\u201cFor even though they knew God, they did not glorify God as God, nor were they thankful. But in their foolish disputations, their uncomprehending hearts were darkened. Even while claiming to be wise, they became fools.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey traded in the glory of the immortal God for idols made in the likeness of perishable entities \u2013 human beings, birds, beasts, and even serpents. For this reason, God handed them over to the lusts of their hearts, with the result that they engaged in impure and dishonoring acts together.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey traded God\u2019s truth for a lie, and worshiped and sacrificed to created entities rather than the Creator who is blessed forever \u2013 can I hear an Amen? For this reason, God handed them over to dishonoring lusts, so that even their women swapped their natural submissive sexual roles with men for sex with one another. Likewise their men left the natural use of women as sex objects and burned with passion for one another \u2013 men doing obscene things with men! They\u2019ve received the appropriate consequence for their error.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven as they disapprove of having knowledge of God, God gave them over to an impure mind, to do unseemly things. They are filled with injustice, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, quarreling, deception, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, full of hubris, arrogant, boastful, inventors of new ways to do evil, disobedient to parents. They are uncomprehending, untrustworthy, callous, merciless. Everyone who does the righteous deeds of God knows that those who do such things are worth of death, right? And not only those people who do these things, but those who approve of them too!\u201d<\/p>\n
And so, whoever you are who talks in the manner I\u2019ve just imitated, passing judgment on others \u2013 you are without any excuse! For in every instance you condemn another, you actually condemn yourself, being guilty of the same things. We know that God\u2019s judgment on those who behave in this way is in accordance with the truth. And so do you really think that you will escape God\u2019s judgment, when you condemn what others do while doing the same things yourself? Do you have so little appreciation for the wealth of God\u2019s kindness, and tolerance, and patience? Are you unaware of God\u2019s goodness leading you to repentance? But in accordance with your own stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are instead stockpiling anger for yourself on the day of anger, the disclosure of God\u2019s justice.<\/p>\n
For (as Psalm 62:12 says), \u201cGod will reward each person according to their deeds.\u201d For those who seek glory, honor, and immortality by persisting in doing what is good, there will be eternal life. But for those who act out of self interest, who disobey the truth and yield to injustice, there will be passionate anger.<\/p>\n
There will be suffering and distress for every human being who does evil \u2013 first for the Christian, then for the non-Christian. And there will be glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good \u2013 first for the Christian, then for the non-Christian. \u00a0For God shows no favoritism.<\/p>\n
As many as sin without the Bible will be destroyed without the Bible, and those who have the Bible and sin will be judged in accordance with the Bible. For it is not those who hear the Bible\u2019s teachings who are considered righteous before God, but rather those who do what the Bible teaches. For when those who are not Christians and do not have Scripture do by nature what the Bible teaches, they are a Bible for themselves, even though technically they have no Bible. They show that the works taught by the Bible are written on their hearts. Their conscience bears witness to them, and their thoughts will accuse them and\/or approve them in the day when God will judge human secrets in accordance with the good news which I proclaim through Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
________________________________<\/p>\n
I decided to substitute \u201cChristian\u201d and \u201cnon-Christian\u201d in the text towards the end, where the original has \u201cJew\u201d and \u201cGentile.\u201d There is simply no way for Christian readers to feel the impact of what Paul was saying in the way that his Jewish contemporaries would have without making this substitution.<\/p>\n
And I really do believe that, if Paul wrote to Christians today, and was aware of the extent to which Christians resemble the viewpoint he opposed, he would write something along these lines.<\/p>\n
I do not anticipate that I will be able to continue to make such a substitution consistently throughout my \u201cRetelling Romans\u201d series. But I felt it was important to do so here in order to accurately convey the import and impact of Paul\u2019s words in their original context for a contemporary audience.<\/p>\n
I had to also refer to \u201cthe Bible\u201d rather than more specifically to \u201cthe Law\u201d or \u201cthe Torah\u201d \u2013 but that is not a radical change, since the Torah was and is Scripture for Jews, and is not just laws. And so referring to the Bible or Scripture is arguably a close correspondent to Paul\u2019s meaning.<\/p>\n
At the start of the section, I placed the viewpoint that Paul is imitating \u2013 only to lure readers in and condemn them for agreeing with it \u2013 in quotation marks.<\/p>\n
Although the section from 2:17 onward ought to be included for the sake of continuity, since it is part of the same large point, I felt that doing so would make this blog post so long that it might be less likely to be read.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cGod\u2019s anger is being poured out from heaven on all the godlessness and injustice of those\u00a0people who, in their wickedness, suppress the truth. Because that which can be known about God is known to them \u2013 God has made it known! From the creation of the cosmos, God\u2019s invisible aspects (God\u2019s everlasting power and divinity) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[1848,2997,3106,3872,4005,4745,5709,5990,6034,6504,8716,8815,10400,10537,13863,13907],"class_list":["post-14513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-romans","tag-christians","tag-elect","tag-epistle","tag-gentiles","tag-god","tag-homosexuality","tag-jews","tag-judgment","tag-justice","tag-letter","tag-paraphrase","tag-paul","tag-righteousness","tag-romans","tag-works","tag-wrath"],"yoast_head":"\n