Romans 1:28 (The Message)
28-32Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!
WOW! This seems like a comentary of today’s society. If you don’t believe me, watch some of the award shows and see who wins the awards…Is it the best or is it the one that shocks/pushes the limits the most? Even shock jocks like Howard Stern aren’t shocking to us anymore because of how our society has socially accepted the vilest debauchery that you can imagine.
The thing that worries me the most is in the first part of verse 28. It said because they (unbelievers) fail to acknowledge God, that God withdrew from them and allowed them to do what they wanted to. God did not turn His back on the sinner but we must remember that GOD HATES SIN AND SO SHOULD WE!!! We should always love the sinner and reach out to them just as Christ did but we have to learn to hate sin. Even the sin that our flesh so craves.
So what is God asking you about today even as you read this? Do you acknowledge Him in your life consistently? Are you praying and learning to hate Sin more and more each day? Is there a certain sin that you can’t live without?
2 Comments
June 2, 2009 at 5:03 am
So.. wait.
Is Paul talking about non-believers… or is he talking about man? You appear to use “sinner” and “non-believer” like synonyms, which is really strange to me.
Sin is not new – “today’s society” is no more “sinful” than yesterday… it’s not a gauge, or a measurement, it’s a state of being, which you and I are equally a part of, right?
Do you really believe God will one day ask you “How much did you hate sin?”… or do you think rather he’ll ask how much you loved Him — by loving the least of these?
I dunno, I certainly don’t have all the answers, nor do I believe that your take-away isn’t genuine… but learning to “hate sin more and more each day” seems kind of off track to me, and really, in light of the recent tragedy (Dr. Tiller)… do we need to focus more on hating sin??
June 2, 2009 at 6:15 am
Thank you for reading my blog and thank you for your comments. I will do my best to try to clear up what you seem to question the best that I can.
Paul is actually writing to the church at Rome about a group of sinful people who (as you see earlier in verses 26 and 27) were given over to their lustful minds and had lustful relationships with their own sex.
The only difference between believers and non-believers (because we are all sinners (Romans 3:23)) is the believers that put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and has sought forgiveness of their sins and repented of them.
Sin is not new. It as old as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The measurement of the sinful society today versus the society of Paul’s time was not my point at all. My point was to show the relevance of the passage to today’s society.
Romans 12:9 tells us that “love must be sincere” (even to the “least of these”) and to “hate what is evil (sin)”.
As far as the tradegy of Dr. Tiller, that was a heinous act of hating the sinner which is COMPLETELY unBiblical and you saw in my post above that I mentioned we should hate the sin (do not approve of what he did) but to love the sinner.
I hope this clarifies my points even if you believe differently.
Thanks and keep reading.