comments on Romans 1-3

These are small oberservations during my readings of Romans 1-3.

1) Romans 1:5 "Through him and for his name's sake we recieved grace and apostleship TO CALL PEOPLE from among all the gnetiles to the obedience that comes from faith."
Unfortunately this only applies to Paul, the people associated with him, and other people called to apostleship. However, the word 'call' just struck me as I thought of the call of election (Romans 8:30). What a strong job we have!

2) Romans 1:8 "...your faith is being reported all over the world." Look at that for a moment. Even in ancient days when communication is hard, a church's faith is being reported across Christendom. We need more of this! Not just Christian publication like The Voice of the Martyrs, but to maybe take 5 minutes out of each service to just talk about other cool churches. Why not? We need community!

3) Romans 1:18-26 "The wrath of God is being revealed...against all the...men who supress the truth. ... Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts...to...the degrating of their bodies with one another." Basically Gods current wrath against wicked people is to give them over to the effect of sin. Feel sorry for those who are under wrath RIGHT NOW suffering under the bondage of sin.

4) Romans 2:1-5: the NIV translations of this passage (judging others when you yourself are wicked) tends to point towards individuals with use of added 'you's and larger phrases. However, the greek has almost none of that. Instead, Romans 2 flows with the preceding section (on God's wrath against ALL mankind), and simply states that none of us should judge because, as humanity, we're all sinful. This also accords with the thoughts of the gospel tracts we hand out, which begin with "All men have sinned..."

Brief explanation of text: Romans 2 continues the idea in 4), Romans 3:1-20 states that Jews are special in some ways but we're all sinners, and our sin exemplifying Gods glory does not justify it.