Hello everyone, today I will be talking about Romans chapter 1. First however I would like to set up some groundwork so we aren't led astray in our studies. Paul is probably the most misunderstood writer in all of the scriptures. We are told by Peter himself that Paul is hard to understand consider:
Lawlessness
Bear in mind that the patience of our Lord means salvation—just as our dearly loved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom given to him.
He speaks about these matters in all of his letters. Some things in them are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist (as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures)—to their own destruction.
Since you already know all this, loved ones, be on your guard so that you are not led astray by the error of the lawless and lose your sure footing.
Note here that Peter says that the "lawless" are the ones who are misinterpreting Paul here. The first thing people will tell you about Paul is that he says the Law of God has been done away with. However, if the "Law"less ones are the ones misinterpreting Paul we need to be extra careful that we do not misunderstand him. That being said Paul has no authority to change scripture. In fact the only one who has ever walked this earth that did have the authority, wouldn't have been the
Messiah had he changed anything. See Deuteronomy 13. That being said let's jump into Romans chapter 1.
The Good News
We start out by Paul stating that he is proclaiming the Good News that was given through the Prophets. That concern the son of God, Yeshua. These first few verses of Paul's letter to the Romans should already be raising a few eyebrows to the conventional teaching of Paul's letters. Here we see that he is not proclaiming the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts) but the Good News that had been given through the prophets. Paul was a Torah scholar, he knew that all of the scriptures that Israel had up to this point alluded to the promised Messiah. So when Paul received Revelation that Yeshua was the Messiah it was like the missing puzzle piece was put into place and Paul was able to see the whole picture! In verse 5 we see that Paul says we are called to bring about Obedience of Faith. We will cover this more in depth as we move along. For now we will leave this to say that Faith in a Hebrew mindset is a verb not a noun. Faith means believing AND doing. For example, if I believe that my car will get me safely to my destination, but I never drive my car, my faith will get me nowhere. As James says in his letter "Faith without works is dead"
Continuing on we see that Paul is thanking the Roman believers for their Faithfulness and that he talks about them frequently and that he misses them. In verse 16 we see again that he is referring to the Good News. In context, the Good News given through the prophets concerning Yeshua.
The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
For I am not ashamed of the Good News, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who trusts—to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In it the righteousness of God is revealed, from trust to trust. As it is written, “But the righteous shall live by Faith.”
Romans 1:16-17
This is a quote from Habakkuk 2:4
"...But the righteous will live by his Faith."
But wait, that means that living by Faith is not a new idea? No. The righteous have always lived by Faith. No one has ever been justified by the works of the Torah. It is only by Faith we are saved through grace. In Hebrews 11 we see a list of those who were saved by grace through faith in the Tanakh. Interesting to say the least! Continuing on we see that Paul then tells us that all are guilty. We have no excuse for not knowing God because there is evidence everywhere for His existence. Psalms 19 tells us that the Heavens declare the Glory of God. There is no excuse for anyone to say they did not know of God. Instead of fearing Him and turning from their wickedness, they turned away and their hearts became dark and they worshiped the creation not the creator. Then God gave them over to a depraved mind. This is exactly what we are seeing today in our culture. Every instruction that we have been given by God is being broken and flaunted nationally and all around the world in our present day. Verse 32 says:
Though they know God’s righteous decree—that those who practice such things deserve death—they not only do them but also approve of others who practice the same.
Righteous Decree
The righteous decree Paul is talking about is referring to the Torah. If Paul was going to teach against the Torah do you think that he would be calling it a righteous decree that those who practice these things deserve death? Absolutely not! Because Paul knows that Obedience leads to life and blessings and disobedience leads to death and curses. Us disobeying God's instructions does not make God's word bad it means we are slaves sold under sin. We will cover this more in depth in a few chapters.
Thank you all for reading I hope you learned something and were blessed. Shalom