Paul, a bondservant of
Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which he
promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son
Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the
flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of
holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the
faith among all nations to His name, among whom you also are the called of
Jesus Christ; To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans
1:1-7)
This is not exactly the “hey, how’s it going?” opening line
that I would have used. Paul has a way
of saying so much with so little words.
Each word he uses there is power behind it. There is no wasted space. You can’t really skim through his letters
without missing boat loads of truths.
What I tend to do with scripture like this is read it fast and then
translate in my mind, “okay, he is saying hello.” It is the lazy way of reading scripture. Doing so, you can fall in to the trap of
wasting time reading without really understand and letting it change your life.
Paul, a bondservant of
Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle… (1:1)
I would have just said “This is Jordan .” I imagine the Church in Rome already knew who Paul was without him
describing himself. We know his good
friends Aquila and Priscilla were influential
in the church. Why does he describe
himself in this way? I have two
theories. One is to remind himself of
who he is. Two is to remind others of
his authority. Three is to be a living
example for the church. Four is that it
was common for people at that time to write letters in this fashion. I realize that is four theories but two came
to me as I was writing. Regardless of
his reasons, this statement reveals a lot about how Paul thought of
himself. He was a “bondservant” of
Christ. He served Jesus. That was the core of who he was. I feel challenged, do I consider my identity:
“Jordan, a servant of Jesus?”
Paul then continues by stating great truths about the gospel
(or good news) of Jesus. These are a
loaded few verses. It was promised by
the Prophets before he was born (there are so many references to this in the OT
it is ridiculous; here are just a few: Isaiah 9:6-7, 53:1-12, Jeremiah
31:31-34, Ezekiel 36:25-27). He was born
of flesh but was ultimately declared to be the Son of God through His
resurrection. It is through Jesus that
believers, including Paul, have received grace.
It was nothing we deserved by works, but it is from Him alone.
For by grace you have
been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God,
not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Ephesians 2: 9-10)
This grace produces obedience to Jesus among all
nations. We have been saved and now we
are his witnesses throughout the whole world, including the believers of Rome in 56 A.D.
To all who are in Rome
This is the only letter Paul writes in which he addresses
the letter to “all.” He is not writing
just to the church in Rome or the saints in Rome , or to a particular individual in Rome ,
but to everybody in Rome ! All who are in Rome (and everybody in the world) are beloved
of God and called to be saints. We are
all sinners called to salvation. He
knows the initial audience will be believers but his purposes for this letter
are far greater. That is my theory
anyway.
Paul makes it clear who he is and exactly who he is writing
to in relation to the Kingdom
of God
Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
And he is just getting warmed up.
No comments:
Post a Comment