Romans 1:13 “Hindrances”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹³but I am not desiring you to be being ignorant, brothers, that I have intended many times to come to you, in order that I might also have some fruit among you, just as also among the other Gentiles, and I was hindered until the present time.

Here again we get to ponder the mind of the Apostle. These opening words are familiar, “I don’t want you to be ignorant,” “I don’t want you to be uninformed.” Paul says this a number of times throughout the New Testament and what’s important is he really means it. He does not want the believers to be unaware of many things. My first thought is to note how important this is to anyone who would be in a leadership role. How often does one hear the complaint at work, “They don’t tell us anything.” Now, there may, in fact, be many things your people don’t need to know, but there may be much they do need to know too. And do they?

I worked at one company that only called Thanksgiving Day a holiday and the work schedule indicated we’d all have to work that Friday. Every year they’d end up giving us Friday off too, which was very nice, but they wouldn’t tell us ahead of time whether they would or wouldn’t. I think one year they actually told us on Tuesday of that week. It was very frustrating. Are we working or not? We are making plans with friends and family and need to know. I’m sure the bosses knew. They just didn’t concern themselves with what their employees did or didn’t know and whether they needed to or not. Of course that was only the tip of the iceberg. The leadership just didn’t communicate and placed no value at all on maintaining an informed work force.

Paul wasn’t like that with his people. Are you? What about your wife/husband? Children? Do you make a deliberate effort to be aware of what they know, what they need to know? What don’t you tell them? And why not? Is it really for their good, or for yours? A Christian mind like Paul’s would remind us that love is our standard. Here we see that love play out in how well we communicate with those under us, in whether our heart takes the time to think about them, about their needs. Lord, help us not to be those who keep their people “in the dark.”

Then pause and consider what specifically he doesn’t want them to be ignorant about. It’s basically the question of why Paul hasn’t ever been to their city. Obviously Paul has long been travelling all over the Roman Empire. Why hasn’t he ever been to Rome? I want to insert here something I believe I learned long ago and it applies here – it is invariably a maxim to live by: “If people don’t know, they will assume the worst.” This is one reason why it is so important to keep people informed. If not, they won’t just be ignorant, they’ll actually be assuming all sorts of horrible things that simply aren’t true. Why hasn’t Paul been to Rome? Apparently he just doesn’t think it’s important. Right? Maybe he doesn’t think we’re important! Maybe it’s because he’s afraid of the leaders. Maybe, maybe, maybe…” They don’t know, so they can easily assume the worst, and I find it all too common that is exactly what people will do. It’s what I tend to do.

It is another subject to ponder, but I would suggest this discussion would lead us to consider love from the opposite direction. I find it takes a deliberate effort on our part as Christians not to assume the worst of other people, to actually choose to believe the best about them and go on believing the best until they would prove otherwise. I know that calls for some wisdom and can be misapplied, but I would suggest it’s worth pondering.

But back to our passage, Paul doesn’t want these believers to be unaware that he has in fact many times purposed to go to Rome but actually found himself hindered. That statement blows open a door to all sorts of discussions! I’ll try to pick only a few.

Paul is an Apostle. Wherever he goes he is gifted to accomplish great things for God, to lead multitudes to Christ, to do great good. How can it be right for a man like that to be hindered at all???? Well, the first reason is that he only has one body. He specifically tells them later in the book,

“It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written: ‘Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.’ This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you. But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain” (15:20-23).

No matter how gifted Paul was, he could only be in one place at a time. Having made it his goal to go where others had not meant Rome simply had to wait. Obviously others had been working in Rome and obviously too they had done a great job. We’ve already seen in the opening verses that the faith of these Roman believers was spoken of throughout the world. In a sense, Rome simply hadn’t been a priority for Paul. For any of us who truly want to “do good” to others, we have to deal with the same problem. The reality is that we only have one body. We can only be in one place at a time. And to be in one place means we’re not in others. We each have to recognize the priorities which the Lord has given us and then simply always be working off the “top” of the list, so to speak.

Several years ago, the Lord showed me that, in the Bible, we all basically find addressed seven relationships which are our priorities:

1. God

2. Husband/Wife

3. Children

4. Parents

5.Workplace (bosses, clients, workmates)

6. Church (pastor, fellow believers)

7. Our “neighbors” whoever they may be.

It is notable that, in the Bible, these are not in any order. They simply all are our priorities. I would suggest it isn’t even correct to say, “The Lord comes first.” It is true I absolutely must cultivate that relationship, but if He tells me to love my wife, then part of my relationship with Him is to cultivate my relationship with her. It is not either/or. It is both/and. It is liberating to me to see life as a matter of living love in these seven relationships according to the guidance He’s given me in the Word. “Planning” becomes a matter that, at any given time, I need to be making sure I am treating each of these relationships as a priority. Which I might be specifically addressing at any given moment brings us back to our passage and this reality that I can only be in one place at a time.

Like Paul, our ability to do good to others becomes its own hindrance, since, while I’m “doing good” in one place, I cannot be in others. In a sense, the more “gifted” someone is, the more of a problem this becomes…and the more we risk resentment from those “others” who may feel slighted. Back to our passage again, Paul was determined not to let people feel that way, to communicate his reasons for his one body not being “there.”

In the Bible, we find other legitimate reasons why we might be “hindered,” even when we’re determined to be doing good. In I Thes. 2:18, we find Paul saying, “For we wanted to come to you – I, Paul, more than once – and yet Satan hindered us.” We have an adversary. Sometimes the obstacles we face are actually satanic. Even angels have to deal with this problem! In Daniel 10:12-14, we read:

“Then he continued, ‘Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.’”

Then, of course, the hindrances we face may come from the Lord Himself. In Acts 16:7, Paul and his companions found themselves hindered and we are clearly told, “When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.”

Personally, I usually don’t know if the hindrances I face are satanic or from the Lord. Probably a wiser person could discern the difference. What I have to do is to entrust everything into the Lord’s hand, all the while allowing hindrances to remind me that I do have an enemy. For me it is very comforting to know, “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Prov. 16:9). The Bible specifically condemns people who think they can plan their lives and ignore the Lord: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’…Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’ But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil’ (James 4:13-16).

Paul was a man who wanted to do good, but found himself hindered. Hopefully you and I also sincerely want to do good. We too will find  ourselves hindered. Sometimes it will be loving to communicate to people those hindrances, so they are assured of our love and of our sincere desire to do them good. At minimum, we all have to deal with the reality that we can only be in one place at a time. To do good in one place means we cannot be in another. On the other hand, we also have to realize there is a spiritual war raging around us. We can’t necessarily see it but it is always there. We just have to accept the fact that that battle may explain the hindrances we face. But above it all, we simply have to leave the days of our lives in the Lord’s hands and say, “Thy will be done.”

Hindrances. Paul had to live with them, and so do you and I. Lord help us not “to grow weary in well-doing.”

Romans 1: 11,12 “Together”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹¹for I am longing to see you that I might give to you some spiritual gift into your establishing, ¹²but this is [for the purpose] to be encouraged together with you through the mutual faith both of you and me.

Here again, we get to see the mind and heart of the Apostle. In verse 11, he expresses his desire to come and see them so he can give them some spiritual gift, but in verse 12 he pauses to clarify his thoughts. As much as he is looking forward to giving something to them, he also realizes that he will gain from his communion with them. Herein we see one of the great principles of faith and even of life itself – that we all benefit from being together.  We find throughout the Bible that life, as God created it, is inherently reciprocal.

We have before us a seriously “together” verse! The Greek of verse 12 actually expresses “togetherness” in five ways in a matter of only fifteen words – including six of those words being articles, prepositions or particles! Paul’s word which I have translated “to be encouraged together” is all one single word in Greek and means just that – that we should together be encouraged. He adds it would be “together with you.” Then he says it will be through our “mutual faith.” In this case, a prepositional phrase “in one another” serves as an adjective modifying the word “faith,” so that it literally reads something like “through the ‘in one another’ faith” or “through the ‘with one another’ faith.” Then he expresses that mutual faith belongs to “both you and me.” It is literally something “both/and.”

Clearly, Paul did not see himself “above” the Roman Christians. Rather, he saw them as people from whom he would derive great benefit. Yes, he was an Apostle, a man amazingly gifted by God, a man who could literally raise the dead, heal people, and lead masses to salvation. But he did not then see himself as “better” than these simple Christians, many of whom were slaves. Paul seriously saw all believers as fellow laborers with him in the faith. He could see that he needed them as much as they needed him, that while he could bestow apostolic, even miraculous gifts on them, they in turn could bless him in many ways, and that together they formed the body of Christ.

What a profoundly important principle this is for us to live by! God created us social beings. He created us all to be “together” people. He Himself said, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18), which tells us that even in Paradise and with God Himself for a companion (3:8), yet Adam needed a special kind of companion – another human being with skin just like him. He needed someone to be “together” with. Even in Paradise, an Adam needed an Eve. The single most fundamental institution of human life is marriage – the companionship of two people who live out life together!

Then notice that God Himself exists as a Trinity – a mysterious co-existence of three infinite beings who together form one God. We see this in even the very opening verse of the Bible, Gen 1:1, when it says “In the beginning, God created...” The word translated “God” is actually plural, while the verb “created” is singular. That seems grammatically illogical. Yet that is in fact how it reads – a plural subject acting as a singular verb. In the very opening verse of the Bible, the Lord is “together” creating.

When Jesus sent His disciples out into ministry, He sent them “two by two.” Today, someone would argue that was “inefficient” – that they could have covered twice the territory had He sent them out as individuals; but, somehow in His wisdom and understanding of how He made us to begin with, Jesus knew that two together could accomplish more than twice what the same two could have done alone. Note also that even though He was the Son of God, He valued the presence of His friends. In the Garden He asked, “Could you not have watched with Me one hour?” When He returns from Heaven, riding on a white horse, He comes “with the armies of Heaven following Him” (Rev 19:14).  On that day, He certainly won’t “need” our help, yet we’ll come together.

This “together” thing is to be seen all through life. As a teenage boy, a man showed me how two logs side by side will burn together, while you cannot keep a single log burning. I’ve also learned that in gardening there are things called “companion” plants which, when grown together actually help each other. I’ve heard that with pepper plants, they’ll bear more fruit if you plant them so their leaves touch. When we purchased our home in the country there was a cherry tree growing there. The wife of the couple selling us the house urged me to plant another since, she said, “Cherry trees need a companion.” I’m not particularly crazy about cherries so I just never got around to planting another, and suddenly one day all its leaves died. I thought it might somehow recover but later I pushed on it and it simply fell over. It was completely dead and rotten. Just as she warned me, it had needed a companion!

Another thing I noticed in life was how much more work I got done when my kids helped me. While they were at home growing up, I of course had many projects I needed to undertake to keep up the house, correct faults, improve things, etc. Often they had places to go and I would simply work alone. It would always amaze when one of them was able to help me, how much more I would get done. I decided then that somehow companionship is an exponential function – that, if you have twice as many people, you don’t get twice as much done, you get something more like four times as much done. With three you don’t get three times as much, you get more like nine!

In my career, I’ve have had the privilege of participating in many projects where we accomplished the amazing, even sometimes the impossible. As I think back on that work, it gives me great pleasure to know that they literally could not have done it without me. Yet at the same time it also gives me even greater pleasure to realize I couldn’t have done it without them. It took us working together.

It’s true in the church. It’s true in nature. It’s true in work. Everywhere we go, everything we do, it simply “is not good that the man should be alone.” Paul understood this and we should too.

Of course, it is of value to pause and consider why we don’t. Why wouldn’t we embrace this “together” idea? Obviously, the first huge reason will be pride – way down deep I really do think I’m “better” than them and I simply don’t value their contribution. “I can do it myself.” Or perhaps it’s because I can’t bear the thought of sharing glory with someone else – that if I embrace the help of others, somehow I won’t gain the acclaim I imagine awaits me. Perhaps it is selfishness, that I simply can’t “let go” of what my heart tells me is “mine,” or it could be fear of something, fear that others will fail me or perhaps hurt me if I let them get close.

Obviously none of the above has any place in a Christian’s heart. Our very existence starts with needing a Savior, then, as the saying goes, “The ground is level at the foot of the Cross.” We all come into faith totally by grace and join the company of others who arrived the same way. Whatever gifts I may have, I received from the same Lord who gifted everyone else. Even outside of faith it is still true – as I would go to work, I go to my job every day to stand beside people who have many, many talents, abilities, experiences, etc., which I simply do not have. I need them. They need me. Together, we can accomplish amazing things. Individually, we’ll be lucky to just putter along.

Would that we all could just put away our pride and selfishness and fear and embrace the wonders of the “together” life the Lord created us to live. For myself, I can’t change anyone else. I can’t make anyone else grasp this simple truth that Paul understood – but I can certainly pray and ask the Lord to help me see anywhere I am not embracing it now. Lord, help us all – together!

Romans 1: 9-11 “A Christian Mind”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁹for God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the Gospel of His Son, how unceasingly I am making remembrance of you upon my prayers, ¹⁰praying always if somehow now at last I will be granted a successful journey in the desire of God to come to you, ¹¹for I am longing to see you that I might give to you some spiritual gift into your establishing.

Here we go again. This is exactly why I study the Bible. On the one hand, Paul may be saying something important, and we need to understand his point. We need to understand exactly what he is saying – and, by the way, what he is not saying. Thus the importance of digging as deeply as we can into the text – to be sure we know those things to the best of our ability; but, it is also true, “He who walks with the wise will be wise.”  There is enormous benefit to simply sitting at Paul’s feet and watching what he does, listening to what he says and learning all we can from his example. He is wise, we are not. He has the mind of Christ. We want more of it.

Pardon me if I belabor this point, but, if Paul were alive today and if he came to our church, even stayed in our home, would we not learn from his life as much as from his preaching? What I mean is, as great as it would be to listen to him teach and preach, wouldn’t it be great to just observe what he does? We could learn so much just by watching how he responds to people, how he deals with situations, listening to how he thinks, what is important to him and what is not. Yes?

Well, he has come to our church and he does stay in our house – it’s called the Bible. Here in this book, we not only get his “points,” we also can do exactly that – watch how he responds to people, how he deals with situations, listen to how he thinks, what is important to him and what is not, and learn from him. The Bible itself allows you and me to “walk with the wise” and thus become wise(r). Yes, it is a book of exegetically defensible “points” but I believe it is more than anything else, a book of discipleship – a book that opens to us the very heart of God and allows us to live all day every day like Mary – sitting at Jesus’ feet and learning from Him.

What strikes me most about the verses before us in Romans is that they draw back the curtain of Paul’s heart and show us his mind, show us how the mind of Christ plays out in the mind of a true Christian – and give us tons and tons of food to grow on. This is also the main reason I type these silly blogs. When I feel like the Lord has taught me something, I want to record it somehow, so I can come back later and be reminded. Hopefully He seals these things to my heart and allows me to weave them into the very fabric of who I am, but, on the other hand, I am a forgetful sinner, so it helps me to be reminded later of what He has taught me.

And so, without further ado, what do I see?

I love that Paul can say, “God is my witness.” The plain simple fact is that no one really knows what goes on behind those eyes of yours. We can talk to each other, listen to each other, watch each other, but we’re all very aware that no one really knows what is going on behind our eyes, in our mind, in our heart – except the Lord. Man, of course, can only look on the outside; it is the Lord who looks on the heart. When, then, we can say, “God is my witness, that I …,” what we’re saying is, “This is the truth. You may or may not be able to see it. You may be wondering what I’m really thinking…but, with God as my witness, here’s the truth.” Paul can say, “I really do pray for you. I really do long to see you. I really do want to do you good,” and it’s true. Lord help us all to be more real from our hearts, so that what we too say, who we say we are, is true. God knows. May what God knows be the “truth” about ourselves we try to communicate!

This is further supported by Paul’s explanation of who he is – he is someone who serves God literally “in my spirit.” His service was not something external, like it had been all those years of being a Pharisee. He’s put behind himself the service only “to be seen by men.” I love when he says, “I care not at all if I am judged by men. In fact, I don’t even judge myself – but God is my judge.” Then he says that what it is he does is “in the Gospel of God’s Son.” In particular, Paul has been called to be an Apostle. That is his “job” that God has given him.

Many translations insert the word “preaching,” so it reads, “In preaching the Gospel of His Son,” but actually it is literally just “In the Gospel of His Son.”  I want to elaborate on this later, but, in a sense, all Christians live their lives “in the Gospel of His Son.” For each of us, we have to insert the “–ing” of whatever it is God has given us to do. As I’ve often said, whether you or I are a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker, as Christians, it is our task to do it all “in the Gospel of His Son” – living out Jesus wherever the Lord has placed us, doing whatever He’s given us to do.

And what does Paul do? He prays for people. What a blessed privilege we have as believers to pray for people, to take their problems, their needs, their very lives, their very souls, before the Throne of the Universe, and plead for them. And how very often is it true that is all we can do? Literally. There is much we can do and should do for others around us, but it is also seemingly too often true that what they really need is utterly beyond us…but we can pray for them! Paul did. We should.

And what is on Paul’s mind? He wants very much to come and see these people and for what reason? To give them a gift, to help them be “established.” This is another place where the “Christian mind” really jumps off the page at me. We live in a world of politicians who feign great concern for us just to get our votes so they can go Washington and get rich. We are barraged by advertisements and salespeople who feign great interest in us but only because they want to sell us something and get our money. It seems everyone “wants” something. Even churches can really be about recruiting people to fill all their volunteer spots. But into that world of lies and pretense comes the genuine Christian mind. “I really want to give you a gift. I want to help you be more established.”

This is a wonderful thing for Paul and we should pause and not take it for granted. He really did. He really did want to give them something. He really did want to help them. And it wasn’t about his bank account or anything else. That is a Christian mind – the mind of Christ, who came “not to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many,” who came “that the world might be saved through Him.” Like Jesus, one of the wonderful things about being a Christian is knowing that God will take care of us. We of course have to be responsible and certainly should expect to have to work for our living, but we have the privilege to do that in a sort of reckless abandon, sincerely seeking to do good to others.

Paul was doing good to others in his full-time ministry, but you and I have the privilege of doing the same at our jobs and, in fact, all day every day everywhere we go, everything we do. Every person’s “job” is in some way “doing good” to others. In some way, others are counting on me. They need me to do my job and they need me to do it well. For myself, I’m an engineer. My villages and small cities need me to help them figure out the problems with their infrastructure and then help them choose good solutions. Someone needs to care about them and actually try to help them. Too many engineers use those situations as a chance to “sell” them something and to run up their own fees. They don’t really care whether what they do actually helps the community, as long as when it’s over they’ve got more money in their account.

I’ve been following those guys around my whole life, coming into communities where they’ve been sold junk, and often the community’s biggest problem is all the trouble caused by the last guy who they thought was helping them. That is so sad, but it of course isn’t just engineers. It’s lawyers and mechanics and doctors and furnace repairmen and butchers and bakers and candle-stick makers. We’ve all felt the pain. We all know how hard it is to find someone we feel we can trust. We need them to do us good, but all too often we find that apparently wasn’t their intentions.

Into that world the Lord has placed His people. We have the privilege of going there with the mind of Christ, with a sincere desire to do good for others, to do our job faithfully and skillfully and to the best of our ability because others around me are counting on me to do it. And in that world Christians really can shine like lights in the world. Other people may not want to hear about your faith but they’ll see when you sincerely care about them. And then perhaps the Lord might even light a spark in their hearts that perhaps, just maybe, you have something they want, something that makes you different!

As we would listen to Paul here in Romans chapter 1 and pause to ponder his words, he reminds us that, no matter what we do, we can do it with the mind of Christ, to sincerely seek to do good to others. It will make you and me different, very different, but may that difference be one way the Lord can open people’s hearts, soften hard hearts, and make a way for the Gospel.

Paul may still be "just" introducing himself and this letter to these people he's never met, but you and I can learn tons just by listening to what he says. His very words are teaching us what it is to live the mind of Christ – to have a Christian mind.

Romans 1: 8 “More Blessing”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁸First, I give thanks to my God through Jesus Christ concerning all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed in the whole world.

“First,” he says. Paul has set down to write this letter because he has quite a message he wants to deliver, yet, before he gets to his “good stuff,” he thinks “first” he wants to say a few things. Isn’t it nice of him to say to these people, “I thank God for you.” It makes me wonder if we don’t need a lot more of that? Maybe this is just more of the “sincere greeters” I suggested we ought to be in the last post, but I still think it needs to be observed. How totally Christian to say to another person, “I thank God for you.” I wonder if that doesn’t communicate something deeper and more eternal than even just “I’m thankful for you.” That in itself would be a giant leap in the right direction for most people, but I think Paul is showing us a very simple, very basic Christian gesture we all ought to carefully cultivate.

It’s interesting that he says, “I thank my God.” I don’t know why he injects the “my.” I’m sure there is a good reason. I just don’t see any real difference between simply, “I thank God,” or “I thank my God,” or even “I thank our God.” There may very well be some point of wisdom in Paul’s choice which simply eludes me for now. If I live long enough to look at this closely again in years to come, perhaps I will have matured enough myself to say, “Well, of course…”

He’s also careful to add the “through Jesus Christ.”  This is of course always true whether we realize it or not – everything we do right is through Jesus. We pray through Jesus. We’re enabled through His Spirit to live and think and speak. I would guess if there was a reason why Paul particularly injects those words here, it is because of the nature of the letter he is writing. As we saw in the first few verses, Paul emphatically makes the point that it is all about Jesus. The Gospel is all about Jesus. The Gospel is Jesus.

What particularly interests me, though, is Paul’s statement that “your faith is being proclaimed in the whole world.” First of all, it’s interesting that that is specifically what Paul thanks God for – their faith and its broad acclaim. There are a lot of things which might stir in us a sense of thankfulness for other people. Is it not worth noting that one of the greatest things to be thankful for is when we see real faith in another person? If we are wearing our eternal eyes, is not faith the root of all other real blessings? Is it not the one thing which, if another person possesses, we can be assured they will be a person who will not only be blessed but also be a blessing? They may not be rich or enjoy good health or a lot of other earthly blessings, but if they have real faith, they will know “the peace that passes understanding.” They will have a wonderful Father who draws them ever closer and closer to His heart. Whether at work or at church or in the home or wherever they go, they will be able to live in the assurance of His great love and perfect wisdom, which will then overflow from their heart into the lives of others. It is such a blessing to see real faith in another person. Let’s not forget to notice it, to thank God for it, and maybe even tell them so!

But what leaves me curious is the fact that their faith is “being proclaimed in the whole world.” I wonder what exactly is “being proclaimed?” I mean if someone said about me, “The whole world is talking about your faith,” what would they be talking about? What particularly is it that they would see? Someone could mention Joni Eareckson Tada and certainly the whole world could speak of her faith trusting God above her terrible quadriplegia –but then I don’t have anything that dramatic to see, and I don’t think the Roman believers did either. Maybe it was the believers staying faithful to the Lord and loving to people and to each other in spite of their terrible persecutions. I’m thinking in my mind though that the intense persecution hadn’t started yet. The rest of the book certainly doesn’t give any such hints. So what is it that people saw that was so significant “the whole world” was talking about it?

Frankly I don’t know. This may be another one of those wisdom problems. Perhaps years from now it will be obvious to me. It just isn’t now. I do want to say, though, wouldn’t it be nice if that is what people talked about – our faith? I’m afraid when people talk about American churches or American Christians today, “faith” wouldn’t be their main point of discussion. Frankly, I’m ashamed to even suggest what they’d probably be talking about. But then, we can’t change the rest of the world, or the rest of the church for that matter. We need to worry about ourselves and let the Lord work on the rest of the world. I hope the Lord will help me to truly be growing in real faith and then, whatever it is that other people would see, I hope they see it.

And for whatever it’s worth, just because it’s been on my mind, I wonder if for many of us, we’ll never know when someone else “saw” our faith and it helped them. I know most of the people who have helped me all through my life didn’t even know they were helping me. It was so often just something someone said, or something I saw them do, that the Lord used to light some kind of a fire in my heart or teach me some very helpful truth. So maybe we just never do know?

I also suspect that, oftentimes, the Lord’s greatest use of our lives is after we’re dead and gone. Stop and think about it – there is a Paul to write the book of Romans because a man named Stephen prayed as he died. You and I are reading the book of Romans 2,000 years after Stephen died. He died not knowing the man holding the garments would be the Apostle Paul. He died not knowing that that very man would write the book of Romans and you and I would be sitting here being blessed by it now. I suspect that God often uses all of us that way. We just have to be faithful, love Him, try to trust Him, love people, live our lives, then lay down and die and let Him do His great eternal work with whatever fishes and loaves we left behind.

Again, those are just “for whatever it’s worth.” I’m certainly not getting it from the text.

But once again there is plenty of encouragement for us to grow on.

Romans 1: 7 “Blessed Encouragement”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁷to all ones being in Rome, beloved ones of God, called set-apart ones, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Once again, I find I can pause and ponder on almost every word in this verse and draw from it oceans of encouragement. I will try to briefly jot down the highlights as I see them.

First of all, I want to note the greeting itself. Paul writes to the Romans and says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Just stop and ponder for a minute what a nice gesture this is – for this man to express such kindness to these people. There he is, going about his life, busy with this ministry opportunity and that, writing to these people who are just as busy with their lives, working, and shopping, and fixing their roof, or whatever else may be urgently demanding their attention. Into the middle of all of that, this one man writes to them and says, in effect, “I really wish the very best for you.”

Stop and ponder what a totally Christian expression that is. The rest of the world lives “hating and being hated.” I know from work, sometimes you wonder if anyone ever says anything nice about anyone else. It seems sometimes like people are only nice when they want to sell you something. That certainly isn’t pervasively true and I will be the first to acknowledge that I work with a LOT of very nice people. Still, one can’t read the news without being almost depressed by the constant rage of hatred that goes on. Once again, in the middle of that very world, this one man takes the time to say very specifically to this specific group of people, “I really wish the very best for you.”

Can we pause and appreciate this simple greeting? I think we tend to rush by the greetings in the Bible as if they are as cliché as (too often) human greetings tend to be. In Paul’s, there is nothing cliché about his greetings. They are genuine and heartfelt. What I want to suggest to our minds is Jesus’ words, “Go and do thou likewise.” Whether it is among fellow believers or just the humdrum of work and school and life, we as Christians should deliberately strive to be sincere greeters. There is a huge difference between shaking someone’s hand and shaking someone’s hand, yes? It can be thoughtless and routine, or one can pause long enough to actually communicate to someone else, “I value you,” or “I really am sincerely grateful to meet you.” I don’t necessarily mean verbally. I’m talking about our hearts and what everything about us communicates. We live in such a cold, uncaring world. May we believers be like Paul and extend to all others greetings that carry love, respect, and value to the people we meet and the people we know. We all know it is very encouraging (though unfortunately rare) to actually be treated like a human being. May you and I, “passing through this Valley of Bacah, leave behind springs of water.”

As I said above, the whole verse before us is full of encouragement. It is written to “ones being in Rome,” but then we know from context, it isn’t just anyone in Rome. It is written specifically to the believers. God loves all the people in Rome, but He has a special love and regard for those who have embraced His Son. They may be unimportant faces in the throngs of people who swarm the markets every day, but to the God of Heaven, they are precious.

He calls them “beloved ones of God.” That reminds me of I John 3:1: “Behold what manner of love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God!” and Eph 5:1,2: “Therefore be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us…” “Dearly loved children” – it is so important for us as believers to really understand this and embrace it. Because of Jesus, we have become children of God, and not just sort of probationary children, as if God were still deciding if He really wants to “keep us.”

I remember a family that had adopted two little boys. The father told me one of the most difficult challenges he and his wife faced was convincing those two little boys they weren’t going to “send them back.” The poor little fellows just couldn’t seem to believe that this man and his wife had made them family forever. Unfortunately, we grown up Christians often have the same problem. We need to accept from the Lord that He really has accepted us and that He calls us “dearly loved children.” We who have had children know what that means. We love our children totally and completely and forever – and not only “if they’re good.” Dearly loved children are dearly loved children – and that is what we are to our wonderful Father and Lord.

We’re also “called set-apart ones.” That usually gets translated something like “called to be saints.” The “to be” is added. What is important to you and me is that, once again, the Lord sees us differently than the rest of the world. He loves the whole world, but He has a special love for us His children. He has “set us apart” from the rest.

Then look what He wishes for us: “Grace and peace.” We all know that grace means “unmerited favor.” What the Lord wants is for us to live in that grace. He wants it to be the air we breathe. “And peace” – in the Bible “peace” is much more than just the absence of conflict (although that in itself is a nice blessing!). For Paul, his understanding of “peace” would come from the Hebrew idea expressed in their word, “Shalom!” In Hebrew, shalom or peace means the fullness of everything in its place, everything as it should be. I think the best illustration for our modern minds would be the Norman Rockwell painting of a Thanksgiving dinner – a family gathered around, with everyone present, a bountiful table of delicious food, and the warm, complete comfort of that setting of family love. That is “shalom.” That is the “peace” the Lord is wishing for each of us here in Romans 1:7.

And who exactly is it that gives such pleasant gifts? They come from “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Once again, I hope I’m not being cynical to observe that our world is sometimes seemingly devoid of such kindness. It seems too many people simply cannot be nice. What people hear all day every day is sarcasm, belittling, and discouragement. But, for you and me, our God crashes through it all and calls us “dearly loved children” and wishes for each of us “grace and peace.” Then He would have us turn and be like Him and “live a life of love” and be the same kind of encouragers to the people all around ourselves.

What a blessed little verse! Paul hasn’t even started into the letter itself and already we’ve enjoyed seven verses of heavenly sunshine! May each of us drink deeply of our Lord’s profound love and then may it flow out of our hearts and our mouths and our hands to be a blessing to others!

Romans 1: 5,6 “Encouraging Truths”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

…Jesus Christ, our Lord, ⁵through whom we received grace and apostleship into a hearing of faith among the Gentiles on behalf of His name, ⁶and you also are among them – called ones of Jesus Christ.

I found it instructive to stop and ponder pretty much every word of verses 5 & 6.

Verse 5 starts with “through whom.” Through who? Jesus. Once again, He is “the point of it all” and He is everything.  Everything is “concerning His Son!” Whatever good Paul received, He received it through Him, through Jesus. That is not at all surprising since, “For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…all things have been created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16). David said of the Lord, “You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing” (Ps. 145:16). It is a wonderful freedom to realize it true that “Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Lights” (Ja. 1:17). Sin, Satan, and this world promise us everything our hearts desire, then instead kill us; but we can look to the hand of Jesus and know we will receive good from His hand. Everything truly good comes “through Him.”

“We received.” These two simple words, when sincerely grasped, are the death of pride. If there is anything in my life that is good or right, why is it there? I received it. School always came easy for me. My whole life I’ve watched other people struggle with math, struggle with simple spelling, with proper English. That, of course, means I’m “better” than them, right? Wrong, of course. I Cor. 4:7 speaks directly to this matter: “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” Boasting? Yes. Every second you or I think in any way, shape, or form we’re “better” than anyone else, our hearts are “boasting.” We may in fact be better at something, but that doesn’t make us “better.” The fact is, no matter who it is, there are things they are better at than me. We all have our own gifts and talents. In our text, even something as “great” as the gift of apostleship only belonged to Paul because Jesus gave it to him. We all need to see our gifts as something we were given – something we received.

“Grace.” Paul here says through Jesus he received “grace.” Grace, in and of itself, is the death of pride. By its very nature grace is undeserved. That’s the point. Grace is God’s favor and kindness shown to me in utter disregard of what I do or do not “deserve.” Even in human terms, grace is about the person giving, not the person receiving. A gracious person is someone who gives good because they’re good, because they have a generous, kind heart. If you or I happen to land at the feet of someone else’s grace, we can only be thankful. Hopefully at those times we are keenly aware that their kindness has nothing to do with whether I do or do not “deserve” it. It’s just who they are. I enjoyed working several years under one boss who was like that. It seemed like every time we turned around he was giving us something. Working with him personally for those several years I got to see clearly it all came from his gracious heart. But the best news is that our Jesus is a God of grace. Even in what may be seemingly the most difficult of times, our hearts can be encouraged to remember He said, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”

“Apostleship.” Woah, dude. Raising the dead, healing the sick, casting out demons, visions from God. Woah, dude. Although the apostles may be scorned by the world, by us believers they are held in very, very high esteem. Amongst us Christians, we might all agree it would be amazing to actually be an apostle – to preach one sermon and see 3,000 people saved in a single day! Wow. I mean, we all want to be used by God. We want to think we could actually be used in some mighty way. We wish we could be. A few people get selected. “He gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be pastors and teachers,” and for what reason? “… to prepare God’s people …” Some are chosen for gifted leadership. And who are the rest? Just “God’s people.”

The vast majority of us will always be simply “God’s people.”  Most of us will not be given “amazing” gifts. We are just “God’s people.” We get up in the morning and go to work. We brush our teeth and mow our grass. We’re fathers and mothers and neighbors and friends. But the genius of the Gospel is that there are a LOT of us! As Lincoln said, “The Lord must love common people – He made so many of them!” In the church, Paul’s “gift” was apostleship. Our gifts are just to be “God’s people” – to go out into a world of people who desperately need Christ and live the very truths God’s gifted leaders have taught us – to be living epistles, known and read by all men, written not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshy tablets of human hearts.”

“Into a hearing of faith.” This is the reason why Paul received “grace and apostleship.” The word I’ve translated “hearing” is exactly that. Many translations say some form of “obedience of faith.” What is happening is, just like in English, the verb “to hear” also can mean “to obey.” The parent says to the disobedient child, “You’re  not listening to me.” I don’t have any problem with understanding this passage as addressing the obedience that comes with faith. When we truly “hear” what faith is about, it will change our lives. To real born-again Christians, that is not something threatening, it is to us “Good news!” We don’t want to be who we were. We want to change. We want to be better. The wonderful thing about real faith is that is exactly what it does. It raises us. Our God is a Redeemer. His specialty is gathering up the broken shards of our lives, putting them back together, and giving us a “future and a hope.”

“Among all the Gentiles.” As the hillbilly would say, “That means us’ns!” We’re “the Gentiles.” We’re the people who were “having no hope, without God in the world;” but now “we are brought near by the blood of Jesus.” We can thank God for all eternity that faith burst out of Israel’s borders and hunted you and me down – in every corner of this world. Actually it had to be that way. Jesus is too great a Savior just to save the Jewish people. His grace explodes to cover our globe. This was actually prophesied in Isa. 49:5,6, “And now the Lord says: “It is too small a thing for You to be My servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make You a light for the Gentiles, that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

“On behalf of His name.” Once again, it’s all about Him.

Verse 6 goes on to very deliberately express, “and you also are among them – called ones of Jesus Christ.” Paul would have every believer to know, we’re “among them.” No matter who we are, we are His.

So much encouraging truth in just a few short words!

Romans 1: 3,4 “The Point of It All”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

…the Gospel of God,… ³concerning His Son, the One becoming out of [the] seed of David according to [the] flesh, ⁴the One marked out to be [the] Son of God in power according to [the] Spirit of holiness and out of [the] resurrection of [the] dead ones – Jesus Christ, our Lord…

Looking particularly at verse 4, a lot of people have written commentaries through the years. In understanding the Greek, the theologians have all had to express their opinions on practically every word in the verse. Because so much has been written on those questions, I don’t intend to record much, if at all. I think the basic, normal English translations are generally accurate and I’m just going to go with them.

Jesus was born a man, a descendant of David, but He was so much more than a man. He was born Immanuel, “God with us.” He is the Son of God and God the Son. As Paul will later say in Romans, “Theirs (the Jews’) are the Patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen” (9:5).

During His life, He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He got tired. He got hungry. He got thirsty. He appeared in many ways to be just as weak as the rest of us. He even ended up the victim of a very cruel and unjust murder. No doubt, as Joseph of Arimathea laid Jesus’ body in the tomb, Satan and his minions cheered ecstatically. The Seed of the woman is dead! The great Messiah who was supposed to crush Satan’s head, who was supposed to save the world was Himself killed before He could do any such thing. Now Satan was the unchallenged ruler of this world!

Then something happened to totally upend everything. Jesus got up out of the tomb. He was dead, but now He is alive and lives forevermore! In case anyone questioned just who Jesus was, His resurrection shouted a definitive answer: “He is the Son of God, God the Son.” “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” Jesus had told them. “No one takes my life from Me. I have the power to lay it down and to take it up again.” In some places we read that God raised Him up again. In other places, it was the Spirit. Jesus said He did it Himself. How could all three be true? Because He is God. No one less than God Himself could raise Himself from the dead.

What Paul is doing particularly in vv. 3,4 is informing us that the Gospel is Jesus. I would suggest we need desperately to consider this simple fact today. It is very easy to say things like, “The Gospel is the message of salvation,” and it certainly is, but, if we stop there, we’re missing the whole point of it all – which is Jesus Himself. “For this is eternal life, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent” (John 17:3). “That they might know You.” The Gospel is not just a set of facts to be believed. It is a Person, it is a personal relationship. The Gospel is Jesus Christ our Lord – Jesus, the Savior man; Christ, the promised Messiah; our Lord, the King of kings. To be saved is to meet Jesus.

I believe this is the fundamental difference between real Christianity and every other human religion: our “faith” is not about a set of rules or participating in some particular religious system. Our faith is Jesus. It is a real, personal, minute by minute, day by day relationship with Him, with this One who came not to condemn our world, but that the world would be saved through Him, who came not to harm us but to do us good, to give us a future and a hope, who spared not His own life, but delivered it up for us all, who loves us with an everlasting love, and who has gone to prepare a place for us, that where He is, there we may be with Him.

May we all go about our lives today filled with the wonder of who He is, knowing our Savior is the Son of God and God the Son, and may His spirit of holiness shine out of our hearts, not because of who were are, but because those hearts are filled with the God-man, Jesus! The world doesn’t need a new and improved “religion.” They need Jesus. He is the point of it all.