Straight to the heart of Romans – Chapter Three

Thanks to the kind permission of Monarch we are able to share the third chapter of Phil Moore’s book.  Other chapters are also available.

YOU’VE GOT MAIL (1:8-15)

“I am bound both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish.” (Romans 1:14)

Nero’s surname was Ahenobarbus, meaning Bronze-Beard, because his legendary ancestor had played postman to the gods. The twin gods Castor and Pollux had made him their evangelist in 496BC when they ordered him to preach the gospel that the Romans had defeated the Latins at Lake Regillus. He hesitated because no word had yet arrived from the battlefield, but when they touched his black beard and turned it to bronze he evangelised Rome by faith and was rewarded when its army returned in victory. He was invited to lead their triumph and served as consul seven times. Now Paul told the Romans that this was nothing compared to what King Jesus had in store for them.[1]

Paul has already described himself as Jesus’ slave in verse 1, and now he also describes himself in verse 14 literally as his debtor.  The myth of Ahenobarbus was day-to-day reality for Paul, since God had entrusted him with the Gospel of his Son. He must come to the city where Nero used death threats to stay in power and declare that one of Caesar’s crucified victims had broken death as a weapon through a miracle far greater than turning a black beard to bronze. Paul was God’s postman and carried a message that Jesus was the new King in town.

Paul is not merely saying that he is a debtor to the Greek-speaking wise men of Rome. Remember, Paul wrote Romans in Greek instead of Latin because this was the language of an Empire which prided itself on its high-cultured wisdom. Paul tells them that he is also a debtor to barbarians and to the foolish, which means that they have a role to play in taking the Gospel to the rest of the world. He is preparing the Romans for his shock revelation in 15:28 that he actually plans to “go to Spain and visit you on the way”. They expected that they would be his final destination since everyone knew that all roads led to Rome, but Paul needed to teach them that they were as much in debt as he was, and that they needed to team with him in taking the Gospel to Spain and the rest of the Western Mediterranean.[2] They must not prove less obedient to the real God than the legendary Ahenobarbus had been to his idols.

There are two ways that we can fall into debt. We can borrow money for ourselves or be entrusted with delivering an item from one person to another. Either way, reneging on our debt is a serious matter. A few years ago, one of my local postmen started emptying his sack of letters in people’s dustbins so he could go back to his depot with an empty sack after spending the morning relaxing at home. Someone saw him dumping letters in the dustbin to the rear of our church, and telephoned the police who identified the guilty postman from the postcodes on the letters. He was sentenced to jail for ‘interfering with Her Majesty’s mail’, but let’s not be too shocked. We do it ourselves all the time.

Paul encourages us that a simple way to discharge our debt is to proclaim the Gospel by enjoying it ourselves. He tells the Romans in verse 8 that due to their wholehearted response to Jesus as Lord, “your faith is being reported all over the world.” Another way is to pray for opportunities to share it, as Paul says he does constantly and at all times in verses 9 and 10. He tells the Romans that he prays to come to the mother-city Rome, of which he himself was a citizen by birth.[3] Prayer would pave the way for him to make an evangelistic visit.

Paul also encourages us to discharge our debt by helping one another to understand the Gospel ever more deeply. He warns us not to treat the Gospel as an elementary message for non-Christians whilst we graduate to something meatier. He tells the Romans in verse 15 that “I am so eager to preach the Gospel also to you”, because he knows in verses 11 and 12 that it is only through discovering new depths to the Gospel that “you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” Lifestyle, prayer and sharing with one another form the prelude to discharging our larger debt of sharing the Gospel verbally with the millions of non-Christians to whom it is addressed.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of letters the postman must have thrown into our bin. Were there cheques, tax rebates, job offers, love letters, and other life-changing pieces of news left undelivered? Would it matter if most of the letters were only junk mail? The judge didn’t think so when he sent the postman to jail because a price had been paid to deliver the letters and he had failed to discharge his obligation to the sender. God has not paid for his Gospel letter with a stamp but with blood, so we dare not defraud his addressees by considering them too wise or too foolish, too ‘Greek’ or too ‘barbarian’.

Paul knows that doubt is the reason why many of us fail to deliver the Gospel, since we lack his confidence in verse 13 that we will see fruit if we do. That’s why he gives us some extra encouragement which should keep us delivering the Gospel even when people close their ears and start singing “Return to Sender”. He uses the Greek word latreuô to describe our calling to serve as God’s postmen, which was the word used in the Old Testament for priests bringing offerings to God’s altar, and which was used in the first century more generally to speak of believers worshipping the Lord. Paul is telling us that saying Jesus is Lord to non-Christians is just as powerful an act of worship as singing he is Lord in a gathering of Christians. As Mark Dever reminds us:

“God is glorified in being known … We bring God glory as we speak the truth about him to his creation. This is not the only way that we can bring glory to God, but it is one of the chief ways that he has given us as Christians, as those who know him through his grace in Christ. It is not a way that we will bring him glory eternally in heaven; it is one of the special privileges of living now, in this fallen world … We do not fail in our evangelism if we faithfully tell the Gospel to someone who is not converted; we fail only if we don’t faithfully tell the Gospel at all. Evangelism itself is not converting people; it’s telling them that they need to be converted and telling them how they can be.”[4]

That’s why God wants us to understand the message of Romans, for our own sake and for the sake of others. He wants to teach us to worship him like Ahenobarbus by delivering his Gospel. If we do, then we will share in Jesus’ royal triumph when he appears in glorious victory.