Tag: Equality

No Advantage, No Boasting — Faith That Levels the Church

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Romans, Scripture

Throughout this Romans series, we’ve watched Paul patiently dismantle every reason the Roman church might use to divide itself. From the opening greeting to the sweeping argument of justification by faith, Paul has made one thing unmistakably clear: no group stands higher than another at the foot of the cross.

In the previous posts, we saw how Paul exposed humanity’s shared problem—sin—and God’s shared solution—faith in Jesus Christ. Jew and Gentile alike are guilty. Jew and Gentile alike are rescued by grace through faith in Jesus. And yet, division persisted in Rome.

So Paul presses deeper.

When Heritage Becomes a Claim to Superiority

At this point in the letter, Paul anticipates the resistance of Jewish Christians who might say, “Surely we have an advantage. Look at what God has done through Abraham’s family. We were given the law. We received circumcision.”

Paul’s response is honest and humbling.

Yes—Israel gave the world the Messiah.
Yes—the Scriptures came through Abraham’s descendants.

But privilege does not cancel sin.

“What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.” (Rom 3:9)

This echoes what we established earlier in the series: righteousness is not inherited, achieved, or protected by tradition. Sin does not respect lineage. And salvation is not triggered by religious markers.

Paul dismantles the idea that possessing or following the law makes anyone righteous. In fact, the law does the opposite—it exposes guilt. Break it once, and you stand guilty of all of it.

And this leads Paul to his most important declaration so far.

Righteousness Revealed Apart from the Law

“But now…”

These two words signal a turning point not just in Romans, but in the entire story of Scripture.

Apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed. It is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference. All have sinned. All are justified freely by grace (Romans 3:21–24).

This is the leveling of the playing field we’ve been tracking since the beginning of the series. No advantage. No boasting. No leverage.

And Paul goes even further.

Abraham Proves the Point

If circumcision truly justified someone, Abraham would have been declared righteous after circumcision.

But Scripture says otherwise.

“Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3).

Paul emphasizes the timing. Abraham was justified before circumcision. Faith—not the sign—was decisive.

Once again, Paul eliminates every attempt to rank believers. Circumcision was a sign of covenant loyalty, not the means of salvation. Faith—pistis—was always the foundation.

And Paul hammers this relentlessly. From Romans 3:22 to 5:2, Paul references faith or belief 26 times. This is not accidental. He wants the church to feel the weight of it.

Faith as Allegiance, Not Abstraction

As we discussed earlier in this series, faith is not mere mental agreement. The Greek word pistis is better understood as allegiance—a lived loyalty that reshapes one’s life.

I highly recommend reading Gospel Allegiance by Matthew Bates on this subject.

We can “believe” many things without changing anything about how we live. But allegiance always produces action.

Faith has verbs.

This is why Paul insists that justification by faith does not lead to moral laziness. It leads to transformed loyalty. A church that truly pledges allegiance to Jesus must act like it belongs to Him.

And that action is most clearly seen in how believers treat one another.

A divided church cannot effectively proclaim a reconciling gospel.

Peace with God—and With Each Other

Romans 5 opens with the fruit of allegiance-faith: peace.

“Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

But this peace does not stop with God. It must overflow into the community of believers. Paul acknowledges the church’s suffering—not primarily from outside persecution, but from internal strife.

And yet, Paul insists this suffering is not wasted. God uses it to form perseverance, character, and hope—not hope that one group wins, but hope that God will be faithful to unify His people.

God proves His love not by choosing sides, but by pouring out His Spirit on both Jew and Gentile.

Christ died for the ungodly—all of us.

And if we were enemies of God who are now reconciled through Christ, how can we justify remaining enemies of one another?

That question carries us into Paul’s next movement: dying to sin and living a new life together.

This blog post is part of a series of posts on Paul’s letter to the Roman Church. You can see the rest of the posts here.

  1. When the Gospel Replaces Power with Peace
  2. Strong, Weak, and the Call to Build One Another Up
  3. Shared Story, Shared Family—Romans 9 and the People of God
  4. Grafted Together — Romans 10-11 and the Gospel of Unity
  5. One Gospel, Common Ground — Unity from the Very Beginning of Romans
  6. Same Problem, Same Grace — How Faith Makes Us One
  7. No Advantage, No Boasting — Faith That Levels the Church
  8. Dead Together, Alive Together — Life in the Spirit and the “We” of Romans 8

Same Problem, Same Grace — How Faith Makes Us One

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Romans, Scripture

As we established earlier in this series, Paul’s goal in Romans is not to win an argument—it is to heal a church. That healing requires radical honesty. And Romans 2 begins with exactly that.

“You have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else.”

Paul dismantles moral superiority by reminding the church that judging others while also being guilty of sin is nothing less than self-condemnation. Both Jewish and Gentile believers are guilty.

“There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (Rom 3:22-23)

As we’ve already seen, the gospel places everyone under the same authority: God’s judgment is real, impartial, and unavoidable. No ethnic group receives special treatment. No religious heritage grants immunity.

Unity begins with shared accountability.

When Religion Becomes a Stumbling Block

Paul then turns specifically to the Jewish believers, not to shame them, but to expose how privilege can distort faith.

They claim to guide others but fail to guide themselves. They condemn others while committing the same sins. And Paul quotes Isaiah to drive the point home:

“God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Rom 2:24; Isa 52:5)

In other words, disunity does not remain internal. It distorts the witness of Jesus.

Circumcision, Paul explains, has value only if the law is kept perfectly. Break the law, and circumcision becomes meaningless. Meanwhile, Gentiles who obey God without the law stand as a rebuke to those who boast in it.

True covenant identity, Paul insists, is not external. It is a matter of the heart—transformed by the Spirit of the Living God.

And as we’ve already noted in previous posts, the Spirit does not discriminate. He falls on Jews (Acts 2) and Gentiles (Acts 10) alike.

Same Spirit.
Same standing.
Same grace.

All Under Sin are Offered Rescue

Romans 3 brings Paul’s argument to a crescendo. Quoting Israel’s own worship songs—the Psalms—Paul reminds the church of what they already confess weekly: no one is righteous.

Without Christ, sin reigns.

The law reveals sin, but it cannot rescue from it. And then Paul delivers the turning point that reshapes everything:

“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Rom 3:21-24)

God’s righteousness has been revealed apart from the law. It is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

As we’ve emphasized throughout this series, justification is like aligning margins. God does not erase differences of culture or conscience—but He equalizes standing before Him.

All have sinned.
All are justified freely.
All stand by grace.

Abraham and the End of Boasting

Paul seals his argument by returning to Abraham—the shared patriarch of Jews and Gentiles alike.

Abraham was justified by faith before circumcision. Before the law. Before ethnic boundary markers.

Circumcision was a sign of commitment, not the source of righteousness.

If Abraham was made right by faith alone, then imposing law observance as a requirement for righteousness undermines the very story Israel treasures.

Abraham is the father of many nations. And those who share his faith share his promise.

Peace, Hope, and the Spirit We Share

Paul closes this section by returning to what justification produces: peace with God, access to grace, and hope that does not disappoint.

Why does hope endure?

Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit—the same Spirit given to all who believe.

Same problem.
Same solution.
Same Spirit.

And therefore, one people—called not to erase differences, but to live in unity shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul’s words to the Galatian believers summarizes this point well.

“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule—to the Israel of God.” (Gal 6:14-16) 

This blog post is part of a series of posts on Paul’s letter to the Roman Church. You can see the rest of the posts here.

  1. When the Gospel Replaces Power with Peace
  2. Strong, Weak, and the Call to Build One Another Up
  3. Shared Story, Shared Family—Romans 9 and the People of God
  4. Grafted Together — Romans 10-11 and the Gospel of Unity
  5. One Gospel, Common Ground — Unity from the Very Beginning of Romans
  6. Same Problem, Same Grace — How Faith Makes Us One
  7. No Advantage, No Boasting — Faith That Levels the Church
  8. Dead Together, Alive Together — Life in the Spirit and the “We” of Romans 8

One Gospel, Common Ground — Unity from the Very Beginning of Romans

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Romans, Scripture

In the previous posts in this series, we’ve worked carefully through Paul’s argument that the Roman church shares one story and belongs to one family. Jew and Gentile alike have been grafted into God’s covenant faithfulness through Jesus Christ. There is no “better group,” no privileged side of the aisle—only mercy received and grace extended.

That foundational truth leads us to a necessary conclusion:

Our shared story and our shared righteousness in Christ give us no right to divide from other brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are all made righteous by Christ.
We are all sinners and broken.
And none of us get to impose our will on others.

Paul is not promoting uniformity. He is promoting unity.

What’s remarkable is that Paul does not wait until the middle of Romans to make this case. He embeds it directly into the opening of the letter. Long before he addresses food laws, holy days, or the “weak and strong,” Paul establishes an understanding that makes division seem ridiculous from the very beginning.

The Gospel That Levels the Playing Field

As we saw in earlier posts, Romans is not a generic theological treatise. It is a pastoral letter written to a divided church. That context matters as we read Paul’s opening words.

Paul introduces himself as a servant of Christ Jesus, set apart for the gospel of God—a gospel promised beforehand through Israel’s Scriptures and fulfilled in Jesus (Romans 1:1–3). From the outset, Paul connects Jewish hope and Gentile inclusion into a single story.

Jesus is described as a descendant of David and, through the Spirit of Holiness, appointed Son of God in power by the resurrection. That phrase—Spirit of Holiness—would have resonated deeply with Jewish hearers. But “Son of God” would have rung loudly in Roman ears as well.

Caesar claimed that title.

Paul is quietly but unmistakably declaring that Jesus—not the emperor, not ethnic identity, not cultural authority—has been enthroned as Lord. And He was crowned not by military conquest, but by resurrection.

No emperor has risen from the dead.

That matters because once Jesus is confessed as Lord, no subgroup within the church gets to claim dominance. We all have a future resurrection awaiting us, thus we stand together under Christ’s Lordship.

Allegiance to Christ removes every other claim to authority.

Obedience That Comes from Faith

Paul explains that his apostleship exists to call all nations—Gentiles included—to “the obedience that comes from faith” (Romans 1:5). As we’ve seen repeatedly throughout this series, this phrase is central to Paul’s vision.

Obedience does not produce righteousness.
Faith produces obedience.

This places every believer on equal footing. Jew and Gentile. Slave and free. Torah-observant and non-observant. No one earns justification. Everyone receives it by faith.

Even Paul’s greeting reflects this unity. He blends charis (grace), a common Greek greeting, with shalom (peace), the traditional Jewish greeting. Grace and peace are not competing values—they belong together. The same is true of those who use those greetings in the church.

Before Paul corrects the church, he greets them as one people.

Mutual Encouragement, Not Spiritual Hierarchy

Paul’s desire to visit Rome is not about asserting authority. He wants to visit for the sake of mutual encouragement—shared faith strengthening one another (Romans 1:11–12).

This reinforces what we’ve already seen in earlier posts: spiritual gifts exist for mutual edification, not leverage (see Paul’s comments on 1 Corinthians 12-14 for more on this). The gospel dismantles hierarchy inside the church.

Paul even binds himself to both sides of the Roman divide, describing his obligation to Greeks and non-Greeks, the wise and the foolish (Romans 1:14). He refuses to sort the church into spiritual classes of winners and losers—right verses wrong.

That’s why Paul insists on preaching the gospel to people who already believe. Because the gospel does not merely save—it reshapes communities into the likeness of Christ.

Righteousness Revealed, Boasting Removed

Romans 1:16–17 introduces the thesis of the entire letter: the gospel reveals God’s righteousness, a righteousness received by faith from beginning to end.

As we’ve already explored in previous posts, this righteousness is not something we achieve—it is something God gives. And once righteousness is received rather than earned, boasting has nowhere to stand.

Which brings us to humanity’s shared problem.

Paul’s discussion of sin in Romans 1 is not aimed at outsiders alone. The list of sins—envy, strife, deceit, gossip, arrogance, lack of mercy—mirrors the very behavior dividing the Roman church.

The warning is clear: when believers fail to recognize what God is doing through the gospel—when unity is suppressed in favor of judgment—people experience the consequences of their own sinful divisions.

That leads directly into Paul’s confrontation in Romans 2.

This blog post is part of a series of posts on Paul’s letter to the Roman Church. You can see the rest of the posts here.

  1. When the Gospel Replaces Power with Peace
  2. Strong, Weak, and the Call to Build One Another Up
  3. Shared Story, Shared Family—Romans 9 and the People of God
  4. Grafted Together — Romans 10-11 and the Gospel of Unity
  5. One Gospel, Common Ground — Unity from the Very Beginning of Romans
  6. Same Problem, Same Grace — How Faith Makes Us One
  7. No Advantage, No Boasting — Faith That Levels the Church
  8. Dead Together, Alive Together — Life in the Spirit and the “We” of Romans 8

Grafted Together — Romans 10–11 and the Gospel of Unity

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Church health, Romans, Scripture

Romans 9–11 speaks powerfully to both sides of the Roman church’s divide—but Paul is intentional in how he addresses each group.

In Romans 9–10, Paul speaks primarily to the weak—mostly Jewish believers who felt both privileged by their heritage and threatened by the Gentiles’ freedom.

Paul begins with deep sorrow and love for his people. He acknowledges Israel’s immense advantage: adoption, covenants, law, worship, promises, and the Messiah Himself. But then he draws a painful line.

Heritage does not equal righteousness.

Being descended from Abraham does not automatically make someone part of what Paul means by “Israel.” True belonging has always been rooted in promise, not genealogy, and in faith, not accomplishment.

Romans 10 drives the point home: Israel was zealous—but sought righteousness in the wrong place. They tried to establish their own righteousness rather than submitting to God’s righteousness revealed in Christ.

That’s the warning.

The comfort is this: God has not abandoned Israel. He is keeping His promises—but He is keeping them through Jesus, not Torah observance.

Righteousness comes by faith.
For Jews.
For Gentiles.
For the weak.
For the strong.

And only by faith in Jesus can we be considered righteous before God.

A Word to the Strong

Then Paul turns to the strong—the Gentiles who had remained in Rome, gained influence, and were tempted toward arrogance.

To make his point, Paul uses one of the most vivid metaphors in Scripture: the olive tree.

Gentiles are wild branches grafted into Israel’s cultivated root. They share in the nourishment—but they do not support the root. The root supports them.

Paul’s warning is sharp:
Do not be arrogant.
Do not bully the weak.
Do not mistake grace for entitlement.

God grafted you in by kindness—and He can cut you off if you aren’t bearing Christlike fruit.

Love for one another is our responsibility.
Judgment is God’s responsibility.

The strong do not get to weaponize God’s judgment against the weak. They do not get to impose their will, erase conscience, or rewrite the story to center themselves.

Unity is not optional in the church because it is the gospel lived out for the world to see.

Living the Story We Proclaim

Paul insists that divisions within the body of Christ contradict the message of reconciliation we claim to believe.

Strong looking down on weak is sinful.
Weak imposing control over strong is sinful.

Why?

Because neither reflects the story God is telling—the story of two becoming one, of branches grafted together, of enemies reconciled into family.

We are called not only to believe the gospel of unity—but to embody it through the way we live and worship together.

Our relationships preach to the world around us.

They preach to Gentiles.
They preach to Jews.
They preach to a watching world desperate for something better than power struggles and tribalism.

And Paul’s conclusion is clear:

God is faithful—to Israel, to the Gentiles, to the weak, and to the strong. Our God is always faithful.

Therefore, the strong must embrace the weak.
The weak must welcome the strong.
And together, they must live as one family in Christ Jesus.

Because anything less distorts the gospel we claim to proclaim.

This blog post is part of a series of posts on Paul’s letter to the Roman Church. You can see the rest of the posts here.

  1. When the Gospel Replaces Power with Peace
  2. Strong, Weak, and the Call to Build One Another Up
  3. Shared Story, Shared Family—Romans 9 and the People of God
  4. Grafted Together — Romans 10-11 and the Gospel of Unity
  5. One Gospel, Common Ground — Unity from the Very Beginning of Romans
  6. Same Problem, Same Grace — How Faith Makes Us One
  7. No Advantage, No Boasting — Faith That Levels the Church
  8. Dead Together, Alive Together — Life in the Spirit and the “We” of Romans 8

Shared Story, Shared Family — Romans 9 and the People of God

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Church health, Romans, Scripture

In my last two blog posts, we’ve worked to establish the context of Paul’s letter to the Romans. This was not a calm, unified church receiving abstract theology. It was a deeply divided community—primarily along ethnic lines—trying to follow Jesus in the heart of the Roman Empire.

Emperor Claudius had expelled Jewish Christians from Rome, leaving Gentiles to shape the church’s life and leadership. When Jewish believers eventually returned, the church they came back to no longer felt like home. Customs had changed. Power had shifted. And before long, the church found itself divided into two camps Paul famously calls “the weak” and “the strong.”

The strong could tolerate more.
The weak could not.

And the strong interpreted the weak’s convictions as a sign of inferior faith.

If that sounds distant or theoretical, it shouldn’t.

During the COVID pandemic, I watched churches fracture along similar lines. I got to see this personally in two congregations. One congregations had many members who worked in medical professions. The other half were mostly farmers and oil field workers. They were working with different data, different risks, and different lived realities—and some began accusing the other side of having weak faith based on the decisions they made in good conscience.

One church leader proudly proclaimed to me, “Not one thing has changed in my life since this nonsense started. I don’t know what everyone’s problem is.”

And at the same time, I buried dear friends who died of COVID and from suicide during the pandemic. I also buried my grandmother whose funeral would normally have exceeded capacity of the church building. Instead, it was only a few family members in attendance due to regulations.

Everything in my life changed.

This is not an ancient problem. It is a human one.

And so Paul writes Romans to show the church how to replace power and privilege with the peace that comes from the gospel, so they can become a truly righteous community.

Righteousness Begins with Relationships

Here’s a main theme in Romans—one that’s easy to miss:

If we do not allow the gospel of Jesus Christ to shape how we relate to one another, we are not a righteous community.

If we do not allow the gospel to shape our understanding of peace, we are not righteous.

And if we insist on defining righteousness on our own terms rather than God’s, we will never stand righteous before Him.

That is why Romans 9–11 matters so much.

Paul does something unexpected here. Instead of focusing on individual salvation, he zooms out to tell a story—a shared story—reminding the church who they are together.

A Shared Story, Not Competing Stories

Romans 9–11 is packed with names and narratives.

Abraham and Sarah
Isaac and Rebecca
Jacob and Esau
Moses and Pharaoh
David
Elijah
Hosea
Isaiah
Exile and return
Failure and mercy

These are not random references. Paul is reminding the church that they belong to a long, unfolding story of God’s covenant faithfulness.

And here’s the key:
Paul is not asking, “Which individuals will be saved?”
He is asking, “Who are the people of God?”

That distinction changes everything.

Romans 9:4–5 lists Israel’s privileges—covenants, law, worship, promises, patriarchs, and the Messiah Himself. And Paul emphasizes something shocking:

God accomplished all of this through the weak.

Paul’s argument is not about superiority…about who’s right and who is wrong. It’s about faith. God has always worked through unlikely people, flawed families, and broken systems to accomplish His purposes. And the people he chose to work through were chosen because of faith.

One Family, One Promise

What Paul reveals is that God’s plan was never ethnic exclusivity. It was always inclusion of the other.

God has been faithful to Abraham’s family in order to include the nations in his salvation.

This one family—Jew and Gentile together—is what Paul elsewhere calls “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:15–16). Not defined by circumcision or uncircumcision, but by living the new creation reality in Christ.

This means Romans is not telling their story.

It’s telling our story.

When our story culminates in Christ—when righteousness comes not from heritage, law, or effort, but from Jesus—blame dissolves. Superiority collapses. Division loses its footing.

You are not the problem.
I am not the solution.
We are the people God is redeeming.
Together we are the Israel of God.

And that changes how we see one another.

This blog post is part of a series of posts on Paul’s letter to the Roman Church. You can see the rest of the posts here.

  1. When the Gospel Replaces Power with Peace
  2. Strong, Weak, and the Call to Build One Another Up
  3. Shared Story, Shared Family—Romans 9 and the People of God
  4. Grafted Together — Romans 10-11 and the Gospel of Unity
  5. One Gospel, Common Ground — Unity from the Very Beginning of Romans
  6. Same Problem, Same Grace — How Faith Makes Us One
  7. No Advantage, No Boasting — Faith That Levels the Church
  8. Dead Together, Alive Together — Life in the Spirit and the “We” of Romans 8

Strong, Weak, and the Call to Build One Another Up

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Church health, Romans

One of the most misunderstood sections of Romans is Paul’s discussion of “the strong” and “the weak.”

The issue appears simple—food laws, holy days, personal convictions—but Paul reveals something much deeper: the danger of confusing personal conviction with spiritual superiority.

The “strong” were likely mostly Gentiles, confident in their freedom.

They felt they were superior knowing food sacrificed to idols was a farce, and they had no qualms eating it and praising the Lord for it.

The “weak” were likely mostly Jewish believers, shaped by Torah and conscience.

For them, such actions offended their sensibilities, and they felt victimized that others in the church wouldn’t adopt their practices on such issues.

The two groups hold polar opposite views.

And Paul does something surprising.

He refuses to tell us who is right.

Instead, he tells us who is responsible.

Acceptance Without Agreement

Paul opens Romans 14 with a radical command:

“Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.”

Acceptance is not based on agreement with each other—it is based on our mutual standing before God.

The strong must not despise.
The weak must not judge.

Why?

Because God has accepted both.

Paul reinforces this by introducing a parallel issue—holy days.

Some observe them. Some ignore them.

Again, Paul refuses to pick sides.

Each must be fully convinced in their own mind. Each one’s beliefs and actions on these matters are done “to the Lord.”

Uniformity is not Paul’s goal. Unity is.

Living Before God, Not Each Other

Paul reminds the church that none of us live—or die—for ourselves.

Every decision we make is lived before God.

When we judge motives, we place ourselves in God’s seat. When we prioritize our rights and our desires over love, we forget who the church belongs to.

Paul’s warning is sobering:

“Why do you judge your brother or sister? … We will all stand before God’s judgment seat.”

Unity breaks down when we stop asking, “Does this honor God?” and start asking, “Do I like this?”

Rights, Love, and the Kingdom of God

Paul acknowledges freedom—but he reframes it.

The kingdom of God is not about eating and drinking.
It is about righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The question is not, “Am I allowed?”
The question is, “Am I building up my brothers and sisters in Christ, or am I tearing down members of Christ’s body?”

True gospel freedom expresses itself through self-limiting love.

Paul’s call is not to abandon conviction—but to consider it less important than loving one another.

Christ, the Ultimate Example

Paul closes this section by pointing us to Jesus.

Christ did not please himself.
Christ bore insults.
Christ became a servant for Jews and Gentiles alike so that with one voice, God might be glorified.

This is what righteousness looks like in community.

Not power.
Not privilege.
Not control.

But peace.

And when the church lives this way, the gospel is no longer just proclaimed—it is visible.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.”

That is Paul’s prayer.
And it remains God’s invitation to the church today.

This blog post is part of a series of posts on Paul’s letter to the Roman Church. You can see the rest of the posts here.

  1. When the Gospel Replaces Power with Peace
  2. Strong, Weak, and the Call to Build One Another Up
  3. Shared Story, Shared Family—Romans 9 and the People of God
  4. Grafted Together — Romans 10-11 and the Gospel of Unity
  5. One Gospel, Common Ground — Unity from the Very Beginning of Romans
  6. Same Problem, Same Grace — How Faith Makes Us One
  7. No Advantage, No Boasting — Faith That Levels the Church
  8. Dead Together, Alive Together — Life in the Spirit and the “We” of Romans 8
Unity in Diversity in Romans

When the Gospel Replaces Power with Peace

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Church health, Romans

Romans can be a complicated read.

It’s is not a letter you rush through. It is dense, pastoral, theological, and deeply practical. Trying to distill its message into a handful of lessons (in the way Romans is often taught) is a tall order…one I had to accomplish recently at an adult retreat for another church in our area.

In my experience, Romans is usually referenced, but not studied. It’s venerated for being “theological,” but never really wrestled with by church Bible studies.

But Romans was never written to be admired from a distance. It’s not supposed to be a theology textbook. It was written to shape a community.

And the struggle the Roman church faced is not all that different from the struggles our churches in the United States face today.

Before Paul ever gets into the weeds of doctrine, justification, or the Spirit, he is addressing a church fractured by power, privilege, and competing visions of righteousness. His aim is nothing less than replacing those things with the peace that comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That purpose is captured succinctly in Romans 1:17:

“For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last.”

If the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel, then the gospel must transform us. God’s righteousness is not meant to be added onto our existing assumptions—it is meant to replace them.

Put simply:
If I want to be among “the righteous who live by faith,” I must adopt God’s definition of righteousness, not my own. And that only happens through faith in Jesus Christ, revealed through the gospel.

When “Righteous Community” Gets Complicated

Early in my ministry, I experienced firsthand what happens when a church says it wants to be righteous—but hasn’t fully allowed the gospel to redefine what righteousness looks like.

A church I was working for had been stagnant for a while. Leadership was dwindling. The preacher was nearing retirement. Elders were ill or passing away. Deacon was largely a title, not the description of “service” one would expect. Growth had long since plateaued.

A few months after being hired as a youth minister fresh out of college, I unexpectedly became the preaching minister.

We wanted to be a righteous community—followers of Jesus committed to growing the kingdom and reaching the lost. And once we started doing that, people showed up.

New residents. Longtime locals turning their lives around. Newlyweds. Newly remarried. Newly re-remarried.

People were being baptized, and attendance grew.

Then one Sunday afternoon, the phone started ringing.

One tearful call after another. People telling me they would never step foot in our church again—maybe any church ever again.

A longtime member had taken it upon herself to call these new people and tell them they were not welcome at “her church.”

That same day, an elder resigned after receiving threats from the same person—because, in her mind, leadership was letting “ruining” her church.

That story still haunts me. Not because it’s unique—but because it’s far too familiar.

When the church we know starts to look different, we can begin acting in profoundly un-Christlike ways. If we are not intentionally shaped by the gospel, we will default to protecting our preferences, our comfort, and our sense of control—and we will destroy our witness about Christ in the process.

The Problem in Rome

The Roman church faced its own version of this crisis.

The gospel had taken root in Rome, but history complicated everything. Emperor Claudius expelled Jews from the city, forcing Jewish Christians to leave (see Acts 18:2). Gentile believers became the majority. Leadership shifted. Customs changed.

Eventually, Jewish believers returned.

And when they did, the church looked different. Bacon was being served at the potluck, so to speak.

What they experienced felt like a loss of power, influence, and identity. And that perceived loss produced division.

Rome itself reinforced hierarchy:
– Citizens over non-citizens.
– Men over women.
– Free people over slaves.

And yet, when Paul lists the members of the Roman churches in Romans 16, the picture is stunning.

Women in leadership. Gentiles entrusted with Scripture. Slaves named alongside free people. House churches filled with diversity.

Phoebe—a Gentile woman—is the deacon letter carrier, interpreter, and likely the one who performed Romans before the congregations.

Paul could have solved the tension by sorting people into separate churches. Jews meet with Jews, and Gentiles meet with Gentiles. That’s the easy solution.

But Paul didn’t do that.

Instead, he wrote Romans pleading with both groups to be unified.

Because unity in diversity is not a problem to fix—it is the gospel on display.

The righteousness of God is revealed not just in what the church believes, but in how it lives together.

And therein lies the lesson for American churches. Instead of constantly attacking each other over minor differences in understanding, instead of separating along racial lines, instead of maintaining the “us versus them” identity wars in the pulpits, we should be united.

We serve one Lord.

We share one baptism.

The same Spirit points us to the same Savior.

Our likeness far outweighs our differences. And that’s what Paul emphasizes to the Roman church.

“There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Maybe if we will focus on Paul’s message in Romans, then our churches can begin to embrace the unity in diversity that proclaims the Gospel rather than our divided communities that preach against it.

This blog post is part of a series of posts on Paul’s letter to the Roman Church. You can see the rest of the posts here.

  1. When the Gospel Replaces Power with Peace
  2. Strong, Weak, and the Call to Build One Another Up
  3. Shared Story, Shared Family—Romans 9 and the People of God
  4. Grafted Together — Romans 10-11 and the Gospel of Unity
  5. One Gospel, Common Ground — Unity from the Very Beginning of Romans
  6. Same Problem, Same Grace — How Faith Makes Us One
  7. No Advantage, No Boasting — Faith That Levels the Church
  8. Dead Together, Alive Together — Life in the Spirit and the “We” of Romans 8

Daily Psalms – Psalm 67

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Psalms, Scripture

Daily Psalm Reading – Psalm 66-70

Today we turn our attention to Psalm 67, a short psalm with a powerful reminder. But first a bit about poetic form.

Psalm 67, as well as a number of other Biblical passages (both poetic and not) form a chiasm or chiasmus. I use the analogy of going up and back down stairs to try to explain this. If I ascend and descend three stairs, then the pattern is thus: 1, 2, 3, 2, 1. So in a chiasm both verses on “step 1” are bookends of the poem, and are related. Same for “step 2”, and “step 3” would be the pinnacle, or main point of the poem. Psalm 67 forms a chiasm with three steps.

To show the pattern I’ll use our example of steps from above.

  • Step 1 – vs. 1-2
    • Step 2 – v. 3
      • Step 3 – v. 4
    • Step 2 – v. 5
  • Step 1 – v. 6-7

Let’s look at the relationship between each step, the main point, and what it means for us today.

May God be gracious to us and bless us;
may he make his face shine upon us
Selah
so that your way may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.

Psalm 67: 1-2 CSB

Notice that the purpose of the blessing to “us” is in order that God’s salvation be made to “all nations.” This is a key theme in the Hebrew Scriptures that Israel often missed. Their purpose (and ours) is to proclaim God’s good news and salvation to those who do not know him, “all” of them!

The central claim of the psalm is God’s goodness and fairness toward the nations which should result in praise of everyone!

Let the nations rejoice and shout for joy,
for you judge the peoples with fairness
and lead the nations on earth.
Selah

Psalm 67:4 CSB

This central statement about God is bracketed by step 2 in verses 3 and 5 with the same call to praise by “all the peoples.” And the psalm closes with another blessing for “all” peoples.

The earth has produced its harvest;
God, our God, blesses us.
God will bless us,
and all the ends of the earth will fear him.

Psalm 67:6-7 CSB

Over and over the psalmist reminds us that the purpose of God’s people, the purpose of God’s blessing, the knowledge of God’s salvation, and the role of God and his people in the world is to make Him known to all peoples! Every one of them!

So what are you doing to reach all peoples for God? What are you doing to teach all nations about him? How much time do you spend with those who look different than you, act different than you, believe different than you, etc?

The great fault of Israel is they chose to isolate and insulate against the world rather than reach out to them for God’s glory. Is the church today guilty of the same?

I leave you with a quote from the late British missionary to India, Lesslie Newbigin.

“Christians have no effect in the world as long as they refuse to engage the world.”

Lesslie Newbigin

Eve: Equality with Adam – Part 2

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Genesis, Women of Scripture

We continue our look at the women of the Bible by looking again at Eve’s story. Last week we noted that nothing in Genesis 1 or 2 indicates that Eve is somehow inferior to Adam. In fact, it proves quite the opposite. Both Adam and Eve are fully created in the image of God. We ended with a question last week: Who sinned first? Adam or Eve? Let’s look at a few verses to find the answer.

And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.

1 Timothy 2:14 NIV

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned…

Romans 5:12 NIV

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

1 Corinthians 15:21-22 NIV

Confused yet? Upon first glance it would appear Paul is too, but not quite. Let’s look at one more verse.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Genesis 2:15 NIV

The word for “take care of it” would be the Hebrew word shamar which means “to keep, guard, keep watch and ward, protect, save life.” Adam was charged as the keeper and protector of the Garden. Yet in Genesis chapter 3 as he is with Eve (3:6), he fails to do this. (by the way, all of the serpent’s statements are made using the plural “you,” not singular).

Eve was the first to be deceived (per Paul), but Adam failed to shamar his wife and the Garden from the deception of the serpent. Notice also that both the humans and the serpent are punished; first the serpent, then Eve, then Adam. All three sinned.

So who sinned first? Could it have been Adam for not kicking the serpent out of the Garden? Perhaps. The serpent for deceiving Eve (3:14)? It would seem likely this was the first, although the serpent isn’t human (that’s a theological discussion for another time). Was it Eve who ate the fruit?

I think the way the story is told is intentional to show how intertwined we humans are. Adam was supposed to obey God through his shamar of the Garden and Eve. He failed at this at the same time Eve failed at obeying God’s command through the deception of the serpent. Genesis 3 is not an elevation of man over woman. It shows us that sin is a problem that affects all creation – humans, animals, and even the garden which is now devoid of its human caretakers. Sin affects everything. This is not a problem that we can blame on Eve or Adam. I think Paul understood this as well.

There is no difference…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Romans 3:22-24 NIV

Question: So does God want Adam to now rule over Eve because they have sinned?

Eve: Equality with Adam

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Genesis, Women of Scripture

Today we will begin a series of articles that will focus on the women of the Bible. I must confess that for many years I read the Bible without noticing many of these names and their significance to God’s story, but they are significant to God’s story! Knowing the stories of these women is vitally important to understanding the nature of God. Based on a show-of-hands poll at a recent Bible conference I attended, many (including some in ministry) don’t know these stories even though the Spirit placed them in the pages of the Bible. I hope in some small way these articles will begin to change that. The first woman we will look at is not a stranger to most. In fact she’s the first woman of all: Eve.

Eve has received a lot of blame, scorn, and shame throughout the centuries even though she did what you and I do virtually every day – Eve disobeyed God. For some reason scholars and believers have tried to make Eve somehow fundamentally less than Adam, though that was certainly not how God viewed things. Eve was created equal to Adam. She is just as important to God’s story as he. Consider the following verses:

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27 NIV

Notice that both Adam and Eve are created fully in the image of God. Notice also that they are one: mankind. Nowhere in the story is it even hinted that Eve is somehow less than Adam. Our roles of gender inequality have been heavily influenced by Plato and Aristotle who believed that women were sub-human, less human than men (see Politics 1.1260a). For years we’ve read this worldview onto the story of Eve, as well as other women in Scripture.

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Genesis 2:18 NIV

Time for a Hebrew lesson. The Hebrew phrase translated here as “helper suitable” and in other translations “help meet” is ezer kenegdo. Many look at this phrase from an English standpoint and say this means Eve was less than Adam because she was his helper. The problem with that is that God himself is referred to as our ezer (helper) in a number of places in Scripture (see Ps. 33:20 for example). Does that mean that God is somehow less than us because he helps us? Quite the contrary! He is more powerful than us which means he can help us! God himself is the only other ezer in all of Scripture: God & Eve! The word kenegdo regulates ezer by indicating that this is a helper in likeness, someone who is like the other that can help. According to Dr. Kindy DeLong, without kenegdo a Hebrew reader would have to assume that Eve was more powerful than Adam, but kenegdo shows equality.

Nothing in Genesis 1 or 2 indicates that Eve is somehow inferior to Adam. In fact, it proves quite the opposite. Both Adam and Eve are fully created in the image of God. Eve is a “helper” (ezer) for Adam just as God is a “helper” (ezer) for the psalmist. Instead of God being superior to the psalmist, Eve here is portrayed as equal (kenegdo) to Adam. Next week we’ll look at Genesis 3, and how the New Testament uses that story.

Question to consider: Who sinned first? Adam or Eve? (hint: re-read Gen. 1-3)

Much of the content of this article was inspired by a lecture i attended given by Dr. Kindy DeLong during Harbor 2019 at Pepperdine University. You can listen to the lecture by clicking here.