Author: Dave

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Romans 1:9-10

God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

In a continuation of his prayer for the Romans, Paul prays that he will be accepted by the Romans and be able to come and visit them in person to minister to them. Paul was a missionary commissioned by God to reach the lost (specifically for Paul the Gentiles). That call to be a missionary hasn’t closed for today, and there are thousands of people working across the globe, away from their home towns, in bible translation, medical assistance, church planting, child care and the list goes on. Missionaries do what they do for the glory of God; to tell about God’s love, utilizing the God given skills they have. Paul was a missionary using his gifts of teaching to reach a wide number of early churches, most of which were most likely collections of house churches. For a detailed itinerary of Paul’s missionary travels, read the book of Acts, but in summary we know that Paul in his life traveled from as far east as Jerusalem and Antioch (Syria) to as far west as Rome.

When Paul is writing to the Romans, it is believed he is staying in Corinth (Greece) during his third missionary journey.

How can I, sitting in my home town at my office job have the same effect as Paul, who was travelling to almost everywhere he could get to with the message of the Gospel? I know sometimes use the excuse of ‘I’ll support the international missionaries with my prayer, and that’ll be enough’. Enough for what? We, as Christians are all called to be missionaries, no matter where we are. I don’t think it’s a case of ‘I feel God calling me here’ or ‘I feel God calling me there’. I believe God calls you wherever you are to be a missionary. If your skill is international relations or languages, then God is calling you to minister in that area. If your skills are in accounting or window cleaning, than God is calling you to use those skills for the glory of him and the furthering of his Kingdom.

ASK YOURSELF: What are your gifts and abilities? How can you use those gifts to be a missionary?

Dear God, I pray that you will help me to always put you ahead of my own desires for earthly comfort and welfare. Give me the desire to reach the lost. Thank you for blessing me with the skills and abilities you have given me. Help me to see the opportunities to love others.

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Romans 1:8

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.

It is noted that most ancient greco-roman letters began with a thanksgiving and a prayer section. Paul follows this pattern in most of his letters, and vv.8-12 is Paul’s thanksgiving and prayer messages to the Romans. One can see, here in v.8, that Paul doesn’t know the Romans personally because the thing he thanks God for is that the Romans’ faith being reported all over the world. Furthermore, there is a continuing theme of Paul wanting to build good rapport with the Romans, as one of his purposes in writing is to admonish some of their matters of theology, while still maintaining that both he and the Romans share a faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

How does giving thanks to God… work?  There seems to be differences from church to church and even household to household about whether people begin their prayers as ‘Dear God’ or ‘Dear Jesus’. Is either a theologically correct way of praying?Paul here in v.8 says ‘I thank my God through Jesus Christ’. That would imply, as Douglas Moo writes, that ‘[it is] an indication that Christ is the one who has created the access to God for such thanks to be offered.’  Looking in the Bible, all the prayers in the Old Testament are directed to ‘Lord’ or ‘God’, because Jesus had not come to earth yet. In the New Testament, which is mainly made up of letters from Paul, there seems to be a bit more of a split between praying to ‘Jesus’ or ‘God’. The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), which is the Jesus tells his followers to pray, begins with ‘Our Father in Heaven,’- that is God. When we pray to Jesus or the Holy Spirit, we are ultimately still praying to God, because they are all part of the trinity. As John Piper says, ‘Pray to God the Father in the power of God the Spirit, by the authority and the merit of God the Son’. For more on this topic, check out ‘Should I Pray to the Father, the Son, or the Spirit?‘ on Desiring God’s website.

ASK YOURSELF: How is your prayer life? Are you in constant conversation with God throughout your day?

Dear God, I pray that you will help me see the beauty and wonder that is a relationship with you. Thank you for everything you bless me with. Please help those around me to see you as the source of their blessings. Thank you for everything you do to point me towards a reliance on you. Amen.

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Romans 1:7

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

V.7 concludes the opening ‘greetings’ paragraph of Romans by letting the readers know, through salutations that were somewhat unique in standard ancient letter writing, that he wishes Grace and Peace to all in Rome. Not only that, but Paul is saying where the source of grace and peace comes from: God and Jesus. In our modern thinking it can be so easy to gloss over sentences that we have heard thousands of times, but back then, this teaching to the Jews in Rome was somewhat revolutionary and against what the believed (about Jesus being the Christ). In addition, Paul is saying that all (Jews and Gentiles) in Rome are called to be his holy people, not just the nation of Israel as they were in the Old Testament.

ASK YOURSELF: Do you have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ? What elements of a human relationship could be an analogy for your relationship with God?

Dear God, I thank you for enabling me to be in a right relationship with you. Thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross. I know I don’t deserve all these blessings.

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Romans 1:6

And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

Just for a contextual reminder, v.6 is in Paul’s opening greetings in his letter to the Romans. In the preceding verse, Paul explains that it is his special commission from God to reach out specifically to the Gentiles; ‘to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for [Jesus Christ] name’s sake.’ Here is v.6 Paul is telling the Romans that they fall into the category of people whom he is called to minister to. The other important message of this verse is the Gentiles are called to belong to Jesus Christ; they are being invited to belong to Jesus Christ. But all this talk of Gentiles. Who exactly were/are Gentiles?

The word ‘Gentile’ is Latin, stemming from gentilis which means family or clan. In most contexts, Gentile just means non-Jew. Therefore I’m a Gentile; I’m not Jewish. So who are the people that Paul is referring to as ‘Gentiles’ in Romans and where did they come from? Unfortunately there’s no consensus on where the Gentile Christians in Rome originated, because it definitely wasn’t directly from Paul. Theories for the origin of the Gentile Christians range from Roman Jews traveled to Jerusalem and returned to Rome to found the Christian church, to Christians from the various regions traveled to Rome and started the church without specific a specific church leader. There were definitely already a good number of Jews in Rome because Claudius felt the need to expel them (in ~50AD) from the city (Acts 18), as the Jews were trying to convert the Gentiles to Judaism. When Paul delivered the letter to the Romans (~55AD), the Jews were already allowed to return to Rome. What made the Gentiles and Jews different was their beliefs, mainly around who Jesus was and what was required to have a right relationship with God.  As we continue through Romans, we’ll definitely see a very clear divide between the two, and what caused the two groups to not work well together for the gospel.

ASK YOURSELF: Are you aware of all the other belief systems/denominations out there? Which align with the Christian worldview and which have differences?

I pray God that you will open my eyes to my Christian brother and sisters around the globe. Don’t let us be prideful for the denomination we belong to, but let us always remember what our mission is on this earth; bringing you glory and praise.

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Romans 1:5

Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake.

After the gospel layout in vv.3-4, Paul resumes his personal introduction in v.5, and I paraphrase here to understand what the wording of the sentence: ‘I received the grace of being commissioned, from God’s son, to call the Gentiles to be obedient. This obedience comes from faith in Jesus Christ’. (The ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ in my paraphrasing is because in his letters,Paul often uses plurals when talking about himself, and in this case v.1 shows Paul is just introducing himself.) Although Paul felt his special commission from God was to reach the Gentiles, he definitely preached to the Jews as well.

We’ll see the theme of obedience and faith come up a number of times in Romans because it’s one of the cornerstones of being a christian. When I first went through Romans in depth over a year ago, this topic, obedience and faith, was very exciting to have clarified. The clarification for me, and you might have the same question, is what comes first; obedience for what God asks of us, or faith in God? Does faith lead to obedience or does obedience lead to faith? As Moo puts it, ‘obedience always involves faith, and faith always involves obedience’. One does not come after or before the other. In this verse, Paul is saying that his apostleship (special commission from God) isn’t just to bring the Gentiles to faith, but to bring them to obedience in the continual spread of the gospel.

You can see how this works if we take faith and obedience to their extremes. A woman with complete faith in God that he will provide for her will take risks to be obedient and spread the gospel to the ends of the earth and love others. A man with no faith that God is going to provide for him is going to spend his time seeking comfort from earthly things, and little to no time being obedient. The woman with complete faith couldn’t not be obedient, knowing what God does in her life, and the man with no faith wouldn’t be obedient, because there is no benefit in being obedient to a cause without faith of benefit or consequence. (you might find my post ‘Are we to pray for physical matters?‘ interesting)

ASK YOURSELF: Do you see both faith and obedience in your life? Which one do you think is most deficit, and is that result of deficit in the other area as well?

I pray, God, that you will give me the strength to increase my faith and obedience. Let me know that you are worth obeying wholeheartedly. Let me know that I can put my complete faith and trust in you, leaving nothing left for my own anxieties and pride. 

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Romans 1:4

and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is what I would call a ‘Wait, What?’ verse; a verse that potentially tells me something theological I have never heard before, and could take a while to get my head around. It’s good to know with this verse, however, that I’m not alone in not being able to come to a 100% definitive understanding of this verse. If you read the commentaries and the research, there are many different questions that commentators and scholars look to answer here in v.4. For instance is it the ‘Spirit of holiness’ (as in the Holy Spirit) or ‘spirit of holiness’ (Jesus’ spirit of faithfulness to God)? And is this verse saying that Jesus wasn’t Son of God until after the Resurrection? If this is the case, then who was he before?

This verse is an important theological statement that Paul wrote to the Romans as part of his greetings. As a continuation of v.3, in v.4 Paul is further clarifying that Jesus Christ is the messiah, he is the Son of God, and his Resurrection was very important for both the Roman Jews and Gentiles. In regards to answering what the ‘Spirit of holiness’ is referring to, the short answer is no one knows for sure how the Romans would have understood this passage, but there is a strong consensus that is refers to Jesus’ ‘obedience and faithfulness to God’ because ‘Spirit of holiness’ is only used in this verse in the New Testament and when the Holy Spirit is talked about elsewhere, it is referred to as the Holy Spirit.

Answering the other fundamental question ‘When did Jesus become the Son of God?’, we must look at the adverb ‘appointed’. To say that Jesus was only appointed Son of God at the time of the Resurrection is to say before that point, Jesus was just another dude (This is called adoptionism Christology). Jesus was and is eternally the Son of God and messiah, sent to earth to save the world because us humans aren’t able to help ourselves. What he was appointed at the Resurrection is Son of God in power, able to save us sinners.

ASK YOURSELF: What do you believe? Do you believe in adoptionist Christology or functional Christology? How important to the sharing of the gospel are these distinctions?

I pray today that God will give me wisdom and understanding for the difficult questions, and peace that I won’t be able to understand everything as a fallible human, but this won’t stop me from sharing your love with those around me. 

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Romans 1:3

— regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David,

V.3 is the start of Paul’s clarification of what he is talking about when he mentions the gospel in vv.1-2; the gospel in which he will be going further in depth of later in the letter. The whole sentence is talking about Jesus, because Jesus is the gospel. In this verse Jesus is described as being God’s son, and also a descendant of David. Why did Paul take the time to clarify Jesus’ heritage?

Son of God

As we’ll explore in depth in v.4, Jesus is the Son of God, appointed to that role through the Holy Spirit. Being the child of someone gives you quite a connection to them; you share their DNA, proneness to balding and when they die, their inheritance will go to you (if they haven’t spent it on cruises). As Schreiner (1998) writes ‘…if Jesus is God’s true son, then membership in the people of God depends on being rightly related to Jesus’. This is relevant because the Jews in Rome, who are part of God’s chosen people (Israel), didn’t agree that Jesus was the Messiah that the prophets of the Old Testament were talking about.

Son of David

The Jews, rightly, believe that the Messiah will come from the line of David (2 Samuel 7:12-17), a King of Israel and man of God. Paul is providing evidence to the Jews that the gospel he brings does fit with the Old Testament promises. He is also reminding the Gentiles that Jesus was a Jew, and as we’ll see further in the letter, Paul will be constantly reminding the Gentiles of this fact to ensure they know that the Jews are, and will always be, God’s chosen people. Paul also points out that only in his earthly life was he a descendant of David. Jesus existed eternally before and will continue to exist as the Son of God.

ASK YOURSELF: Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? What impact does that have on the way you share the gospel?

I pray that God will give me continual guidance and wisdom as I explore and learn concepts, some of which are far beyond our human understanding.

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Romans 1:2

— the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures

Paul’s one sentence autobiography in v.1 ends with ‘…[I am] set apart for the gospel of God’. For further clarification of the gospel that he is talking about, Paul lets the readers know the gospel he is preaching is a fulfillment of the gospel that the prophets in the Old Testament were talking about. As a side note, the prophets Paul refers to are not just the ‘official’ prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, but include others like Moses and David.  As we’ll see further in Romans, Paul uses old testament scriptures regularly to give evidence for his arguments and teachings. ‘What is the exact gospel Paul is talking about?’ the Roman readers might be wondering. Well he’s about to spell out the gospel in vv. 3-5, so stay tuned for that.

But it might be an interesting exercise to look at what the ‘Holy Scriptures’ are that Paul is talking about. I’ve already referred to the Holy Scriptures as the Old Testament, but is that the same as what Paul was referencing?

Back in the early centuries AD, it is understood and believed by most scholars that Jesus and his followers used the Septuagint. The Septuagint (Also known as the LXX) was the first Greek translation of the Tanakh, or the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is estimated to have been definitely complete by 200BC and the Greek translation was completed very soon after. The Tanakh, although in a different order and the books are divided differently, the actual content between the Tanakh and our modern Old Testament hasn’t changed. Therefore we can be sure that the Holy Scirptures that Paul is referring to are the same as ours today, and we can read in confidence that Paul really is preaching the good news that he promised through the Old Testament men of God that we can read about for ourselves today.

ASK YOURSELF: Do I know the scriptures? Would I be able to stand up for my faith when challenged, with scriptural evidence for what I believe?

I pray that God will give me a passion for diving deeper into God’s word to learn more about him and the promises he had for his people, and the promises he has for me and my future.

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Romans 1:1

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God

Let me introduce myself to you

How would you write a letter to your brother? ‘Dear Nathan. You still owe me $20. From Mark.’ How would you write a letter to a prospective employer? ‘Dear Sir/Madam. My name is Mark and I would like to apply for the position of chocolate taste-tester at your factory…” How would you write a letter to a group of people in a different country in which you tell them how to live their lives? ‘Dear Italians. I have noticed that you’re not doing a very good job getting along with each other and you need some clarifications on theological ideas you live by. Let me give you some advice…’

That was the exact scenario that Paul was faced with when writing his letter to the Romans. At the end of the letter (spoiler alert), Paul writes he is looking for assistance when he comes to Rome on his way to Spain (Romans 15:23-29). As this is clearly a strong motive for writing the letter, Paul of course wanted the Romans to be willing to read past the first sentence! Therefore in Romans Paul gives a very detailed, theologically grounded greeting at the start of the letter (Romans 1:1-7), including a one sentence autobiography in v.1 telling the readers three things about the author; who he is, what authority he has to write and why he’s writing.

Who he is: ‘a servant of Christ Jesus’

Not only is Paul willing to call himself a servant of Christ Jesus, in that he submits all authority of himself over to the Christ Jesus the Messiah, but he is also saying that he is a servant of Christ Jesus in an employee sense. The prophets of the old testament, like Moses (Deuteronomy 34:5), were also referred to as ‘servants of the Lord’.

What authority he has: ‘called to be an apostle’

Although apostle comes from the Greek word literally meaning ‘messenger’, Paul was also using apostle here in the same sense as the twelve apostles. Paul was called to be an apostle, just like the twelve, by Jesus Christ and God the Father (Galatians 1:1), as a Jew with a mission to reach the Gentiles (Romans 11:13).

Why he’s writing: ‘set apart for the gospel of God’

Paul, in being set apart for the gospel of God, has totally dedicated his whole life (because God has called him to), to the sharing of the gospel; the good news of salvation through Christ. If someone has been set apart from their old life for something, it provides a strong indication of where the topic of conversation is going.

ASK YOURSELF: What would your one sentence autobiography be? What would other say your one sentence autobiography is?

I pray to God that I will recognise that I also have been set apart for the gospel, and that will be reflected in my life through the courage I have to share the gospel, and share God’s love with others through the things I do and say.