Rom 14-15, theme verse Rom 14:8
The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.
In this sixteenth Sunday after the Pentecost, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and also the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life. Last week, we decided to live like Paul as he said he even was content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities since the power of Christ rested upon him at that time. This week through the Epistle to the Romans, we would like few lessons together.
1) Generally speaking, the Roman churches are believed to be established by the proselytes who experienced the Pentecost event in Jerusalem, converted to Christians through Peter’s sermon, and returned to Rome to start to preach Jesus as the Messiah. And as they grew, they began to conflict with Jews. In response, Emperor Claudius ordered all Jews in Rome to leave Rome in AD 49, and Jewish Christians of the Roman churches, including Priscilla and Aquila, left Rome and met Paul, who was on his second missionary journey, staying in Corinth and ministered together. So, only Gentile Christians remained in Rome to keep it, yet naturally the Jewish traditions were gradually dismissed. And then when Claudius died in AD 54, Jewish Christians such as Priscilla and Aquila returned to Rome, but they were only small number at church so that the tensions between the Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians were rising.
2) So, Paul who have been staying in Corinth around AD56, as he said in Rom 15:19, “from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ,” and also in Rom 15:23-24 that “since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come and see you, in passing as I go to Spain, to be helped on my journey there by you,” after hearing about this tension and recognizing the need to set up the theology of the Gospel in regard to the Israel, in AD 57, he wrote this Epistle to the Romans to help the Romans to understand the gospel, to explain the relationship between the justification by faith and the law and to improve the relations between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.
3) Looking at the Romans according to the ancient epistolary customs, in the sender formula of the opening, instead of typical simple expression of “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brothers, so-and-so” it contains a very extended unusual formular that, “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ” through which we can know that he tried to introduce himself very carefully to the unknown readers in Rome, by using three titles for himself; apostle, servant of Christ, and chosen one and also that he wanted to assure the legitimacy and credibility of the gospel by using confessional form in the opening. And in the thanksgiving section, expressing his gratitude for famous faith of the Roman Christians, he disclosed his intention to visit them to share spiritual gifts and to comfort each other. And finally in the closing section, in addition to two benedictions of peace, a letter of recommendation, and a doxology, he wrote the list of unique greetings to the 26 people, including with endearment and praise for each person, through which we can know that Paul wanted to highlight his close relationship with the leading people of of the Roman church.
4) And summarizing main themes of the body section, first, Paul says in 1:13-4:25 that God made all human beings know Him, I mean, His existence, by His eternal power and divinity through all His creatures, to thank and worship Him. But, because of sin and their corruption, human beings did not give thanks or glorify Him even though they knew that God exists so that they incurred God’s wrath and also their thoughts became foolish and they lived the life of injustice and immorality so that they would be judged by God for their good or evil deeds. Therefore, God placed His law in their conscience so that they would naturally live according to His law, and in addition, He chose the Jews and gave them the Ten commandments, the law of God by which they could live holy before God. But, neither the Jews nor the Gentiles lived according to God’s will in His law, because they could not follow the law due to the weakness of their flesh. So, God has revealed another righteousness of God apart from the law, sending His own Son, Jesus, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and by crucifying Him on the cross, he condemned sin in His flesh, thereby opening the way for human beings to obtain the righteousness of God. That was the faith in Jesus by which God justifies them.
5) And then in the second paragraph of 5:1-8:39, those who have been justified by faith in Christ, could be reconciled with God and be conformed to the image of His Son through endurance in tribulation while being glorified. And also they could live the life of holy worship of God presenting their bodies as a living sacrifice, while fulfilling the requirements of the law, that is, to love their neighbors, through which they could bring the reconciliation of the world, specially to both Jews and Gentiles. And in order to achieve such reconciliation, Paul specifically exhorted three things in today’s text: First, to accept the weak in faith and do not criticize their opinions. Second, going one step further, not to put anything in front of them that might cause them trouble or hinderance. And third, even to bear the weakness of the weak in faith.
6) Through Today’s text, we would like to learn few things. Firstly, in today’s text, there seems to talk about two faiths, I mean, the faith that can eat everything and the faith that eats in moderation and also the faith that considers all days in the Lord as the same day and the faith that keeps the feasts. So we would like to think about which faith is the strong. In one hand, the faith to live with freedom in all things seems strong, yet on other hands, the faith to live in moderation seems strong too. And also we would like to think about which faith was the faith of Gentile Christians or Jewish Christians among the faith that confesses everything God created is good and should be received with gratitude, and that all days in the Lord are equally precious days and the faith that they do not eat everything in moderation, also recognizing some were declared by God clean, but some unclean, even though everything God created is good and should be received with gratitude and also they live according to the spirit of the feasts God said, even though they know that all days are precious. If the former is the faith of Gentiles who do not think they need to keep the law, and the latter is the faith of Jewish Christians who keep their traditions even after converting to Christians, we cannot say the faith of Paul, a Jewish Christian weak, because it seems to me that the faith of Paul, a Jewish Christian who calls the faith of Jewish Christians weak, is more mature. Therefore, thinking that Paul’s humility saying that his faith is weak resulted in the reconciliation between the Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians, we have to be humble in our faith so that I pray that all of us here could be free and tolerant in non-essential to be peaceful with others, while one in essence, and love in all things.
Key Questions as Small Group Activity
Q1 According to today’s text, we need to think about which faith is strong, between the faith in truth and knowledge or the faith with moderation and to follow the spirit of the feasts God installed. So, after reviewing whether we are living in strong faith. I hope we could share our thought with our team members together to learn from each other.
Q2 And also as Paul showed in today’s text, our humility can result in peace as Prov 22:10 says “Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease.” So after reviewing our life, if we are achieving the reconciliation in the world through the humility, the tolerance and love, I hope we could share our experiences and thoughts with each other to learn from each other.
Love you. Thank you. God bless you.
Prayer Note
Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!
Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or even during the week )
Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!
Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),
please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized ).
I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon )
Please help me to live in that ( learned way of life )
I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.
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