Sunday, January 11, 2009

Romans 1

1:1-7 When you or I start a letter, we first write the date at the top, then we start with "Dear…" It isn't until the end of the letter that we add our names. An ancient letter had a different format. And by "ancient" I mean this format goes back thousands of years before Paul. Hittite, Babylonian and Canaanite letters used the same structure and sequence of elements.
The introduction to a typical letter in Paul's day would contain the name of the writer and any appropriate term describing his relationship to the addressee(s), in other words the information Paul puts in verse 1. It would then contain an identification of the addressees and a salutation as in 1:7.

1:2-6
But Paul does here something he only does in one other of his preserved letters (in Galatians): he inserts material not immediately germane to the letter conventions. This is the material in vv. 2-6,which is directly relevant to what Paul wishes to emphasize to this particular church. And it is precisely what we can gather from his inclusion of the discussion in chs. 9-11, a discussion that he has with no other church, namely the importance of the role of Israel in God's plan to save gentiles. Here in the opening lines of the letter Paul stresses Jesus' Jewishness — he was the "son of David"—something that Paul mentions to a gentile church only in Galatians 4:4, where he writes that Jesus was "born of a woman, born under the law" (NRSV, ESV, etc.).
In addition, since Paul's letter is a special kind of letter, he uses his self-identification in verse 1 as a springboard: a series of relative clauses each built upon the preceding ("which … who … through whom …among whom you …") allows him to make a transition through the gospel (v. 2-3a) to Christ himself (v. 3b-4), and then doubling back through the apostolic recipients of his grace and apostleship (v. 5), to "you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ" (v. 6). In this way he establishes a link between himself and these people, most of whom he has never met. This is how he "introduces" himself to them.
1:1-2 How is it that Paul describes himself to the Roman hearers in these opening lines?
a servant of Christ Jesus: Greek doulos can mean anything from a slave with no rights or property to a high official in government who is the "deputy"of the king. "The servant of Yahweh" is a common designation of prophets in the OT, and of Moses himself. Paul might be alluding to his enslavement ot Christ (no rights, totally belonging to), but I rather think this is an honorific title in this context, intended to show the Roman Christians his authority. A physician at the scene of an auto accident might well introduce himself as "Dr. So-and-so," so that his expertise might immediately be used.
called to be an apostle: The Greek noun apostolos designates one who is dispatched on a mission with the full authority of the one who sent him. There were a limited number of persons in Paul's day who could lay claim to that title. Like the Twelve, Paul received his apostleship by the direct call of Jesus, when he appeared to him from heaven on the road to Damascus (Acts 9).
set apart for the gospel of God: It was on that same occasion that Jesus gave him a special mission, which he refers to here. He was entrusted with a gospel ("good news") that came from God himself. This gospel was anticipated ("promised") in the ancient Hebrew scriptures. Like other Jews of his time, Paul uses the term "prophets" to refer to all portions of the scripture, not just what we call the prophetic books.
1:3-4 The gospel that Paul was set apart to propagate concerned God's Son. Paul doesn't use the name Jesus until v. 4. The gospel is much more than what Paul says in these two verses. What he limits himself to saying here is that at its center was the activity of God's Son who was born a descendant of King David, and was shown to be the powerful Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. And thus he is fully known as "Jesus" [human], "the messiah" [promised], and "our Lord" [divine].
1:5 It is to a call from this person that Paul owes his own apostleship. It was the duty and privilege of Paul's apostolic calling to bring about “obedience of faith” among the gentiles. Paul always understood his commission to be primarily to non-Jews, although as opportunity allowed he shared the gospel with Jews as well. This is important here, because Paul will now use that as a direct link to his hearers in Rome.
1:6 In several of Paul's other preserved letters he addresses his hearers as "called to be saints"—"saints" means "holy ones" (Greek ἅγιοι hagioi, 1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1). This appellation "holy ones" derives from the Jewish background of the faith. In the law of Moses the priests were commanded to maintain their consecration ("be holy").According to Deuteronomy23:14 the entire wilderness camp was to be kept holy, since God dwelt in its midst. In Joel's prophecy (3:17) the end-time city of Jerusalem would be entirely holy to God. Since in Paul's understanding the end times had been inaugurated among the believers in Jesus (1Cor. 10:11 "the ends of the ages"), it was logical that all the believers were holy to God and should maintain that holiness in their daily living.
1:8-10 It was a common convention in Graeco-Roman letters, even pagan ones, to include a pro forma prayer at the beginning of the letter. But we may have no doubt that in Paul's case this was no mere form. Prayer and dependence on God's guidance through answers to prayer formed the very backbone of his itinerant mission.
His prayers always begin with thanksgiving. Paul's gratitude wasn’t for what God had done for him personally, but for those to whom he ministered. Not thanks for good health and easy circumstances, but for conversions, for growth among the converts, for new opportunities to serve and witness.
The faith of these people in Rome was "proclaimed throughout the world", meaning the Roman world. Since "all roads lead to Rome," people from all over the empire came there sooner or later, and there in the capital city these believers were a "light to enlighten the gentiles" (Isa.42:6; 49:6; 52:10), as Jesus was (Luke 2:32; Acts 13:47; 26:23).
We tend to think of verses like this as meaning that the faith of the Roman believers was “talked about” all over the empire. Perhaps. But Paul uses a strong word here, “proclaimed” (καταγγέλλω kataggellō). It is a word used 18 times in the New Testament, and in all the other 17 places it is used of a gospel proclamation, not just chit-chat. Paul may be implying that believers all over the empire are using the fact that a Christian community exists in Rome as part of their appeal to their own friends and neighbors to join the faith. How do non-believers observe "faith"in believers? Sometimes in tough situations, where we don’t panic or complain—sickness, loss of employment, mistreatment by others. In situations like those, faith can be a very visible thing. But it is likely also that the Roman believers talked to others about their beliefs and how it had affected their lives.
1:9-12 The mention of thanksgiving leads Paul to the subject of his prayers for these Christians in Rome. He wants badly to visit them, but only if it is God’s will. He prays that he may succeed somehow in coming to them “in God’s will.” His word “somehow”(so NRSV, ESV; omitted in NIV) has a certain irony. He had no way of knowing that the “somehow” part of his prayer would be answered by his being brought there as a prisoner awaiting trial before the emperor! God takes us at our words in our prayers.
His motive for asking to come to Rome wasn’t just curiosity or to receive their financial support. Paul wanted to be able to strengthen (στηρίζειν stērizein v. 11) their faith through the ability that the Holy Spirit gives to him.
1:11 Commentators have long debated what Paul had in mind when he wrote: “I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith” (Romans 1:11-12 NIV). Some think he means imparting one of the gifts of the Spirit that he discusses in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. But Gordon Fee (God’s Empowering Presence, 486-89), is probably right that the gift he envisages is the content of this letter,elaborated upon personally if he is able to reach Rome. It is the content of this letter that will strengthen their faith and provide mutual encouragement. At the end of this very letter (16:25-27) Paul commits his hearers to God who is able to strengthen (στηρίξαι stērixai, 16:25) them according to the gospel he spent the entire letter talking about.
What does he mean by “strengthen”? Paul wants to create a loyalty to Christ that will be so strong, that the persons who have it will never be dissuaded, never abandon their discipleship. We have all known people who were enthusiastic Christians for a while, but then suddenly abandoned their faith. Such people were apparently never "strengthened" in their faith, as Paul prayed the Roman believers would be. The “strengthening” isn’t a once for all experience, but a lifelong process. When Christians cease exercising their faith, cease filling their minds with scripture and proving God in prayer, that is when the chinks in the armor of faith begin to appear.
1:13 One purpose of this letter was to prepare the way for Paul's visit. In it he needed to convince the believers that he had a need and a right to visit them as "apostle to the gentiles". But he had been missionarizing for decades now, and had never come to Rome. This must have perplexed — maybe even irritated these people. Were they not in the very heart of the empire? Was their location not strategic for a mission to the gentile world? Why had he not come before now? For some time prior to AD 57 when Paul wrote this letter, he had on several occasions planned to visit the believers in Rome, but circumstances prevented it. At the end of the letter (Rom.15:17-23) he tells them that it was his other pressing ministries in the east that prevented an earlier visit.
Another purpose of the letter was to make them aware of his need for financial support for the Spanish mission. The woman who delivered Paul’s letter was a well-to-do deaconess of the church at Cenchreae, near Corinth. Her name was Phoebe. She had contributed financially not only to her local church but also to Paul’s missionary travels. Her physical presence in Rome would also encourage them to support Paul’s Spanish mission. Some people believe gathering support for this mission was part of what he meant here by "reap some harvest among you".
1:14-15 Paul's commission from Jesus obligated him primarily to a mission to non-Jews (i.e.,gentiles). He subdivides gentiles into "Greeks and barbarians".This is just a way of saying cultured and uncultured gentiles. The pair of words “wise and foolish” may be intended to reinforce this subdivision.
Paul hopes that these gentile believers in Rome will realize without his having to say so directly, that they too have an obligation: to help him to fulfill his mission to the gentile unbelievers in Spain, and will provide him with both monetary and prayer support. But now it is high time to begin his long explanation of his gospel.
1:16-17 The reason why—in spite of several aspects of his gospel that many had found embarrassing, offensive or illogical—Paul isn’t ashamed of it, is that it proves able to do what no other message can do. It can save Jews and gentiles from their sins and make of the two one new body in Christ. Paul calls it "the power of God" because only God is able to do such a thing.
The expression "power of God"has an interesting history. Its primary reference is to the resurrection of the dead, as seen in this quote from Jesus to the Sadducees who openly denied the final bodily resurrection: “Isn’t this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scripture [that speak of it] nor the power of God?" (Mark 12:24 ans parallels)
Only God can raise the dead. Only God can give new life to sinners, dead in their sins (1Cor1:18, 24; 2:5; 2Cor 13:4; Col 2:12).
The gospel is God's saving and life-giving power offered to sinners, but specifically: "to the Jew first and also to the Greek." One of the paradoxes of Paul's thinking is his ability to hold simultaneously to the absolute impartiality of God ("to all alike—Jew and non-Jew") and to Israel's priority ("to the Jew first, and also to the Greek").
Jews were the first in time to believe in Jesus—his immediate circle of Jewish followers. Also in Paul's ministry he usually made converts first in the synagogues among Jews and gentile "God-fearers", and then expanded his ministry to the town as a whole. One can see how it was only through Jewish converts that gentiles were reached with the gospel.
But it is wrong to limit the words "to the Jew first" to the prior offer of the gospel to Jews. It is wrong to conclude that the Jews had the first chance in Palestine, but they blew it, so that God has washed his hands of them. This explanation doesn't do justice to the comprehensiveness of Paul's commitment to "the Jew first", or to his confidence that in the end "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11).
1:17 The conjunction "for" (Greek γάρ) which introduces this verse signals that it offers an explanation for one of the statements in v. 16. But which one? If it is the first, it answers the question "Why are you not ashamed of the gospel, Paul?" If it is the second, then it answers the question"How is the gospel God's power to save?" Which one of the two questions we think Paul is answering will determine how we understand his phrase “the righteousness of God.”
If we think he is answering—"Why are you not ashamed of the gospel, Paul?"—we will interpret the "righteousness of God" as God's "justice"(so translated in the Roman Catholic NAB version)—there is nothing unjust or unfair in his doing what he is doing. He is justified in condemning some sinners and saving others. He is justified in allowing pagans to become members of his family without circumcision and allowing most of the living Jews to reject their messiah and fall under his wrath. In this view this verse sets the stage for all that Paul will argue from this point until the end of chapter 11. It is a long theodicy—a defense of God against the charge that he has acted unjustly. Paul often refers to God's "righteousness" in the sense of his just behavior (Rom.3:5, 21, 22, 25, 26).
The second view—that the word"for" explains how the gospel can be God's power to save—takes the "righteousness of God" as a right standing with God that he gives to believers. Paul also speaks elsewhere of God's "righteousness" as a gift that he confers (Phil.3:9; 2 Cor. 5:21).
A third view of what the "righteousness of God" means, relates it to God’s eschatological purpose of a righteous world. In Paul’s “already—not yet” view of the Last Days, it can be said that the anticipation of the future worldwide righteous kingdom of Christ at his Second Coming is the righteousness of God possessed “already” by believers. That includes both our justification (being saved from sin’s penalty, chs. 1-11) and our living out the inner righteousness (saved from sin’s power, chs. 12-15).
The phrase "from faith to faith"which describes "the righteousness of God" has caused readers to scratch their heads from time immemorial. The key to the meaning is the recognition that the Greek word for "faith" here also means "faithfulness." God's saving righteousness comes to us "from faith," i.e., because of the faithful obedience of Christ in dying as our sinless substitute, and it comes "to faith" in that only those who believe can receive it.
Paul's next words "as it is written" introduce a passage from Habakkuk, which he quotes not from the precise wording of either the Hebrew or Greek versions, but in a slight paraphrase of his own.
Habakkuk’s words can be cited in support of Paul’s claim that God is just in saving pagan gentiles. For Habakkuk too had a problem with God's justice: How could he use the idolatrous Babylonians (much more sinful than Israel) to conquer and carry off into exile the less sinful Jews? The situation is remarkably similar to the gospel riddle of God's temporary abandonment of Israel to unbelief and his acceptance of raw pagan Greeks and Romans as his children. In both cases the righteous person “by faith” credits God with the wisdom and justice that are manifestly his.
Paul's rewording of the quote from Habakkuk can also be made to support the second suggested meaning of the righteousness of God. For the prophet and God's ancient people Israel would continue to "live" through the faithfulness of God, the God whose covenant with them wasn’t to be invalidated by his permitting the Babylonians to capture Jerusalem and carry away its people to exile.
1:18 With the word “for,” beginning in 1:18, Paul develops his argument that (1) because of the universality of human sin God is justified in condemning all humans and impartially choosing some to be saved by his mercy, and that consequently (2) all humans—both Jew and gentile—are in need of the gift of right standing with God, a standing that only Jesus the messiah can give through the gospel. This covers both of the possible meanings of “the righteousness of God” in 1:16-17. Just as God’s righteousness “is revealed” in the gospel, so also is his wrath against universal human sin. This deliberate parallel—highlighted by the identical verb in the Greek (ἀποκαλύπτεται apokaluptetai) in vv. 16 and 17—shows that both are anticipations of eschatological wrath and righteousness respectively, and excludes the notion that God’s wrath against sin was or could have been known outside of the gospel.
In his speech to Greek philosophers on the Areopagus recorded in Acts 17, Paul explained that God overlooked pagan idolatry through its long history, until the death and resurrection of Jesus and the promulgation of his gospel—“but now he commands all people everywhere to repent …” (Acts 17:30). The period of God’s amnesty ended with the point in time ("now") when he offered a basis for a complete pardon in the gospel.
The fact that Paul doesn’t say that God has only now become angry against human sin, but rather that only now has it been revealed (ἀποκαλύπτεται apokaluptetai) by the gospel, shows that the wrath was there all along, only unperceived, and that it will be exercised in the End Time.
God’s wrath (or anger, ὀργή) is the flip side of his love. And just as his love (ʾahaḇāh, Hebraicly understood) isn’t just a warm feeling, but a specific act of choosing and including some (those who believe), so also his wrath (ὀργή) isn’t just an emotional state, but a specific attitude of rejecting and excluding others (the unbelievers).

The text says that God's wrath is directed against the sins ("all ungodliness"), not the sinners. But so long as the sinners have no way of removing their sin, that wrath will inevitably affect them as well. The seriousness of God's wrath is shown by his judging human sin in the sacrifice of his only Son. That Son cried out in the moment of his dereliction: "My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?" (Mat. 27:46). "Forsaken!" There is the ultimate rejection and exclusion, the ultimate act of God's wrath.
Notice the prominent emphasis that Paul places on the word "all": "against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth". God isn’t selective in what form or forms of wickedness he hates: not just murder, not just homosexual practices, not just the idolatry of greed, not just white-collar crime. Nor is he only angry at Europeans or Americans or Muslims. Paul’s point is that God is utterly just and impartial. He will hold every person responsible for his behavior, regardless of his religious affiliation or creed: Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, or nominal Christian. Apart from the salvation that is available to all in Christ, there is no distinction. But that salvation itself—given freely in Christ’s death and resurrection, and received by simple faith—is the great distinction that separates the only two real classes of people in the world: the forgiven and the not (yet) forgiven.
The last part of verse 18 raises a question in our minds: What is the “truth” that people suppress by their unrighteousness? We aren’t talking here about some set of facts, knowledge of which is suppressed like some huge abrogation of the First Amendment protecting free speech. No, Paul uses the word “truth” here in a more profound sense, harking back to the pre-Fall condition in the Garden of Eden. For him, “Truth” means the correct relationship between Creator and creature. When Jesus said "I am the Truth", he didn't mean "I'm the answer-Man; I'm 'Dex'". He meant: "Look at me, how I live, how I speak and act. I am the Unfallen Adam. I am the Truth." It is this relationship to the Creator that was distorted by the first human sin, and continues to show itself in the sins that Paul will now begin to list and which he typifies by pagan idolatry.

Idolatry is a fundamental—and culpable—misunderstanding of who God is and what he expects of his creatures. Its beginnings are found in Eve’s inadequate reply to the serpent’s insinuation about God’s character. Is God selfish and unjust in what he requires? Or are we? Does he have a right to expect complete obedience by his creatures? Or do they have a “right” to selectively obey and disobey without having to face any unpleasant consequences? Ultimately, it boils down to the succinct question:“Who’s in charge here, anyway?” Who gets to define what justice is?
1:19 Beginning in v. 19 and continuing through the end of ch. 1, the description of the people shows that their source of knowledge of God doesn’t include the scriptures. Paul is describing here the gentile world that doesn’t have access to the Bible, not the Jews who do. This is what Paul in his rhetoric is saying to these ancient Romans. But the Holy Spirit also speaks to us today as well. There are more ways than one to have no scripture. How many people do you know who know virtually nothing about the Bible’s message? How are they any better off than the raw pagans that Paul describes here to the Romans of his day? How much more knowledge of God does a 21st century person have whose entire knowledge of the Bible’s content consists of what can be gleaned from TV or the newspapers or from “World Lit”classes in high school? Would such people be able to explain to you why God is justified in sending a single person to Hell, or on what basis he might be able to forgive some?
How would a pagan Roman respond to Paul’s words: “God himself has made clear to them what may be known about God” (v. 19)? He would gladly agree that his own knowledge of the gods is complete—he might be proud of that!
1:20 But he wouldn’t agree that there was only one God, and that this one God had made it all clear to him. And he wouldn’t admit that this knowledge leaves him “without excuse” (v.20) when it comes to God’s judgment. This would also be the response of the typical modern American or European unbeliever.
Here, I believe, we reach the crucial point,where we must ask who in Rome Paul wants to hear these words. This letter wasn’t an open letter, posted in the Roman Senate building, or some “95 Theses” nailed to the door of a public building to be formally debated. No, this was a letter sent to believers who happened to live in the moral cesspool that we call ancient Rome. To use an expression common in Christian churches Paul was “preaching to the choir”. I won’t say that Paul is setting up “straw men” to debate with: that wouldn't be fair to him. But he is definitely relying on the correct mental attitude of his Christian audience and therefore doesn’t feel he has to construct water-tight arguments. Instead he is essentially paraphrasing statements about the pagan world found in the Psalms and other polemic portions of the Hebrew Bible. This is what most Jews in Paul’s day believed about their gentile neighbors but would never think of saying to them. This is “insider” talk. You and I certainly agree with Paul that what God has revealed to all humans about himself through the created universe is enough to leave us all without excuse, if we don’t worship and serve him and him alone. So also did his Christian readers of this letter. And that is what mattered to Paul. He may use the outward literary forms of Greco-Roman argumentation here, but his opponents are entirely imaginary and have no real existence in the house-churches of Rome,where the letter was publicly read.
The purpose of the letter wasn’t to convince outsiders. It was intended to describe to Christians in Rome the gospel that he had been preaching and would like to preach in Spain, God willing. And parts of it were intended to correct the thinking of gentile Christians who despised the Jewishness of the gospel.
That is why for the most part Paul is content to defend his claims by merely quoting the Old Testament. He knows he can depend on his listeners to accept any claim that can be supported by an appeal to the scriptures. He couldn’t depend on outsiders to be convinced in this manner.
1:21 Beginning in v. 21 and continuing for several verses, Paul shows the effects that this fundamental rejection of true knowledge of God as Creator and Moral Guide has had and continues to have on the pagan Roman lifestyle. He uses past tense verbs here ("knew", "glorified","gave thanks"), not present tense ones, so that he may be implying that the world’s present condition is the result of events in the past, perhaps even those recorded in the Book of Genesis prior to the Noachic flood. In fact, some scholars plausibly explain much of Paul’s discussion here in the light of what Jews in his day conceived of as God’s requirements for the gentile word based upon his dealings with Noah and the covenant he made with him (Gen.9:1-17).
These benighted gentiles who have rejected the knowledge of God given to all people in the creation fail to “glorify him as God”. What does Paul mean here by claiming that the pagans don’t "glorify Him as God”? Surely, he knows that the pagans have a form of worship, that they sing hymns and offer sacrifices and gifts to their gods. Is this not “glorifying”? And when they present sacrifices at harvest time, is this not being “thankful”? These are difficult questions to answer. But perhaps the words “glorify him as God”are important in order to stress that they don’t glorify God as he desires them to: not just by ceremonies, but by consistently righteous behavior. If in the Old Testament already God has cautioned even the Jews themselves that the true sacrifices God wants aren’t slaughtered animals and clouds of incense, but contrite hearts, confessing and forsaking sins, and doing deeds of kindness, is this not also what he requires from the pagans, if they propose to justify themselves by their deeds? I think we can assume that to be the case. Once again, we find that in order not to misconstrue Paul’s words we have to keep in mind that he is speaking to believers who know the Old Testament scriptures and who understand his claims in those terms, even if they are left unstated.
1:22-23 And although some in the upper classes of Greek and Roman society admitted the illogic and crudity of venerating statues of the gods, in general it is safe to say that the main critics of idolatry in Paul’s day were the Jews.
This critique began already in Old Testament times. It reached its peak in the denunciations and ridicule heaped on idol worshipers in the latter chapters of the book of Isaiah, and continued in Jewish literature from the Hellenistic and Roman eras.
In v. 23 the gentile pagans exchanged God's "glory" for images. The Jews indeed knew God’s true glory. But how does Paul (or his Jewish source) conceive that the pagan gentile world once knew God's glory? If we say "through the created world" (Psalm 19), then by constructing images of that created world by which to worship the divine, the pagans weren’t exchanging anything! If, on the other hand, we take the argument back to the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve knew God's glory firsthand. Yet their descendants exchanged that glory for idols. I think we have to conclude that Paul means that the pagan world refused and continues to refuse to see the Creator's glory not just as the fruits of nature, but as his perfect righteousness revealed negatively in their consciences, and that theyrefused to honor to honor him by conforming to those righteous standards of living.
1:24-25 Paul follows the typical Jewish explanation of all immorality as flowing out of idolatry. In the Old Testament (e.g., in the gold calf worship in Exod.32, and in the Balaam story in Num.22) even among the Israelites the worship of idols was always accompanied by sexual immorality. So here v. 25’s mention of exchanging God’s truth for the big lie, which Paul explains involves worshiping a created thing or being instead of the Creator, and leads to following their evil desires into “sexual impurity” (NIV) and the dishonoring of their God-given bodies among themselves.
1:26-27 Since all forms of sin consist in a perversion of what is righteous, Paul chooses one example to highlight this aspect of sin. Not because it is the worst of sins, but because its nature as an illogical perversion is the clearest. When Paul calls the pagan indulgence in homosexual practices “unnatural” or “contrary to nature”, he doesn't appeal to “nature” as something abstract and independent of God. On the contrary, this is just another way of appealing to the Creation Order as described in Genesis 1-2, the way things were intended by the Creator. Homosexuality is "unnatural" in that it doesn’trepresent what God intended when he made men and women with physical bodies that have a “natural” way of interacting with each other and “natural” desires for each other.
Paul follows the OT and Jewish tradition in seeing all homosexual relationships as sinful. The creation account reveals the divine paradigm for human beings, indicating that God's will is for men and women to be joined in marriage. And whenever there is even a hint of homosexual behavior in the Old Testament, it is vigorously condemned (Gn. 19:1-25; Jdg.19:13-20:48; Lev. 18:22; 20:13), not because it is outside of “marriage” or is “uncaring”, but because it is “contrary to nature” (παρὰ φύσιν).
Paul also calls the impulses to such behavior “dishonorable passions” (NIV; πάθη ἀτιμίας v. 26). Utilizing the word “dishonorable” would have resonated with the Roman sense of honor as opposed to shame. Paul’s word “consumed" (ἐξεκαύθησαν, literally, “burned up”, v. 27) gives a strong image of a powerful and self-destructive inner desire.
The sin described in this verse isn’t pederasty (homosexual conduct of grown men with boys), which was popular among the Greek philosophers, but men engaging in sin with other (grown) men. Modern defenders of homosexuality can find no justification here for the claim that Paul condemns only abusive homosexual relationships such as sex with children. He has in mind what he knew of such trysts among the Greek men and women, many of which could be justified as “caring” by modern defendersof the gay lifestyle. But the scriptural judgment is that they are “unnatural” and therefore contrary to the will of the Creator, who made us male and female for a good reason. And like idolatrous worship, they are a perversion of the Truth of God; they are a Lie.
1:28 “Furthermore, since they didn’t think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a worthless mentality, to do what ought not to be done.” (Romans 1:28 NIV)
1:29-31 A worthless mentality leads to worthless behavior (in vv. 29-31). Paul mentions examples, some of which were denounced by the pagan philosophers as well: covetousness, envy, malice, strife, murder, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slander, hatred, insolence, boasting, disobedience to parents, unfaithfulness, lack of pity, and ruthlessness.
1:32 When the Paul writes that people who reject the true knowledge of God and are given over to a panoply of sins are “deserving of death,” he doesn’t mean capital punishment, but God’sown sentence in the Garden of Eden, “you will surely die”(Gen. 2:17). In New Testament terms this means eternal death, begun already in the present life in the form of separation from God. The word “deserving” recapitulates his argument in the preceding verses: they are without excuse.
But v. 32 is the real “kicker”:the deepest depravity of moral thinking isn’t shown by thosewho do such things, but those who deliberately defend those actions as noble and acceptable, even though their consciences tell them that persons doing such things are worthy of God’s condemnation.
I tremble at the fate of “moral theologians” who relativize God’s absolutes and transform actions clearly prohibited in the scriptures into noble behavior committed because “God made me this way.” Would it be fair of me to justify my murdering someone by saying "God made me this way"?
We all wrestle with fallen natures that flood our minds with strong desires and impulses. But God intends us to resist them, not indulge or justify them. It isn’t “merciful” to trivialize deeds that displease God. To do this is to be like a physician who denies that the patient with a life-threatening disease needs any treatment. True mercy is in helping the doers to find God’s forgiveness and acceptance. It is our privilege and joy as believers, mercifully and with understanding for those caught in the tentacles of compulsive sinful behavior, to provide help from the scriptures and support their resolve to break with that behavior.
Perhaps your church provides opportunities to give this kind of lay ministry to people with destructive compulsive behavior. It is a ministry of mercy we should all be devoted to.

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