Serving the Lord Jesus Christ
Romans 16:5-20
We are in
Romans, chapter 16. Granted, this is not one of the most doctrinally exciting
deep passages that you run across in Scripture. There are little things that
are sprinkled throughout the closing greetings that we ought to pay attention
to and we also need to realize that despite the fact we don’t know most of the
twenty-five names that are mentioned here or the two or three that are not
specifically mentioned here, nevertheless, under the ministry of God the Holy
Spirit preserving and inspiring God’s Word, He has seen fit to preserve this.
One reason for that is that it gives us an insight into the personal nature of
the Apostle Paul’s ministry. That’s part of any ministry to develop personal
relationships with the folks you minister to. We have a lot of opportunity to
do that.
It’s not just a
big part of the model for the local church which does relate to the teaching of
the Word that has parallels to a classroom. It’s not a classroom in the same
sense that you have a classroom in a university or even a seminary. I also kind
of chuckle now although I used to be a little irritated by the fact that people
think I would do well in a seminary. I have to constantly disabuse people of
that. People who say that have no idea what goes on in a seminary. In a
seminary in a class on Romans, you’ll cover Romans probably in a two-hour
class. That means you have about two and half hours a week over approximately an
18-week semester. So that’s going to be approximately twenty-seven hours taking
holidays into account. Is that right? We spent more than twenty-seven hours
just going through the first chapter.
The word
seminary comes from the word seminal, which is a seed. You’re just planting
seeds. You’re covering the foundations of something to plant seeds for later
production. This is really the model that we should see that pastors go to
seminaries to learn the basics and the framework of the books that they study.
You may not know this but the word for scholar in Latin has as its ultimate
root meaning the word leisure. If you’re working doing a full time job of
40–60 hours you don’t have the leisure that you need to dig into the Word
of God. Every pastor should be a scholar.
Different
pastors have different other gifts so it means the gift of pastor-teacher
doesn’t look the same in each person. There are different personalities. We
know that people are given the spiritual gift in different measures so some
have it in different ways. Sometimes the gift of pastor-teacher is combined
with other gifts such as administration or mercy or helps or some of these
other gifts, which are blended in with that gift of pastor-teacher. It’s always
going to manifest differently but the core responsibility of a pastor is to
train the congregations.
Ephesians
4:10-11 talk about the various gifted leaders of the local church during the 1st
century AD. It included apostles and prophets and for the rest of the church
age evangelist and pastor-teachers. It’s the role of those gifted men, as the
passage says, “To equip the saints to do the work of ministry” We often think
of the pastor as the minister. He’s the one who does the ministering. No, he’s
like the coach. He’s the trainer. Y’all are the ones who are on the team and
out on the field playing the game. The pastor is to coach. He’s the one who
trains the team to go out and do the work of ministry. In that process you
build many different relationships and so we get a little picture of that in
these verses.
I also found
out last time that another thing we see in these verses is that I compared it
to a fire ant bed in some parts of Texas. It may not look like much, especially
if it’s been dry. You just see that the ground has been disturbed. If you know
what you’re looking for you know that means it’s a fire ant bed. But if you go
up and kick it, then all of a sudden all of these ants come boiling out of the
nest. If you’re not careful they will sting you and that’s quite a painful sting,
which is why we call them fire ants. There are some verses like that in
Scripture. They seem pretty innocuous until someone comes along and starts
kicking at it a certain way.
I pointed out
last time that there are three verses in this section that relate to the debate
that’s been going on in the evangelical church for the last fifty years over
the role of women in ministry. One of the books I recommended last time is by a
friend and colleague of mine, which he wrote back, in the early 80s called “The
Role of Women in Ministry”. He does an excellent job dealing with all the
different issues. If you’re coming at this as a believer you’re going to think
radically different about this than if you’re not a believer because we believe
that things in God’s creation are what they are because God made them that way.
Then God tells us how they are distinct.
Non-Christians
refer to God’s creation as nature whereas believers view all of God’s creation
as His. The word nature almost carries with it a sense of something that is
autonomous, something that operates on its own and is not dependent upon a
Sustainer/Creator for its ongoing actions. The pagan mindset looks at nature
and views it as operating on its own laws whereas as a believer we know that
creation operates on the laws God built into it from the very beginning of
creation. Or at least they became operative in some sense after creation week
and then they were modified after the Fall.
We look at that
and try to understand what males are in the home and the family and the church.
Then we look at women and the role of females within marriage and the family
and the church and we come to different conclusions. When we look at these
roles we look at them as God defined them and not as we would shape them based
upon our experience. It always goes back to that issue of authority and
building up from the Scriptures. I emphasized several things on that last time.
One of the
issues that gets brought up is the issue of whether Phoebe as a deaconess meant
she held an office in the church. If that is appropriate it’s something totally
different from what we describe as the role of a deacon in many churches today.
The word deacon just means a servant and this would be a woman who carried out
certain responsibilities as she served and carried out her work of ministry
within the local church. I don’t think there was an official office in the
apostolic period related to a deaconess.
Then I talked
about Priscilla and Aquila and the issue there because Paul talks about not
allowing women to teach or give instruction to men or to have authority over
men in 1 Timothy 2:8-14. That doesn’t mean women aren’t capable teachers. There
are many women who are. I even know some women who are better Bible teachers
than a lot of pastors and men that I know but that does not justify the fact
that they should teach the Bible. That is just the way that God made them.
Women have spheres in which they are to primarily function and excel and men
have their spheres in which they are to lead and to serve and to excel.
We’re going to
get a third verse here that some of the feminists think support their
arguments. We’ve gone through Priscilla and Aquila last time and in Romans 16:5
Paul concludes that section and says to greet the church that is in their house
so we know that they were hosts for a group of believers who met in their
house. That was the way in which many churches met in the early church. They
were in Rome at the time and they had been expelled earlier, then they
returned. While they were away from Rome Paul met with them. Also he met with
them in Corinth. Later when he writes 1 Corinthians they’re in Corinth. They
have a house church there. Here he’s sending greetings to the believers that
are meeting in their house.
Then we start
into a section with a series of greetings to people that we know very little
about. We’ll just make some observations as we go through this particular
section. He says to greet Epaenetus who is the first fruits of Achaia to
Christ. I want you to have your Bible open here in Romans 16:5 and following.
If you’re using a NASV or one of the Bibles based on the Nestle-Aland
manuscript then it reads that he is the first fruits of Asia but the Majority
text says Achaia. Greece was divided into two areas. The northern area was
Macedonia that covered areas like Philippi, Berea, and Thessalonica. Then when
you got down to Athens and south of there this area was described as Achaia. So
he was the first convert in Achaia as Paul was moving south from Berea.
Epaenetus has now moved to Rome.
In Romans 16:6
Paul says to greet Mary who “labored much for us.” We know almost nothing about
this particular Mary except that she was a hard worker for the Roman church.
Incidentally the Bible mentions six different Marys. It was a very common name.
Miriam was the Jewish name and the majority of the Greek manuscripts use the
word Miriam here instead of Mary. She is praised by the Apostle Paul, which is
indeed high praise as one who labored much with Paul and his associates.
Then in Romans
16:7 we come to another verse. This is the third verse I mentioned earlier that
is used by feminists to argue about the role of women in authority in the early
church. This says, “Greet Andronicus and Junia.” This is from the New King
James Bible. The King James has Junius. Junius is the form in the Greek and
apparently it can apply to either male or female. There are some who have said
that this is probably Andronicus’ wife. You can’t be absolutely dogmatic on
that just because of the form of the name. A large number of scholars take the
position that these are two men that are mentioned here: Andronicus and Junius.
That’s not a determinative issue in however this verse is used in the debate
over women and the role of women in the church.
This is an
example of how translations have changed over the years. The 1984 translation
of the NIV uses Junius. Then the 2011 version of the NIV uses Junia. It is the
same as today’s NIV, which has been influenced by the gender-neutral issue
where they are trying to refer to God as just a person. They try to get away
from the masculine pronouns and try to make it a gender-neutral translations.
All of this is driven by a secular philosophy that is shaped by the feminist
movement. Instead of letting the Bible and the grammar of the Bible shape how
the text is translated, they’re imposing the modern feminist ideology upon the
text and the translation.
This shouldn’t
really surprise anyone who knows anything about post-modernism and its
relationship to language and linguistics and hermeneutics. Many of us believe
from our readings and study that about 80 to 90% of modern language theory is
heavily influenced by evolutionary thought and by post-modernism. That means
you have to be extremely careful if you are in that field of study in
understanding how that impacts their view of language. I just wanted to bring
this out because it is something that is significant. The reason this becomes
significant is because of how the rest of the verse is translated, “Greet
Andronicus and Junius, my fellow prisoners…” By that Paul indicates that they
are fellow Jews and also, somewhere along the line, he has been imprisoned with
them.
There are many
times Paul was jailed by the various opposing forces. Sometimes it was the
Judaizers. Sometimes it was the Gentiles. We don’t have a listing of all of
those circumstances in the book of Acts. Luke just tells us about some of them.
Apparently these two had worked alongside Paul and served the Lord with him for
some time. Then he adds, “Who are of note among the Apostles.” There are some
translations because of the difficulty of words that say they were outstanding
among the apostles, as if Andronicus and Junius were also apostles. You see
that in the 2011 NIV translation. If you translate it that way you have taken a
woman, Junia, and elevated her to the position of apostle. This has been used
by some who have no knowledge of Greek saying in the early church they had a
complete equanimity and they did not say that women couldn’t teach or have
authority over men and that you even had women apostles. That’s just not the
way the text should be translated. The best translation of this has the idea
that they were of note and recognized by the apostles. This emphasizes they
were well known by the apostles.
That’s how the
NET Bible translates this. I don’t agree with a lot of the things they do with
some of the more theological areas in the NET Bible. The New Testament was
mostly done by the Dallas Seminary at that time and translates it that these
two were well known to the apostles. Several other Bibles translate it in the
sense of noteworthy or recognized by the apostles and things of that nature. So
that translation resolves this. Paul isn’t saying they were apostles but they
were well known to the apostles in authority.
That brings us
to an important little study on apostles. It’s important to understand just how
this term is used. The word apostle was used in everyday language to refer to
someone who was sent on a mission. It had been used of military leaders,
notably an admiral and others who had been sent on a mission by the king to
carry out a military attack. The noun APOSTOLOS was used that way. That’s the root meaning of the word apostle. It’s
someone who is commissioned to carry out a mission.
What’s
important there is that in the Bible you have to distinguish between who does
the commissioning and what the mission is. So you have someone who commissions
someone to a particular mission. There are actually three different types of
apostles in the Bible. The first has to do with the twelve, the ones we
normally think of as the disciples of Jesus dropping out Judas. It’s a
spiritual gift. So that’s the twelve. These are the ones who are commissioned
directly by the Lord Jesus Christ. The first thing that we distinguish is who
commissioned them. The Lord Jesus Christ did and He sent them on a mission and
that is to establish the church in the new dispensation of the Church Age.
Ephesians 2:20
tells us that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and
prophets. Now when you build a house once you lay the foundation, it’s
finished. You don’t keep building it for every floor. You lay the foundation
and once it’s completed that’s the foundation. The foundation part is over
with. So the Apostles with a capital “A” would have been a finite group that
was active only in the 1st century when the foundation of the church
was established. So that tells us it’s not an ongoing feature in the church.
You’re always
going to find a few people who come along and read the New Testament without a
good understanding of time factors and how that relates to apostles. And you
have a number of people today who appoint themselves as apostles. They might be
in the second sense. But that just is so confusing that I don’t think the word
ought to be used in any way except referring to the twelve. The Bible does use
it in a secondary sense and that refers to others who were commissioned by
local churches to take the gospel to other locations. For example, Barnabas in
Acts 4:36 is identified as an apostle. He’s never listed among the twelve,
among those in Jerusalem. He was commissioned along with Paul by the church in
Antioch to go out on what is referred to as Paul’s first missionary journey. So
Barnabas is an apostle, lower case “a”. He’s commissioned by a local church.
His commission is limited to just that one missionary journey although he did
some things later on but that’s not his focal point. So he’s not an Apostle
with a capital “A” like the twelve. So you have passages like that that refer
to these other apostles.
So if, and I
don’t think it’s true, if you’re going to say that Andronicus and Junius were
apostles it would be of the lower case “a” and they were just sent on a mission
by a local church. The use of the term here does not necessarily have to be
equivalent to the twelve or the Apostles. In 1 Corinthians 12:28 apostles are
listed among the gifted leaders that God has given to the local church. First
apostles and then prophets. That is the pattern of Colossians 2:20 that those
two gifts provide the foundation for the local church.
When we get
into the end of the Bible in Revelation 21:14 we read, “Now the wall of the
city had twelve foundations…” This is the New Jerusalem and the New Earth.
“…And on them were the names of the Apostles of the Lamb.” It appears in that
passage that there are a limited number of apostles. There are twelve.
We always run
into the problem of what do you do about Matthias and there’s a number of
different ways that that’s handled. One of the ways is that there’s never an
indication by Luke that what Peter did was wrong. It’s always presented very
positively and Matthias was always included in the body of Apostles. One
solution to that which I think is at least creative and may in fact give us a
foundation is a recognition that Peter was thinking in terms of Matthias being
an apostle to the Jews. He would be a lower case “a” and he’s commissioned by
Peter, not by the Lord Jesus Christ.
It’s very clear
that Paul was commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ. If you’re going to have a
limited number of Apostles, I would rather have Paul in that list than Matthias
and certainly not having Judas. It seems like the Apostle Paul would be the one
who would be included there but Matthias was always seen as part of that group
of the twelve. Some people say, “Well you never hear from him again.” Well, the
only ones you ever hear from again are Peter and John, and John never says
anything in the rest of Acts. Only Peter and Paul are the ones that talk in the
rest of the book of Acts. The fact that nothing else is said about Matthias is
irrelevant because nothing else is said about Matthew. Nothing else is said
about James, the Less. Nothing else is said about Nathaniel. Nothing else is
said about all but two of the Apostles so that’s a specious argument.
The point that
I’m making here is that however you handle this particular verse, the least likely
thing is that Paul is indicating that a woman here is among the major Apostles.
That’s your least solution. Once again you have typical post-modernism and
feminism high jacking a traditional text to try to justify your own political
or sociological position. The first category of Apostles then is the twelve.
The second category is those who are commissioned by local churches through a
particular mission, and the third category is the Lord Jesus Christ. In Hebrews
3:1, the writer of Hebrews calls the Lord Jesus Christ the Apostle and High
Priest of our confession. In that case it is Jesus Christ who is commissioned
by God the Father to go into human history and to die on the cross for our
sins. In that sense, He’s the “sent one.” That’s what it means, to be sent on a
mission so Jesus is an Apostle in that sense. Those are the three uses of
apostle in the New Testament.
Moving ahead,
in Romans 16:8 we read, “Greet Amplias, my beloved in the Lord.” This is
obviously someone that Paul was quite affectionate toward and someone who meant
a lot to him. So we see how Paul has built these relationships with them. We
don’t know anything about Amplias. It’s a common name according to Lightfoot
who was one of the great British scholars at the end of the 19th century.
It’s a name that’s often connected with the emperor’s household but we can’t
speculate about that even though a number of people try to do that. There was a
tomb with Amplioti on it in the Christian catacombs in Rome but you can’t draw
any connection. So all we can say is that it’s someone for whom Paul had a
great deal of affection.
In Romans 16:9
we read, “Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ and Stachys, my beloved.”
Again Urbanus was a common name, even a common slave name. There are some who
try to connect this to the household of the emperor. Again, that’s more
speculation rather than any sort of Biblical fact. What we know is that he was
a worker in the local church. He served his ministry. Remember pastors are to
train the saints to do the work of ministry. He was a fellow worker in Christ.
We know that Stachys was one that was beloved by the Apostle Paul.
In Romans 16:10
we read, “Greet Apelles…” Again this is a name that is found within the
imperial household so since several of these are names that are common to
servants or slaves in the imperial household, possibly this may indicate that
several of those who were slaves in the emperor’s household were Christians.
That is at least possible but again we can’t have any kind of certainty there.
F.F. Bruce who is again a recognized British scholar in this area and has such
a wealth of training in classics, that is, Latin and Greek, that even though
their theology may be somewhat off, their study in Rome and Greece is far
beyond what you get in universities even today. So Apelles is approved in
Christ. This is the Greek word DOKIMOS, which indicates that he’s been tested and evaluated. Probably he’s
gone through some opposition and some persecution. He has not yielded or
compromised so he has demonstrated that his maturity is rock solid.
Then Paul says
at the end of verse 10, “Greet those who are of household of Aristobulus.”
Again this is a name that is common. Aristobulus was the name of a grandson of
Herod the Great. It’s not at all certain that this is the proper connection,
although in the next verse you do have a mention of “Herodion, my countryman.”
The fact that this person has a name that contains the name of Herod gives
support to the fact that this could include those who are in the household of
Herod’s descendants.
Paul goes on
and talks about “Greeting those who are of the household of Narcissus who are
in the Lord”. The name Narcissus was the name of a wealthy and powerful freeman
who had been prominent under Claudius and was later put to death by Nero. His
slaves would have passed to the emperor because of that and all of his slaves
would have been indicated by the name of Narcissus so this is either talking
about the original Narcissus or one of the servants of his particular
household.
In Romans 16:12
we read, “Greet Trephine and Typhus, who have labored in the Lord.” These could
have been identical twins that were given a very similar name, which twins
often have. The names are both feminine indicating they are women who “also
labored in the Lord.” Again and again we see that Paul is praising those
because they are involved in ministry. They’re not just coming to church and
sitting and soaking up the Word and filling out their doctrinal notebooks. They
are involved in ministry in different ways. They are active in the
congregation. They’re helping one another. They’re serving one another, praying
for one another, and serving in many different capacities in relation to their
spiritual gifts.
Next comes the
“beloved Persus who labored much in the Lord.” Then in Romans 16:13 we read,
“Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord and his mother and mine.” Rufus means red and
was a common slave name. This indicates that Paul knew the family and that
Rufus’ mother had treated Paul as if he were family and he was very close to
that particular family. Perhaps Rufus’ mother had taken care of Paul at some
particular time. Even today we often say when we’re describing relationships
with people that someone is a mother-like figure who was very influential in
the way in which you were reared. So Rufus and his mother are mentioned there.
Then in Romans
16:14 we read, “Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, Hermes, and the
brethren who are with them.” This is a group of five names that we have no
knowledge of any of them. They were again common names used in the Roman Empire
and it’s very possible they all operated within the same house church. Some
suggest that maybe they were brothers but again most of anything we say here is
simply speculative and we can’t have any certainty there at all.
In Romans 16:15
he says, “Greet Philogus…” This may be a nickname because the name means a
lover of words or a lover of the Word. It may be someone who is a scribe or
someone working in rhetoric. The rest of the verse says, “…And Julia, Nereus
and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.” It’s very
possible this refers to another house church. The mention of the word “Julia”
doesn’t tell us anything. It’s sort of comparable to our name John. There are a
lot of people named John. I had so many friends named John when I was in high
school that my mother made me refer to all of them by their last name so she
could distinguish them. Otherwise, she had no idea which one I was talking
about. Julia would have been the same way. It was an extremely common name. In
fact, it may be the most common of all Roman names. There’s speculation that
Nereus may have one of those in Nero’s household but we really can’t be sure.
Then we come to
Romans 16:16 where Paul says to “greet one another with a holy kiss.” This is
an interesting verse. This isn’t the only place Paul makes mention of the
practice of greeting someone with a holy kiss. It’s mentioned also in 1
Corinthians 16:20. Different cultures have different ways of greeting people I
don’t know if you have ever had the opportunity to mix with other cultures. In
my life I remember that in my last year in Dallas Seminary every student was
required to take an elective in Christian education and an elective in
missions. It was my last semester and there was a class offered as a mission
elective on cross-cultural communication. I thought, “Well, it’s the only
things they have so I’m going to take it.” It was kind of interesting because
one of the things we had to do was attend different culture churches, even
going to a Hindu temple and a Buddhist temple and just seeing how these
different cultures and different religions operated.
There was a guy
in the class who’d had a ministry in a black church for a while. I remember
thinking, “Well you really have some interesting observations.” Little did I
know that later on I would be working in a cross-culture situation where I
would have a ministry with a lot of black pastors. That’s certainly a very
different culture. Also going over to Ukraine every year and dealing with a
different culture there I’ve seen a lot. Also I'm dealing with a lot of Jews.
I’ve seen that
people greet each other differently in these different groups. If you go to a
black church as a pastor, there’s sort of this ritual handshake and shoulder
bump hug kind of thing that they greet you with each other. But if you go to a
synagogue or any number of other Jewish gatherings, the women always offer
their cheek. That’s distinctive among that different culture. Quite a few
Americans tend to just shake hands but every now and then we might give a hug
but we have our ways of greeting one another that are different from blacks or
Hispanics or Koreans.
In this culture
it was not uncommon to have a kiss on the cheek as a form of greeting but Paul
emphasized that this is not to be a lascivious kiss but a holy kiss, a chaste
kiss, just a brief little kiss on the cheek. He says, “Greet each other with a
holy kiss.” He’s not emphasizing this as a command that would be
cross-cultural. The emphasis is on greeting one another and then he says, “The
churches of Christ greet you.” This refers to all of those churches where he
has been ministering and the churches that he has founded.
When we come to
Romans 16:17 all the sudden the greeting section stops and we get into
something a little bit different. He starts giving a little reference here to
some things going on. “I urge you brethren to note those who cause divisions
and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned and avoid them.” He’s
giving another exhortation or challenge to his readers. He’s going to define
what he means by divisions and offenses by stating they are contrary to what
they have been taught.
The New King
James uses the word doctrine. Something has happened to the word doctrine, sort
of a dichotomy, which means two parts. Dichotomy has a Latin root and has the
idea of dividing things in two. What often happens in seminary and after that
is that doctrine is thought of as more abstract theology rather than just
teaching. The Greek word DIDACHE means teaching or instruction. That covers everything from instruction
on the hypostatic union and the doctrine of the Trinity and some of what people
may think are more abstract ideas in the Scripture to how to pray, how to
memorize Scripture, and how to apply what you’ve learned in the local church to
the voting booth. These are all important areas of what we would call
application.
That’s how the
military uses the word doctrine. When you read military manuals they use the
word doctrine to refer to everything from the original theoretical conception
of a mission or developing a weapon or a strategy or tactic all the way to its
final, ultimate application on the battlefield. Many of you may have already
noticed that many people don’t want to learn doctrine, they just want to learn
how to love the Lord, how to apply the Bible. That person has been ingrained
with a false meaning of the word doctrine. The word doctrine refers to that
whole realm of instruction that comes from the Scripture. Paul is talking about
those who are causing division and offenses to what they’ve been taught by the
apostles and prophets.
The first word
that he uses is a present active indicative of PARAKALEO. “I urge you, brethren, note those who cause offenses
and divisions.” He’s exhorting them. He’s challenging them to do something and
they need to pay attention to something. The verb is SKOPEO, which means to pay close attention to something, to be
watchful. This is something that the deacons in the local church ought to be
doing, paying attention to what goes on in the congregation so that they can
keep a lid on things that may bubble up and cause problems within the local
church.
In the ten
years that West Houston Bible Church has been around, we haven’t had any real
problems like that. We’ve had a couple of little things that probably no one
noticed. They just sort of simmered beneath the surface. I’ve been in
congregations where you’ll have someone who all of a sudden reads some book
contrary to the pre-trib rapture and they get a burr under their saddle against
dispensations or they become too Calvinistic or something like this and start
causing problems. We really haven’t had problems like that in this church.
We watch these
things and the word that’s used there for divisions is the word DICHOSTASIA, which means causing divisions or causing dissension.
This word is used as a manifestation of the works of the sin nature. Galatians
5:19-21 gives a list of the works of the sin nature. “Now the works of the
flesh [sin nature] are evident which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lewdness…” The list goes on and in Galatians 5:21 it’s that word “dissensions”
listed there. That’s the same word we have in Romans 16:17. It’s also in 1
Corinthians 3:3. It’s left out of the Nestle-Aland text but it’s in the
Majority text and probably should be included as part of the original
Scripture. It’s a concept that’s always used in a negative sense as a product
of those who are arrogant and self-absorbed. I know we don’t have any problem
here with people who are arrogant or self-absorbed but other churches have that
problem. People who are part of the city and the secular culture certainly have
close familiarity with that problem. Divisions are an outburst of the
self-absorbed sin nature.
The next word
that’s used is offenses, which is SKANDALON, which is where we get our word scandal. Originally it referred to a
part of a trap. Do you remember as a kid building a trap to trap a bird? You
set a box up and you would put a stick that would hold that box up and you
would tie a string around that stick and run it out about fifteen feet. You’d
put some bread out there and hope a bird would come up under the box. If they
did, you would yank the string and that stick would collapse and the box would
fall down and trap the bird. The word that described that stick was a SKANDALON.
The original
sense was that it was used as a trap or a snare to capture someone and then it
came to have the meaning of a temptation to sin and an enticement to sin or to
disobey God. This word is also used in Romans 14:13 where Paul says, “Let us
not judge one another anymore but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling
block [SKANDALON] or a cause to fall in our brother’s way.” He is
saying that there are those who are creating situations that cause others to
sin and cause divisions within the body of Christ which is contrary to what
you’ve been taught. We’re to avoid those people.
When people are
divisive, just avoid them. Don’t try to engage them. Don’t try to straighten
them out. Just avoid them. Don’t let them become a problem in your life as well.
In Romans 16:18
Paul says, “For those who are of such [who are divisive and cause offenses] do
not serve our Lord Jesus Christ.” So when someone is operating in
self-absorption and arrogance they don’t serve the Lord Jesus Christ but instead
they “serve their own belly”. The word belly here is the word for stomach or
womb, KOILIA. The figure of speech here technically is called a
synecdoche where you look at one part of something and it stands for the whole.
What this is talking about is that their belly represents the whole person.
What the figure
of speech means is that they’re basically just serving themselves. They’re so
self-absorbed and so self-focused that they’re just promoting their own
opinion, their own agenda, and their own ideas. As a result of that they’re
just causing some problems in the local church. Paul uses the same figure of
speech in Philippians 3:19 when he talks about false teachers being enemies of
Christ. “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly.” He’s not talking
about the fact that they eat too much or they have a problem with gluttony.
That may be, but this is referring to the fact that they’re just self-absorbed.
They’re just feeding on their own desires. They are narcissists. They are
arrogant. This is the idea. “For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus
Christ but themselves.”
You only have
two options, folks. You’re either serving the Lord or you’re serving yourself.
It’s one or the other. There’s no in-between. You’re either walking by the
Spirit and serving the Lord or you’re walking according to the flesh and
serving yourself. So Paul says, “Those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus
Christ but their own belly and by smooth words and flattering speech they
deceive the hearts of the simple. “ Often you will find that they have a real
way with words. They have the gift of gab and they’re able to convince people
of things. It sounds good. They present a good argument and they’re a good
speaker so people are being entertained. Their ears are being tickled and
people like that.
Paul says that
the simple are deceived. The word simple there is the word AKAKOS which means someone who is without evil. They’re just
basically simple. They’re naďve. They don’t really expect someone to be taking
advantage of them in the local church and selling them a bill or goods and
telling them a lot of things that aren’t right. They just believe them. After
all, they’re such a nice Christian. They have such a good personality. How
could they possibly be leading us astray?
In Romans 16:19
Paul says about the Romans, “For your obedience has become known to all.” This
is in contrast to these divisive false teachers who are leading people astray.
He goes on, “Therefore I am glad on your behalf but I want you to be wise to
what is good and simple to what is evil.” That word simple is AKAKOS. The “a” at the beginning is a negative like “un” in
English. It basically means something that is unmixed with something else, such
as wine mixed with water. Or you might mix metals with something of lesser
value in order to decrease its value and still use it.
It could be
something spiritual saying you live a life that is unmixed with evil. You’re
not hypocritical. You’re not two-faced. You don’t have an ulterior motive.
You’re just focused on doing the right thing and living your spiritual life. As
a result Paul says, “The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet
shortly.” Whatever Paul means here he’s indicating by the word shortly that
this is a particular situation, a particular problem that the Roman church was
facing. He’s encouraging them and saying that ultimately the opposition comes
from Satan but that God was going to give them the victory and this will work
itself out very, very soon.
Then he closes
with a common greeting that is very similar to other greetings that he uses in
the Scripture which is, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.”
This is very similar to the way he closes many other epistles. In 1 Corinthians
16:23 he said, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.” In 2 Corinthians13:14
he says, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” In Galatians 6:18 he says, “The
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.” In
Ephesians 6:24 he says, “Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an
undying love.” In Philippians 4:23 he says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
be with your spirit.” Colossians 4:18 says, “Grace be with you.” In 1
Thessalonians 5:28 he says, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” 2
Thessalonians 3:18, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” In 1
Timothy 6:21, “Grace be with you.” 2 Timothy 4:22, “The Lord be with your
spirit. Grace be with you.” Titus 3:15, “Grace be with you all.” In Philemon
25, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.” What’s the
emphasis there? Grace, grace, grace, grace. Paul’s emphasizing the gospel of
grace; that we need to live in a grace-oriented manner.
This seems like
it’s bringing us to a conclusion. But then, guess what? Paul adds some more
closing salutations in verses 21–24 and then his final benediction in
verses 25–27. We’re going to wrap up tonight’s class here. When I come
back from Israel we will spend a little bit of time wrapping up the last seven
verses in Romans 16 and then do a final flyover. That will be the Thursday
night one week before Thanksgiving. There won’t be any class on Thursday,
Thanksgiving. That’s a day for people to spend with their families. It may give
you some opportunities perhaps to evangelize and witness to those in your
family.
We should wrap
up Romans then by the end of November. Then in December, I believe it’s
December 4th, we will begin a new series on 1 Peter so in
preparation for that it might be helpful to begin reading 1 Peter so you know
what we’re going to get into. There are a lot of wonderful things there. One of
the major themes it emphasizes is handling adversity. Undeserved adversity. This
is important. I believe we live in times when we have not seen the kinds of
adversity in our lives that are coming and we need to be spiritually prepared
for this. That’s one reason why I’m choosing 1 Peter and also 1 Samuel as the
next books we’re studying.