Year 2, Day 24: Romans 1

Personal Confession

Okay, this may be the biggest challenge I will have faced with respect to the blog.  The book of Romans is one of my all-time favorite books of the Bible and I could likely do a blog post on each paragraph, much less each chapter.  So I will endeavor to keep them readable … but I will be letting a few things slip through the cracks in doing so.  So … the comments section is wide open if I don’t address a part of the passage that you get something out of as you read!  It’s just not possible to cover it all for the next 16 days!

Paul, the Slave

“Paul, a ‘doulos’ of God.”  Doulos is a Greek word that literally means “one who becomes the property of another.”  If your Bible says servant, scratch it out and write in the word slave.  It is one thing to be a servant of God; it is entirely another thing to be His slave.

Let me expound.  A servant does something because they feel like they are willingly serving their master.  But this mindset backfires, because there will inevitably be days when I am unwilling because of the task or because of my human “bad mood.”  When I think of myself as a servant, I open myself up to be subject to my own mood and my own attitude.  That is not at all who Paul was! 

Paul was a slave.  Paul gave up his attitude and mood and just did what God called him to do.  That’s precisely what makes Paul such an awesome example for us.  Paul was God’s slave.  God commanded; Paul did.  Yes, there are days where Paul wrestled with God – see the Corinthians as an example.  Paul wasn’t perfect.  But his mindset was slave, not servant.  God demands obedience and contrition, not a person who “decides” to go along with His work.

Paul’s mindset was that he was God’s property.  That’s precisely what the word “doulos” meant.  That is what makes Paul great in my eyes.  He doesn’t need to be anything but God’s property.  He knows that being God’s property is far better than being a person of his own choosing.  Wow.  Now that’s a powerful challenging thought to American culture and the modern (or post-modern) mindset!

Paul, the Apostle

Paul also uses the word “apostolos,” which we often think of as “Apostle.”  We turn it into a title, but it is not a title.  It is a job description.  The word apostolos literally means “one who is sent (to do the bidding of another).”  Paul is a person who was sent to do God’s work.  He is sent by God.  He isn’t out doing his own work.  He isn’t out making his own path.  He is out actively looking for where God is leading.  Again, Paul’s focus is not on his own greatness but on God being the master in charge.

Paul and the Gospel

Paul then begins this awesome section about not being ashamed of the Gospel.  How cool is this?  Here is Paul, who gave approval to the death of Stephen, now saying that he is not ashamed of that which he tried desperately to snuff out!  Awesome!  And why should he be ashamed?

Paul goes on that add that the reason he is not ashamed is because through Christ God has brought salvation to those who don’t deserve it.  That is what the rest of the chapter is about.  Paul talks about how God has been made plain to the world.  God has been declared to the world through words in some cases and through nature in other cases.  God’s fingerprint is all around us! 

Excuses, Excuses

None of us have any excuse.  All of us are guilty of the list of sins that Paul asserts as we close out this chapter:

• Our hearts are darkened by our humanity
• We claim to be wise in our thinking but we show our foolishness when we ignore the pursuit of God
• We glorify things of our own making
• We pursue the lusts of our own hearts
• We exchange the relationship that God desires for unnatural relationships that we desire
• We are filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slander, hatred for God, insolence, haughtiness, boastfulness, disobedience (especially to parents), foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness, ruthlessness

So God gives us over to what our hearts desire.  God watches us sink into the sin that our hearts pursue.  God knows the guilt that rests in our heart.  We are guilty, friends.  There is no decree that we deserve except for the decree of our guilt.

Knowing this, do we still desire to think of ourselves as God’s servants and dislike thinking of ourselves as God’s slaves?  No, having deserved death let us become God’s slaves.  Let us become His property, for clearly we do not deserve even that.  Knowing the depth of evil that lay within our individual hearts and our collective communal essence, why would we want anything other than to be God’s slave?  The more we add of ourselves to God’s work, the more we are likely to despoil it.  Rather than force ourselves on God, let’s learn to be content doing what He desires us to do.

Humility before God is righteous.  God desires contrition and a broken heart.  Let’s give Him that today.

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