Mic Drop

Wow, I cannot believe our time in Romans has come to an end. What an amazing study it has been! The apostle Paul really outdid himself in this letter.

As you’ll probably recall, Paul had not visited these home churches in Rome yet – although we know he longed to be with them. He would arrive in Rome around two years after this letter reached the Roman church. Even though he had never met most of the Believers there, he was well aware of the issues they were facing.

In Romans we’ve learned a lot! We’ve learned how we are truly saved – by grace, through faith, plus nothing. We’ve learned that we can’t change the core Gospel truth to make it fit what our own ideologies might want it to be. We’ve learned a lot about what God thinks about sin and how the Jewish Believers tended to think of themselves just a little holier and better than their Gentile Believer friends.

Speaking of those Jewish Believers, we learned that, while and even though they were God’s “chosen people,” they were not the best stewards of this title and managed to turn their backs on God more than a few times in their history; not to mention that they were the ones who were supposed to be revealing the true God to the Gentiles! Uh, no bueno.

We learned that nothing can or should ever be as important as our saving grace given freely from God– not the Law, not circumcision, not festivals, not the food we eat or what we drink. Nothing but God’s grace and mercy, in the form of Jesus Christ Himself, can save you – no thing. We also learned about a God – our God – that is always faithful. No matter how unfaithful we are, or how many times we blow it, God is always faithful! He fulfills both ends of the covenant, He gives a million “second chances,” and He is always right there with us, waiting for us to call on Him.

We learned about submitting ourselves to each other; to be more concerned about our brothers and sisters in Christ than we are about our own selves – what we eat, what we drink, what day we worship on. Nothing is more important that holding each other up and encouraging each other in our most holy faith and being sensitive to others’ needs and hang-ups. In Sherra-speak, people matter more than a quarter-pounder with cheese. Of course they do…

Gosh, I could go on and on, reviewing and reliving these beautiful gems we’ve found in Romans; little nuggets of truth, tucked away, gently, just waiting to be unearthed. And, boy, we did some unearthing – Indiana Jones would be so proud!

And I guess that brings us to Romans Ch. 16. When I first read it, I thought,

“Um, what in the world am I supposed to do with this chapter? Paul spends sixteen verses giving shout-outs to people!”

But as I read these verses again, I gained a new perspective:

Paul wanted the Believers in the Roman churches to understand the importance of community!

In the first sixteen verses of Romans Ch. 16, Paul greets people and tells us a little bit about these friends of his. It doesn’t take long to realize that these friends being greeted come from all walks of life – there are Jewish Believers, Gentile Believers, Romans, ministry partners, men, women and whole home churches. And why? Because Paul understood, even without being with these churches physically, what issues they were facing.

Many of the Jewish Believers, now involved in these Roman churches, had just come back to Rome in the not-so-distant past, after leaving when Nero started his tirade. They came back to a completely different church – being run by Gentiles! Um, wait, what??? And, of course, the Gentile Believers kind of liked the way they were doing things and weren’t at all excited to see these Jewish Believers come back, in many cases.

Yes, things were very different. We know that Paul spent a lot of time (and words) trying to point out to the Jewish Believers and to the Gentile Believers that neither of them were going to win any prizes in the selfless department and they needed to get their eyes focused back where they belonged:

On Jesus Christ.

Yeah, we read those scorching rebukes Paul gave them; I mean, talk about crawl away with your tail between your legs! But here in Ch. 16, Paul does something a little different: by pointing out all these diverse friends of his, he’s modeling what he hopes to see in these Roman home churches: unity and love for each other.

Paul was well aware of the fact that there were lots of grumblings going on in these churches; he knew there was little unity and very little acceptance between these two very different groups of people. But, what he knew, even more, was that these people needed each other! They needed to build relationships that would last a lifetime, relationships between people who would come together and build the kingdom of God, one person at a time.

Paul knew the Gentiles could learn from the Jews, and vice versa; he understood the need for Godly friendships in the church, and that one person could eat meat, while the other ate veggies, and they could still be great friends!

Paul knew for sure that there would be hard times coming; hard times within families, hard times economically and hard times within the church. And he knew that these were the people who would care for each other, help each other, laugh and cry with each other and hold each other up. Yeah, Paul knew these people needed community.

Do you have this in your life? Do you have community? I sure hope you do! I do, and I’ll be the first one to tell you that I could not live without it! There have been many times in my life when I’ve desperately needed a friend, a companion, a helper, a prayer warrior, a cook, a cleaner, someone to shop with, someone to go to a movie with, someone to laugh with and certainly someone to cry with. And, it’s all provided, right there in my community of Believers.

And guess what? The people in my community don’t all go to the same church, we don’t all believe exactly the same way, baptize the same way, worship the same way or even think exactly the same way, but who cares? We all love and believe in Jesus, have been saved by His great sacrifice at the cross and we love each other and build each other up. That’s really all it takes.

And listen, Paul was serious about this community and unity – in verse 16 he even tells the Roman Believers to greet each other with a sacred kiss! Talk about getting out of your comfort zone!

Paul then spends a few verses reminding these Roman Believers not to even deal with people who do not preach the pure Gospel – remember all the false prophets out and about? He reminds them that these false prophets are only serving themselves – not the Lord Jesus.

Then comes the mic drop: the last three verses in Romans 16. A little reminder to everyone – the Jewish and Gentile Believers in the Roman churches of old, and to us, Believers in the Church of Jesus Christ today-that God’s plan of salvation and reconciliation was, and still is today, for everyone.

I’ll leave you with Paul’s last three verses in Romans:

Romans 16: 25-27 Now all glory to God, who is able to make you strong, just as my Good News says. This message about Jesus Christ has revealed His plan for you Gentiles, a plan kept secret from the beginning of time. But now as the prophets foretold and as the eternal God has commanded, this message is made known to all Gentiles everywhere, so that they too might believe and obey Him. All glory to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, forever. Amen.

Happy reading! See you in 2023!