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Thank you for listening to FirstDay. I am Patrick Cooley. Visit the website at firstday.us, and there you can subscribe and share. You can link over to Apple Podcasts, and Spotify, and Amazon Podcasts. So we're gonna continue on here in, Romans chapter 1 beginning at verse number 8.
Patrick:So by way of just a very, very brief review, because we we kinda touch on this, and Paul touches on this in just a minute, that if you recall from the last episode, the main issue that is facing the Church of Rome is that it is a divided church, both between the Greek or Gentile Christians and the Jewish Christians. Claudius had kicked the Jews out earlier and now the Jews, the Jewish Christians have come back to the church to find the doors shut. And so here in this very first section here beginning at verse number 8, verses 8 to 17, Paul, I think, really kind of lays out at least kind of the foundation or the the the the coating and the sprinkling of the the idea of of identity and Christian identity and living into that identity. And we'll see that here in in just a bit. And then, of course, he fleshes this out all all through the letter along with the doctrine and how the doctrine of faith and the doctrine of Christianity talks about how we are redefined.
Patrick:We are no longer what we used to be, which is something that Paul has already mentioned to in his letter to the Galatians. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. And and, in second Corinthians, for in Christ, there is a new creation. So, and so we get a lot more codification and fleshing out in detail about these things. And and Paul is using that to and using this to his advantage in trying to mend the rift that is in this church in Rome.
Patrick:So verse number 8. And, oh, and again, I used the this would be using the NASB 2020. 1st, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the world. For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers requesting, if perhaps, at last, by the will of God, I will succeed in coming to you. So Paul explains to them here, or Paul announces to the church there in Rome, that what he is doing, he is he is doing because it's really in his heart, in his mind, in his soul to do it.
Patrick:He in verse number 9, I serve in my spirit the preaching of the gospel of his son, meaning he can he can't do anything else other than proclaim the gospel as who he is. By the way, it's my spirit with a a small s. So it's something that he has devoted himself to, and and that is to preaching the gospel of of God's son, Jesus Christ. He also he starts the section off though at verse number 8, explaining how and he's encouraging, giving some words of encouragement to church of Rome because their faith is being proclaimed throughout the world. So that the Romans are or have made an impact, and and maybe, you know, this is the this this is Paul's kind of sucker punch.
Patrick:He's drawn them in and said, oh, oh, first first, I thank God for all of y'all because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. Yeah? And then he's gonna kind of sucker bunch them later on. Maybe. He he's essentially saying there that they and the Roman church are by extension Christians, and the church is we're supposed to be living our lives in in ways that proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, that proclaim the faith to our world in the way that we do things.
Patrick:And then Paul in verse number 9 says, and he can do no other. He is proclaiming the gospel of his Son, Jesus of of God's Son, Jesus Christ, and He can do no other, for He serves them in His spirit. And and Paul says here also that he he wraps up here at verse 9 by telling the Romans that he is constantly praying for them. He he unceasingly makes mention of them in his prayers to God, and he knows that God is his witness on that one. He doesn't need to prove it to anybody else that he's he's he's lifting them up.
Patrick:God God is his witness. And finally, there in this little verse number 10, he he tells them that he he has been wanting to come to visit them. Because remember, he didn't found the church of of of Rome, but he's been wanting to come to the church of Rome. But so far, he hasn't been able to do so. And at verse number 11, he tells the Romans why he wants to visit them.
Patrick:For I long to see you, so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established or you may be strengthened. That is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine. So the strengthening So so Paul wants to come to them, but God has thus far prevented him from doing so. He wants to come to them so that, he can impart a spiritual gift. And, you know, he's been a a good chunk of Corinthians talking about spiritual gifts and the purpose of spiritual gifts to build up the body.
Patrick:I want to come and share the spiritual gifts with you, some spiritual gifts with you, so that you can be strengthened. And this is what it means to be strengthened. Verse number 12, that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us, by the other's faith, both yours and mine. So it is the example of one's faith for the encouragement of others so that that other person's faith may grow. This is why Paul this is the per ultimately, this is the purpose of the spiritual gift.
Patrick:The spiritual gift exists to build up the body in faith. He's not contradicting anything that he said in 1st Corinthians. And so if you wanna know know more about that, go back and 1st Corinthians, right, 12, 13, and 14, I believe are the ones where he really focuses on spiritual gifts and on love. So the purpose of the spiritual gift is to encourage faith, to deepen faith. Verse 13.
Patrick:I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that often I have planned to come to you and have been prevented so far, so that I may obtain some fruit among you also just as among the rest of the Gentiles. So he wants to come to them so he can obtain some fruit. Paul believes, I think, wholeheartedly that faith will produce, and that as our as we are strengthened, I e as our faith is deepened, as our as we share our faith, as we encourage each other to grow in faith, that will never that will never be a fruitless endeavor. There will always be fruit coming from this. Verse number 14.
Patrick:I am under obligation, or I am a debtor, both to the Greeks and to the uncultured, the the non Greeks or Hellenes, both to the wise and to the foolish. Paul essentially is laying the foundation for his argument later on here in Romans, that actually starts pretty quickly, that they are no longer themselves and they are no longer their own. They now live under obligation to each other in the same way that Paul is under obligation to them. By answering his call for Christ, by coming to faith in Christ, by serving God in his spirit, by preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, he is under obligation to them. He is in debt to them, meaning he has to serve them.
Patrick:There is he's got to share the gospel. And I I think that's something that, as we go on here in this letter of the Romans, is one of the issues that Paul has to address because as I mentioned in the introductory episode, Jewish Christians are telling Paul to tell the gentile Christians to make them to be like them and vice versa. They are not in obligation to each other. They don't see their relationship as as as obligatory. We often, as modern day Christians, don't want to think that.
Patrick:You know, we we don't want to think that there's any sort of obligation because Jesus paid it all, as the as the song goes, which is an incredibly shortsighted and I believe, and we'll find ultimately, as we study on through Romans, I believe that it is a misunderstanding of the debt that Jesus pays on the cross. When we come to faith in Christ, we are now obliged just as Paul is, who was obliged to bring the gospel to the Romans, to Gentiles and to Jews, to the wise and to the foolish, to the Greeks and to the uncultured, as it puts it in the NASB. And modern day Christianity well, modern day evangelicalism, which I I claim to be an evangelical, is very much wrapped up in self. The obligation is believed to be between me or the believer and God, but we have to always remember Jesus' command or Jesus' stating that the greatest commandment is to love God and the second is just like it, or the second is is hooked onto it. The second is part of it, love our neighbor as ourselves.
Patrick:We we cannot have a one way relationship with God. We can't have a relationship with God in faith that does not spread out to others. We are obliged in our faith once we have entered into Christ, Paul is saying here, we are obliged to one another. It's when we oblige ourselves to Christ, we oblige ourselves to one another because that's essentially what Jesus does for us, isn't it? He he dies so that we might become the righteousness of God.
Patrick:He dies to do what we could not do. He dies to pay all of the cost or the bills or the fines of, the old covenant, of not being able to live into that. So Jesus paid all that for sure. So, so Paul says there in, 14 again, I am under obligation both to Greeks and to the uncultured, both to the wise and to the foolish. So for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
Patrick:He didn't found the church, but he's e but he is equally obliged to preach the gospel to the Christians of Rome. Just because he doesn't have a relationship with them directly in a personal relationship with them, just because he doesn't know them enough to like them or to dislike them, that does not free him from the obligation of living out and proclaiming the gospel. How often do we limit the proclamation of our faith and the good and wonderful things that Christ has done for us and sharing them to the people that we know and the people that we love. Paul is obliged to them, though he doesn't know them. He they are his responsibility, though he doesn't know, for he is a debtor to them.
Patrick:Verse number 16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to anyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith or by faith to faith, as it is written, but the righteous one will live by faith. So it is the gospel that Paul preaches, the Christ Christ that Paul proclaims in his words and his actions and his teaching. We'll see in Philippians 49, later on when when we get there, Paul telling the telling the Philippians to watch what he does and do what he does, and then they will be guaranteed, essentially, the presence of the God of peace.
Patrick:And so, Paul here is is telling us and he's telling us that faith levels the playing field. Faith calls it faith makes the difference the differences and differentiation between us go away. The gospel, the salvation of everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So the Jew can claim a relationship with Jesus Christ and live into that relationship through faith. We've we'll have we'll have some discussions about faith as we go on here and and what that means.
Patrick:It's a lot broader than just mental assent or or an opinion, but the Greek also is open to receiving that salvation because the Greek too can choose to respond. Faith is an incredible leveler because there is no longer a Jew, and there is no longer a Greek, and there is no longer slave, there is no longer free, there is no longer male, there is no longer female. Paul's already talked about this to the Galatians. So, yeah, I believe it's the Galatians. And so he's already written about this, and so now, as I mentioned when we cover that in Galatians, this letter, to the Romans is very much a fleshing out of that statement.
Patrick:And we see the very beginning of it right here. Though Paul is a Jew, his obligation just isn't to Jews. Though though Paul, is a Christian, that does a person of faith, that does not mean that his obligation is only to people of faith. Note, like he said before, I am I want fruit not only from you so that I may verse number 13. So that I may obtain some fruit among you believers also just as among the rest of the Gentiles.
Patrick:That's everybody else. Paul's obliged to everybody because he has faith. This is the, or this is the point around which his argument throughout the letter to the Romans pivots, that they are no longer Jew, and they are no longer Greek, but they are in Christ. They are no longer Jewish or gentile, but they are in Christ. They they have died, and Christ now lives.
Patrick:And so how they treat each other, how they approach each other, how they approach other people must be predicated upon the new identity, the one identity that they have in Jesus Christ. So I am Patrick Cooley. Thank you for listening to FirstDay. Visit the website at firstday.us. You can reach out to connect at firstday.us.
Patrick:If you have any questions or comments or want anything fleshed out. And so until next time, blessings. Thank you for listening, and goodbye for now.