BibleProject | One Story That Leads to JesusSample

Paul has good and bad news for the church in Rome.

First, the bad: Humans tend to trust their own perspectives more than God’s wisdom, and that misplaced trust ends in death. God’s wisdom leads to life and love for one another. However, people generally opt for poisonous unkindness, snakey schemes, and violent power—all of which are sin.

Everyone, including Jewish people (God’s covenant partners), is “under the power of sin” (Rom. 3:9). God has given good law to the people of Israel. However, they cannot follow it thoroughly, so it’s done more to expose humanity’s brokenness than to heal it.

Now, the good news: Jesus heals everything. Through Jesus, both Jewish and gentile people can be restored to right relationships with God and neighbor, becoming one with God’s covenant family and its original purpose to bless every family or nation on Earth (Gen. 12:2-3).

Receiving such news from Paul, 1st-century Jewish readers would be wondering: Did God not choose Abraham’s family as his partners? After all, God made his covenant promises to Abraham (Gen. 12:1-5, 15:1-6) and the specific people of Israel (Exod. 19:3-6). Isn’t Torah observance the thing that makes us right?

To respond, Paul starts on common ground—the story of Abraham—saying that God did declare Abraham righteous, but not because he followed Torah. Abraham was declared righteous when he first trusted God in faith. Paul’s main idea is that right relationship with God has always started with faith.

The Roman church was arguing about the best way to follow Jesus, divided about whether or not non-Jewish Christians should observe Torah by following Sabbath rules, eating kosher, being circumcised, and so on. Your division around this matter exposes the real problem, Paul says; you’re putting faith in law-following rather than God himself.

If humans are made right with God through faith, that means faithful gentile Christians are good to go. It’s unnecessary to observe Jewish law in order to participate fully in the life of Jesus and this new covenant community.

Choosing to be governed first by faith in Christ, not first by law-following, builds right relationships that characterize God’s family and produces lives rooted in faith.

Reflection Questions

• Take a moment to review Abraham’s story, especially Genesis 12:1-5, 15:1-6, and 21:1-7. How might Abraham’s story help you understand the importance of faith when it comes to living in right relationship with God? What happened when Abraham failed to trust God’s wisdom and did what seemed right in his own eyes instead? What does his story reveal about God’s mercy and persistent love?
• Meditate on Paul’s list of Hebrew Bible quotes in Romans 3:10-18. How does Paul describe the human condition? What have you learned from these quotes about the way sin works in the body?