Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - A Warning Against Division | New Testament | Romans 1

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

As Patrick kicks off our time in Romans, he describes the reason that Paul felt the need to write to the Roman church. Find out how ethnic divisions in the church became such a big threat to the faith. Don't miss today's episode on Romans 1. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Romans 1

Welcome to 10 minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Today we start the book of Romans, and I have to say that only having one episode to talk about Romans 1 isn't fair, because I have to introduce the whole book and cover some of my favorite verses in the New Testament. So let's start with a quick introduction. The Apostle Paul wrote the letter to the Romans for one simple reason. He hoped to pass through Rome on a missionary journey all the way to modern-day Spain. But to do that, he knew that he would need

their hospitality and their financial support along the way. But this was going to prove kind of tricky for a few reasons. First, Paul had never been there. Most of his partner churches were churches he planted, where he knew everyone. But in Rome, that wasn't the case. He knew some of the people in the Roman church, but certainly not all of them. If they were going to support him, they need to understand his ministry and trust him to steward their resources well. So this letter is just a bit of a personal introduction. But the second reason he wrote it is that the church in Rome was divided along ethnic lines. The Gentiles had one church, the Jews had a different church. And when they tried to come together, well, it didn't go so well. Now, there's some history behind that divide. Back when the church

started in Rome, it was planted by Jews. And at that time, Jews were mostly in charge. But the church plant caused more than a little dispute amongst the other Jews in Rome. In fact, they began to publicly argue about Christ and whether he was really the Messiah. And apparently, the disturbance became so problematic that the Roman Emperor Claudius exiled every Jew from Rome. So now, suddenly, this young church lost all of its leaders. All that remained were the Gentile believers. And there were just a few of them. And so naturally, they took charge and they grew the church amongst their fellow Gentiles. Now, when the next Roman emperor took the throne, Nero, many of the Jews who were expelled, they came back. But the Gentiles weren't quick to give back the leadership positions. They now

held for a very long time. And not just that. The Jews who came back, they wanted to remain kosher, eat kosher food and practice circumcision. Well, the Gentiles, they didn't think that was a great idea. And so a fight ensued. Paul understood that a divided church could not support his missionary effort. More importantly, though, he believed that King Jesus was not honored by a divided church. In Christ, Jew and Gentile had been brought together into one family. This is exactly why he starts his letter with the proclamation of the gospel. Jesus is the one true king, which means there can only be one true table. The clear message is that if you share a king, you can share a table. Paul then goes on in chapter one to explain his desire to visit them and to garner support of

both Jews and Gentiles. He concludes this way in verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. So according to Paul, what unites Jew and Gentile? Well, it's not their ethnicity. It's not their eating habits. It's not the way that they dress. It's not their lifestyles. No, there's only one thing that unites them. Faith, allegiance to King Jesus. God reveals his own justice in the Bible by condemning sin in the body of Jesus

and opening the pathway to forgiveness for all who give Jesus their faith, whether they're Jews or Gentiles. And it's at this point that Paul begins to retell the entire biblical story in long form. He begins with humanity's fall in the Garden of Eden. This is, after all, the very reason why God's justice is needed. God must punish wrongdoing. But Paul wants us and that early church of Jews and Gentiles to see the core of all sin. Jew or Gentile sin. The core is idolatry.

The core is when we love created things more than our creator. And this disordered love, it leads to a disordered life. Romans 1.21. For although they, he's talking about, Humans in general knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images or idols made to look like immortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator who is forever praised, amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.

Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it was worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do what ought not to be done. They have been filled with every kind of wickedness. Evil, greed, and depravity. They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God's righteous decrees

that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them. Paul wants the church in Rome and us to know. This is our story. It's a story that begins with glory, God making a beautiful creation and humans in his image. But that glorious story crumbles into an idolatrous ruin,

which crumbles. into a ruined life. But as we'll see, God did not leave us in the ruin. No, God came to rescue us. And that rescue is the story unfolded in Paul's letter to the Romans, a letter designed to rescue them from the very ethnic divisions that divided them and the human sins that we humans love to create. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that's going to help you beat that midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.