18 God shows his anger from heaven against all the evil and wrong things that people do. Their evil lives hide the truth they have. 19 This makes God angry because they have been shown what he is like. Yes, God has made it clear to them.
20 There are things about God that people cannot see—his eternal power and all that makes him God. But since the beginning of the world, those things have been easy for people to understand. They are made clear in what God has made. So people have no excuse for the evil they do.
In the above text, Paul is establishing God's anger and coming wrath on those who sin without any regaurd. Remember roman's was written to a seed church and Paul was establishing the foundations of the Gospel to it. In that in order for one to repent, and live with God one must be able to see and identify sin. Paul is establishing the great 'dislike' God has for sin here, and placing responsibility for it on the sinner. I also think it is important to show there is a level of difference between sin and Evil. Evil being a want or lust for sin/To be in sin. It is to the evil people of this world that Paul is trying to identify.
21People knew God, but they did not honor him as God, and they did not thank him. Their ideas were all useless. There was not one good thought left in their foolish minds. 22 They said they were wise, but they became fools. 23 Instead of honoring the divine greatness of God, who lives forever, they traded it for the worship of idols—things made to look like humans, who get sick and die, or like birds, animals, and snakes
The same issue CAN be said today, but instead of idols, people worship themselves through science. I know that sounds like a ignorant 'Christian thing to say,' but hear me out. I am not saying all science is bad. Infact I have embraced MOST of it and assimilated it into my faith. What I am saying is that those who use science to say because we understand this process, their can be no God, are the modern equlivant of the Idolitars in Paul's day, because they use 'the thing of their own making' to replace God in their lives, which gives them the freedom to live as they want to per Paul's list.
I believe 'science' (at it's core) is man's attempt to catalog and identify the natural processes God has put into place for this realm to work. So in essence the usage of 'science' has become the modern false idol, when infact it could be used as a tool to strengthen one's belief and understanding of God. The only thing 'science' does in relation to God is disprove the idea that God is magic and must remain so.
24 People wanted only to do evil. So God left them and let them go their sinful way. And so they became completely immoral and used their bodies in shameful ways with each other. 25 They traded the truth of God for a lie. They bowed down and worshiped the things God made instead of worshiping the God who made those things. He is the one who should be praised forever. Amen.
26 Because people did those things, God left them and let them do the shameful things they wanted to do. Women stopped having natural sex with men and started having sex with other women. 27 In the same way, men stopped having natural sex with women and began wanting each other all the time. Men did shameful things with other men, and in their bodies they received the punishment for those wrongs.
28 People did not think it was important to have a true knowledge of God. So God left them and allowed them to have their own worthless thinking. And so they do what they should not do. 29 They are filled with every kind of sin, evil, greed, and hatred. They are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, lying, and thinking the worst things about each other. They gossip 30 and say evil things about each other. They hate God. They are rude, proud, and brag about themselves. They invent ways of doing evil. They don’t obey their parents, 31 they are foolish, they don’t keep their promises, and they show no kindness or mercy to others. 32 They know God’s law says that anyone who lives like that should die. But they not only continue to do these things themselves, but they also encourage others who do them.
As I pointed out with the use 'science' as an excuse to distance themselves from God, God allows them to do so. Truly look at the list Paul wrote in the first century and compare today. Aside from the reason/specifics, the end result and method is the same.
Eitherway Paul knew that his target audience would be made up of people who lived this way or knew of someone who did. This whole last part of identifying sin in Rome, was not meant as a dig or a way to show case how much better he was than them. (later he goes into great detail of his own inability to stop sinning.) Rather He is drawing a constrast of those who love, yern, and seek to justify this list of sin/evil by pointing to their 'Idols'/science, and how god has turned them over to their own sin. Meaning he/God is not trying to stop them. (In this life) In essence God let them find what it was their heart truly was looking for.
The above passage is why I've argued with so many of you that we all A/S/K for something, and if we put the same effort into finding God as most put in to distance themselves from Him, they would indeed find him.
All the bible quotes were taken from the easy to read version: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=ERV
20 There are things about God that people cannot see—his eternal power and all that makes him God. But since the beginning of the world, those things have been easy for people to understand. They are made clear in what God has made. So people have no excuse for the evil they do.
In the above text, Paul is establishing God's anger and coming wrath on those who sin without any regaurd. Remember roman's was written to a seed church and Paul was establishing the foundations of the Gospel to it. In that in order for one to repent, and live with God one must be able to see and identify sin. Paul is establishing the great 'dislike' God has for sin here, and placing responsibility for it on the sinner. I also think it is important to show there is a level of difference between sin and Evil. Evil being a want or lust for sin/To be in sin. It is to the evil people of this world that Paul is trying to identify.
21People knew God, but they did not honor him as God, and they did not thank him. Their ideas were all useless. There was not one good thought left in their foolish minds. 22 They said they were wise, but they became fools. 23 Instead of honoring the divine greatness of God, who lives forever, they traded it for the worship of idols—things made to look like humans, who get sick and die, or like birds, animals, and snakes
The same issue CAN be said today, but instead of idols, people worship themselves through science. I know that sounds like a ignorant 'Christian thing to say,' but hear me out. I am not saying all science is bad. Infact I have embraced MOST of it and assimilated it into my faith. What I am saying is that those who use science to say because we understand this process, their can be no God, are the modern equlivant of the Idolitars in Paul's day, because they use 'the thing of their own making' to replace God in their lives, which gives them the freedom to live as they want to per Paul's list.
I believe 'science' (at it's core) is man's attempt to catalog and identify the natural processes God has put into place for this realm to work. So in essence the usage of 'science' has become the modern false idol, when infact it could be used as a tool to strengthen one's belief and understanding of God. The only thing 'science' does in relation to God is disprove the idea that God is magic and must remain so.
24 People wanted only to do evil. So God left them and let them go their sinful way. And so they became completely immoral and used their bodies in shameful ways with each other. 25 They traded the truth of God for a lie. They bowed down and worshiped the things God made instead of worshiping the God who made those things. He is the one who should be praised forever. Amen.
26 Because people did those things, God left them and let them do the shameful things they wanted to do. Women stopped having natural sex with men and started having sex with other women. 27 In the same way, men stopped having natural sex with women and began wanting each other all the time. Men did shameful things with other men, and in their bodies they received the punishment for those wrongs.
28 People did not think it was important to have a true knowledge of God. So God left them and allowed them to have their own worthless thinking. And so they do what they should not do. 29 They are filled with every kind of sin, evil, greed, and hatred. They are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, lying, and thinking the worst things about each other. They gossip 30 and say evil things about each other. They hate God. They are rude, proud, and brag about themselves. They invent ways of doing evil. They don’t obey their parents, 31 they are foolish, they don’t keep their promises, and they show no kindness or mercy to others. 32 They know God’s law says that anyone who lives like that should die. But they not only continue to do these things themselves, but they also encourage others who do them.
As I pointed out with the use 'science' as an excuse to distance themselves from God, God allows them to do so. Truly look at the list Paul wrote in the first century and compare today. Aside from the reason/specifics, the end result and method is the same.
Eitherway Paul knew that his target audience would be made up of people who lived this way or knew of someone who did. This whole last part of identifying sin in Rome, was not meant as a dig or a way to show case how much better he was than them. (later he goes into great detail of his own inability to stop sinning.) Rather He is drawing a constrast of those who love, yern, and seek to justify this list of sin/evil by pointing to their 'Idols'/science, and how god has turned them over to their own sin. Meaning he/God is not trying to stop them. (In this life) In essence God let them find what it was their heart truly was looking for.
The above passage is why I've argued with so many of you that we all A/S/K for something, and if we put the same effort into finding God as most put in to distance themselves from Him, they would indeed find him.
All the bible quotes were taken from the easy to read version: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=ERV
