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Don't Be Silly
"Paul...has been preaching the gospel for over twenty years by the time he writes Romans. He also knows that his teaching on certain topics will inevitably raise certain questions or even spark certain wrong conclusions among his hearers. As he sets his gospel before the Roman Christians, therefore, we find him repeatedly pausing in his argument to deal with questions that he knows his readers will be asking or to dismiss false conclusions he fears they may be drawing." [1]
We see this (Paul correcting erroneous ways of thinking) several times in our reading for today. He has just hammered the Jews in chapter 2 for their pride, thinking that they would be exempt from the judgement of God. So as he opens chapter 3, Paul asks a question that probably most people are thinking: "Is there any benefit to being a Jew then?" The expected answer after chapter 2 would probably be: "Obviously not", but he corrects that way of thinking. So, what benefit is it to be Jewish? Paul's answer is relatively long and complicated, but boils down to this: they were given the very words of God, the Old Testament. They were chosen by God to be a special people. BUT - the Jews should not, therefore, think that they are exempt from God's judgment. Even though they didn't keep the Law, God is still good and faithful - which brings us to the second correction....
If sinful people (like Jews not keeping the law and Gentiles acting depraved) serve to reveal how good and righteous God is, isn't that a good thing? If God is shown to be righteous by are sin, why are we judged for it? Paul responds with a phrase we'll see several times in this letter:
μὴ γένοιτο!
This has been variously translated as:
"Certainly not!" (NIV)
"Of course not!" (NLT)
"By not means!" (ESV)
"God forbid!" (ASV)
"That's unthinkable!" (God's Word Translation)
"May it never be!" (World English Bible)
and my personal favorite, "Not a bit of it!" (Phillips NT)
As you can see, translators really struggle to capture the force of the phrase in Greek. Later on in the Phillips New Testament it's phrased as "What a ghastly thought!" It has kind of the feeling of "don't be silly", but with much more force to it, like "don't be an idiot". Some translations take it so far as "God forbid!" to really emphasize how wrong this kind of thinking is. As I said, Paul uses this phrase several times in this letter (including back in verse 4) when he's correcting lines of thinking that he knows will come from what he just wrote. You'd find that as you encounter this phrase, Paul doesn't really refute the thinking, he in essence says, "If you're thinking this, you're really messed up and looking for a loophole of some sort. Come on back to the real world and be responsible." See verses 7-8:
"But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just." (emphasis mine)
So, what does that mean for our passage today?
1. Jews and Gentiles will both be judged.
2. What good is there being Jewish? They were chosen specially by God and given His Word.
3. Even though they didn't keep the Law, God is still good and righteous.
4. Jews and Gentiles will both be judged.
So, in essence we end up right where we started in this passage: we are all equal before God. We will all be judged. No one can claim "VIP status" before God because all have sinned and fall short of His glory.
Believing anything else would just be silly.
Don't Be Silly
"Paul...has been preaching the gospel for over twenty years by the time he writes Romans. He also knows that his teaching on certain topics will inevitably raise certain questions or even spark certain wrong conclusions among his hearers. As he sets his gospel before the Roman Christians, therefore, we find him repeatedly pausing in his argument to deal with questions that he knows his readers will be asking or to dismiss false conclusions he fears they may be drawing." [1]
We see this (Paul correcting erroneous ways of thinking) several times in our reading for today. He has just hammered the Jews in chapter 2 for their pride, thinking that they would be exempt from the judgement of God. So as he opens chapter 3, Paul asks a question that probably most people are thinking: "Is there any benefit to being a Jew then?" The expected answer after chapter 2 would probably be: "Obviously not", but he corrects that way of thinking. So, what benefit is it to be Jewish? Paul's answer is relatively long and complicated, but boils down to this: they were given the very words of God, the Old Testament. They were chosen by God to be a special people. BUT - the Jews should not, therefore, think that they are exempt from God's judgment. Even though they didn't keep the Law, God is still good and faithful - which brings us to the second correction....
If sinful people (like Jews not keeping the law and Gentiles acting depraved) serve to reveal how good and righteous God is, isn't that a good thing? If God is shown to be righteous by are sin, why are we judged for it? Paul responds with a phrase we'll see several times in this letter:
μὴ γένοιτο!
This has been variously translated as:
"Certainly not!" (NIV)
"Of course not!" (NLT)
"By not means!" (ESV)
"God forbid!" (ASV)
"That's unthinkable!" (God's Word Translation)
"May it never be!" (World English Bible)
and my personal favorite, "Not a bit of it!" (Phillips NT)
As you can see, translators really struggle to capture the force of the phrase in Greek. Later on in the Phillips New Testament it's phrased as "What a ghastly thought!" It has kind of the feeling of "don't be silly", but with much more force to it, like "don't be an idiot". Some translations take it so far as "God forbid!" to really emphasize how wrong this kind of thinking is. As I said, Paul uses this phrase several times in this letter (including back in verse 4) when he's correcting lines of thinking that he knows will come from what he just wrote. You'd find that as you encounter this phrase, Paul doesn't really refute the thinking, he in essence says, "If you're thinking this, you're really messed up and looking for a loophole of some sort. Come on back to the real world and be responsible." See verses 7-8:
"But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just." (emphasis mine)
So, what does that mean for our passage today?
1. Jews and Gentiles will both be judged.
2. What good is there being Jewish? They were chosen specially by God and given His Word.
3. Even though they didn't keep the Law, God is still good and righteous.
4. Jews and Gentiles will both be judged.
So, in essence we end up right where we started in this passage: we are all equal before God. We will all be judged. No one can claim "VIP status" before God because all have sinned and fall short of His glory.
Believing anything else would just be silly.
[1] Douglas J. Moo, Romans, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 102.
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