Romans 1, part 2

Good interpretation always takes context into account. The church in Rome consisted of Gentile (that is, non-Jewish) believers in Christ and recently returned Jewish believers. The emperor had expelled all Jews from Rome some years earlier, and then the empire allowed them to return. The church, which for a good while was much more culturally homogeneous now was dealing again with thorny cultural differences among the members.

Some of the Jewish believers held that people had to become Jews first (the men circumcised as part of this conversion) before they could become Christian. So Paul writes a letter which is also a book-length essay to the church to argue that all human beings have the same status before God.

In verses 18 to the end of the chapter Paul seems to allude to the entire history of humans, from the time of creation. In the first chapters of Genesis, God creates Adam (Humankind) and Eve (Chava, which sounds almost like Chaia, that is Life). God sets them in the Garden of Eden (Delight) and gives them both freedom and the full run of the world except for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (that is, deciding for themselves what is right and wrong instead of trusting God to make that determination). The humans listen to the temptation spoken by a talking snake and disobey God.

From the beginning humans have gone their own way and preferred their own counsel to that of God, who, because he gave them freedom, instead of destroying everyone (Genesis 6 through 11), set out to redeem us from the evil consequences of our disobedience. Paul says that everyone is without excuse, because God can be known from the natural world. Unfortunately, he doesn't explain just how that works, but he point he is making is that this estrangement from God applies to everyone. We think we are wise, but in so doing we become fools (verse 22). People make their own gods out of wood or stone, and nowdays in some photographs and some movies, in the images of humans or animals, who are all mortal. preferring them to the one God who lives forever.

In the rest of the chapter, Paul makes a list of awful behaviors that have resulted from worshiping the creature(s) rather than the creator. Most commentators make a great deal of verses 24-27, which deal with sexual behavior, and gloss over the remainder (28-32). This is picking an choosing rather than reading in context.

When Paul condemns undisciplined sexual practices, he is summarizing (very briefly) what many ancient Greek and Roman ethicists and social critics had already said before him. This was nothing new to any of the listeners of this book in the church. Most would readily agree, though I can imagine the Jewish Christians at this point would feel quite satisfied with Paul's criticizing how the people of the ancient Mediterranean world lived, which was different from Jewish practice. However, were not the people of ancient Israel criticized often by the prophets for worshiping idols?

The discussion of sexual practices is preceded by mention of idolatry and followed by condemnation of "evil, covetousness, malice...envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless" (New Revised Standard Version). Why do we not condemn envy and gossiping on the same level as sexual misconduct? The text certainly intends to condemn all of these practices equally. No human can claim to be blameless. This truth is fundamental to the rest of the book/letter.

As for sexual practices, Jesus set a bar higher than human wisdom can fathom. See Matthew 19: 1-12.

At this point we would do well to remember that it is God's prerogative, not ours, to judge and condemn. I would submit that Paul gives us this list for self examination. By the same token, it is clear throughout the entire Bible that God's purpose from the beginning is redemption. Oh, yes, and the teaching is that God is love.