Paul’s list of immoral behaviors–Romans 1:18-32
Before Jesus came, Roman culture was all about power. That a more powerful human being, say a male Roman citizen, would put his advantage to use against a less powerful human being was just an accepted part of the culture. It was a horrible situation for women, slaves, and children.
But then Jesus came and he changed all that.
Consider this quote from Justin Brierley that I shared a few months ago: “The sexual revolution of the 1960s was not the first sexual revolution. The first sexual revolution was the sexual revolution of the first century. Because Greco-Roman culture was a very permissive culture. Now, it was different, the sexual relationships were sort of more socio-cultural and hierarchical in nature. But a Roman male could have sex with whoever he wanted, male or female. It was very liberal, you could say, but it was very bad: for slaves, and for women, and for children. And it was Christians who, when they said, actually we are going to constrain male sexuality, they changed the world when they did that. When they said, it’s really important that a man has one wife and he’s not able to simply divorce her just like that. And, he has to be faithful to her, and is not going to be able to sleep with the scullery maid, or whoever.”
It was Jesus who moved the ancients away from a culture of power worship, toward a culture of love and charity and concern for those on the margins of society.
God or Your Culture: The True and Living God or a Stepford God
In our text we see Paul very plainly describing a variety of behaviors as ungodly and sinful including sexual practices that are approved of, and even celebrated, in Western culture today.
What we have to ask ourselves is Who or what should we worship?
Maybe you’ve seen the Stepford Wives movie. It’s about these technical geniuses in Stepford, Connecticut who implant computer chips in their wives’ brains so they’ll think and behave precisely as each of their respective husbands want them to.
But is that what we really want?
Is that what we want in our spouses? In our children? In our friends?
Is that what we try to do with God?
Sometimes, inside our own heads, we try to tweak who God is. We try to conform Him to our own cultural norms, and our own opinions, and our own views and perspectives.
We create our own Stepford god.
I know I don’t want that in my wife Kathy. I don’t think it’s an accident that the Bible often compares our relationship with God to marriage. I don’t always understand my wife–in fact, I very often don’t understand my wife. But I love her. And I trust her. But I could never really love her if she was a Stepford wife.
I don’t want that in God either because in the same way, you really can’t love God if you make Him a Stepford God.
And if you think about it. Having differences with God and not understanding God is precisely what we would expect from the Creator of the universe and all that’s in it. It would take you 100,000 years to cross the Milky Way Galaxy, but only if you were traveling at the speed of light. And that’s just the Milky Way. There are at least 200 billion galaxies, and maybe up to 2 trillion galaxies, in the universe. And then there’s DNA, and microscopic complex molecular machines, and quantum particles that affect each other even if they’re millions of miles apart. (Also, there are gamma-ray bursts in the universe that release more energy in ten seconds than our sun will ever release during its entire lifespan.)
Why would we think we would agree with everything the Creator of such a universe communicates to us?
And why would we think we would understand such a Being?
One thing we do know about such a Being, is that He loved us so much, He sent His only son, Jesus, to earth, to sacrifice himself, to die on our behalf, to save us from our own sin.
He is good. He is Goodness itself. And He is Love.
Which is why, what makes the most sense is to love Him back.
And to trust Him:
Even when I don’t understand.
Notes:
Justin Brierley, Christians vs The Sexual Revolution, YouTube short
Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, Basic Books; Illustrated edition (October 29, 2019)
Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries, Harper San Francisco, (May 9, 1997)
Joe Heschmeyer, How Christianity Conquered Rome (and How We Can Do It Again), Shameless Popery Podcast Video
Timothy Keller, The Reason for God, Penguin Books, February 14, 2008
The Stepford Wives Wiki Page
Josh Dzieza, Friend or Faux, December 3, 2024
Kurt Cameron Bennett best known for his book Love Like Jesus. After attending church and studying the Bible for most of his adult life, he was challenged by a pastor to study Jesus. That led to an obsessive seven-year deep dive. After pouring over Jesus’ every interaction with another human being, he realized he was doing a much better job of studying Jesus’ words than he was following Jesus’ words and example. The honest and fearless revelations of Bennett’s own moral failures affirm he wrote Love Like Jesus for himself as much as for others. He currently lives in Hillsboro, Oregon, just a few miles from his son Gabe, daughter (-in-law) Charise, and grandson Andrew. He has another son Nate and daughter (-in-law) Anastasia who live in Sammamish, Washington. His blog, God Running is a place for anyone who wants to (or even anyone who wants to want to) love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants us to.
Featured Image used under license from Freestock.com
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