Notes on Romans 1

God calls us all Christians to his service, but not all of us answer.  When someone calls us on the phone, we may not answer because we do not hear the call (we're not there, we're busy elsewhere, or something distracts us), or because we do not want to answer (we don't want to talk at all, or we don't want to talk to the party calling us).  Our reasons for not responding to God's call are similar; we may not hear him because of the distractions of life, or because unconfessed sin has closed our ears to his voice.  We may recognize the call, and know what it means, but it involves our doing something we don't want to do, so we ignore it.  The consequences of ignoring, or being incapable of hearing, the Lord's call to action can affect not only us, but many others as well.  It doesn't have to be a call to fulltime ministry, like preaching or the missions field.  It may be teaching a class, or singing in the church choir, or helping at a homeless shelter.  When we refuse to be obedient, or don't even care that God has a plan for us, we lose our own reward, but we may also deprive others of help or blessing.  We could even cost someone their lives.  If Paul had, despite everything, ignored God's call to preach to the Gentiles, the Lord would have called someone else, but the loss for the ancient church, and for all Christians since, would have been incalculable.

Once we're called, if we accept the call, we're separated for the task God has called us to do.  That means that the Spirit shapes our behavior and attitudes in ways that befit God's instrument.  For example, Paul spent several years in Arabia under the instruction of the Holy Spirit before he started his ministry, and he had to learn to shed the legalistic, prideful attitude of a Pharisee that was his training and background.  For many pastors or missionaries, there may be years of intellectual training, besides spiritual preparation.  For the rest of us, the Spirit may have to overcome things like sinful habits, timidity (which was Timothy's problem (1 Timothy 4:12, 2 Timothy 1:7)), greed, or lust.  Anything in our lives that divides our loyalties, warps our priorities, or harms our witness can prevent us from being suitable instruments for God's purposes.  We are separated, set apart, from the worldly system we can be numbered among God's servants.  If we're not separated at least for purposes of salvation now, we will be separated for purposes of the Judgment (Matthew 25:32-33).

Once we are separated, we're also equipped; we receive the grace, or gifts, we need to perform the task, or tasks, God sets for us.  For a preacher, it may be the anointing to proclaim the Word of God in such a way as to enlighten, edify, or convict others.  For a teacher, it may be insights into Scripture that don't come from studying a book.  If we work with the needy and downtrodden, God will give us compassion, and discernment of needs and solutions.  When we're equipped, we can then be obedient in carrying out our role in sharing God's message and his love, with the lost, with our brethren, or with both.  Obedience not only brings blessings to others, but to us as well.  Such blessings, in our case, may be just the inner peace and contentment of knowing we are doing what God wants us to do; that by itself has no price.

Just as no one can put a price on inner peace, no one can put such a price on a reputation.  Even in the secular world, that reputation, in the form of our credit rating, can determine what we can or can't buy, and how much we end up paying.  Bad references can keep us from getting a job, or an apartment.  In spiritual terms, our reputation is our witness, the record in the eyes of others of what we do and say, and how that record measures up to the standard of godliness.  Not only individuals have reputations; churches do as well.  Both other Christians and unbelievers in a community know if a church is dead or alive, and whether or not its standards and achievements are worthy of praise, or of disgust.  An incident involving a pastor caught in infidelity, or in theft, can destroy not only his reputation, but that of the church he serves.  By contrast, a church that has an active outreach to the community, such as a good Christian school or a ministry to the poor, attracts favorable attention, and, often, people to enter its doors.  The Roman church was one Paul cited especially for its strong faith; there are certain churches even now that are known for their world-wide ministry, particularly those with strong pastors like Charles Stanley or Jerry Falwell.  There is a danger in such success; it can sometimes lead to complacency or spiritual pride, and a tendency to look back at past achievements instead of pressing on toward the goals God has set.

We can tell others we are ashamed of the Gospel of Christ in many ways besides voicing it in words.  If we don't care enough about it to ever share it, we're ashamed of it.  If we don't live by the standards of righteousness it proclaims, but cling to old habits and attitudes, we're ashamed of it.  That's the kind of reputation we don't want, but it's often the kind many churches and Christians now cultivate.  Why should the world want what we so clearly don't want ourselves?  A church that has no power is a church that has no faith; a church that has no faith has never accepted, or has ceased to accept, God's call to serve.  The same is true of individual Christians as well.

Faith, the Word says in several places, is what we live by, if we are just, or righteous.  When we have faith, we take God at his Word, accepting that what he says is true, even when we can't see it with our eyes, or hear it with our ears.  Beyond just believing, we act on what we believe, not trusting in our strength or abilities, but in God's.  If God says we should run, and we can barely walk, then we will run, because he says it's so.  If he says to witness to the lost, but we are shy and fearful, we witness to the lost, trusting him to give the boldness we need.  When the Bible teaches standards of behavior that invite the ridicule or hostility of others, we adhere to the standards, believing they're right because God says so.  The word "impossible" has no part in our vocabulary so long as we're obedient to God's will, and have faith that he will accomplish it in us.

The Bible is a book of contrasts, between sin and obedience, between man's will and God's, between faith and unbelief.  In order to set the stage for the later discussion about the law and faith, and about the natural man and the spiritual man, Paul first describes the state of those who deliberately reject the standards God sets for us all.  Whether we have ever heard of Christ or not, or ever heard of the scriptures or not, all of us have an innate sense of who God is, and what his requirements of behavior are.  Instead of responding to, and acting on, that knowledge, most men choose to follow their own imagination, and their own will.  They set up their own set of beliefs, which may envision some kind of supernatural presence or none at all.  Their gods may be the objects in the world around, or the skies above, or an intellectual system that pretends to hold the key to understanding all of the mysteries of the universe.  The disciples of the god of Science are almost as numerous as the adherents of Mohammed or Buddha.  They may even adhere to a code of conduct that approximates the Biblical standard, or they may practice every form of depravity, and modify their beliefs to suit their behavior.  If they claim, as many do, that there is no god of any kind, then they admit to no limits, and their gods become pleasure and self-gratification.  They may pretend to the name of Christ, but insist on a warped interpretation of scripture that excuses or endorses their perversion.  For such people, Christians who hold to Biblical standards and condemn their behavior are labeled as bigots and dangerous fanatics.  Like some famous lesbians performers, they may compare us to Muslim terrorists, or Adolf Hitler.

Even if they never hear the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but particularly if they do, God says such people are without excuse.  In every nation or culture, in every period of history, evil people are still evil in the eyes of God.  If their behavior becomes, or derives from, the standards of the culture, that still is no excuse.  Too many people have excused, or still excuse, their behavior with the plea, "Everyone else does it."  There is no majority rule in morality; what's right in God's eyes is always right, no matter what "most people" think.  It's not our environment that determines our behavior, nor our genetic code, but our choices.  Children are morally innocent until they reach the age of being able to make decisions about right and wrong; God gives us all the ability to discern the difference.