so that we can take this message to all the people so that they may be obedient by faith. This last bit is a big theological bit, and we'll see it more later in Chapter 8.
This letter then, is to all those in Rome who are a part of the church, loved by God, and called to be saints. Paul passes to them grace and peace which can only come from God.
Paul, a man of great compassion, longs to be with this church. We see later that it kind of just sprung up out of no where, with no apostle directly tied to its founding (according to some scholars whom I agree with). Paul is thankful for this church because they are known throughout the world for their faith.
Think about this: What if today your church was known throughout the world? Not because of your size, or the building, or the preacher, but because of the faith of the congregation. In order for that to be a reality you would have to do something to show your faith (James 2.14-26). Think about how great it would be if you loved on those around you so much that the world, the entire world, would know about this guy named Jesus because of your boldness in the faith.
Paul hears of their faith and longs to visit them to encourage them, strengthen them, and pass on gifts so that they may continue in the work of Christ. But so far Paul has been unable to visit because of his other obligations. I wrote just above that Paul is a man of great compassion. It is seen in these verses here. He longs, doesn't just want, but longs, to come visit the church in Rome. But he is under obligation to minister to Greeks, barbarians, the wise and the foolish. He sets aside his own desires for the spreading of the Gospel. This proves just how much of a servant Paul is, and I believe fully we need to imitate him in this. Always partner with Christ to further his Gospel, putting aside our won selfish desires and needs for those around us.
Why should we do this? Because there is power in the Gospel. Verse 16 tells us that Paul is not ashamed of the Gospel despite the fact that it makes him look crazy. The Gospel that we believe in is the message that God, the only God, put on skin and bone, came down to earth, lived as a servant to all, was even killed on a cross, then rose again three days later only to ascend into heaven 40 days after that. Doesn't that sound crazy? Yet Paul is unashamed of this message, and puts aside his own wants because of it.
Why? Because there is power in the Gospel. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone! And in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith and for faith because the righteous shall live by faith.
The phrase "from faith for faith" is a bit hard to understand. But hopefully God shows me what it actually means so we can understand this a little bit better. As always, I suggest you read what the text actually says. That's what I do and it tends to help understand it. By faith we receive grace (Eph. 2.8). This grace gives us the righteousness of God (Rom. 4.4). So from faith we receive God's righteousness for greater faith in us and so that others may see the righteousness that God has imparted on us for their own faith (John 3.21).
Righteousness itself is a tricky term. It's one of those words those in the Church throws around and everyone nods like they know what it means, but in reality they have no clue. Tomorrow I will get into what righteousness is, and then finish out Romans 1. This will actually be really good because the rest of Romans 1 is the exact opposite of righteousness (for the most part).
So as you go throughout your day, reflect on the power of the Gospel, of God's love for us. Count others higher than yourself. All others. Not just some, but all. And imitate Paul as he imitates Christ, and be a servant.
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