Summary:
Wow, what a chapter. I need to memorize the first 11 verses of this chapter! Paul talks about the hypocrisy of a “religious” person and not one that has that personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ! It starts off with Romans 2:1 Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. The chapter ends with Romans 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. The meat part of this chapter touches on the truth of first teaching and applying what I learned to myself first before teaching others! Romans 2:21-22 Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? (22) Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?
Words I Looked up:
| Verse | Word | Definition |
| 4 | Forbearance | The act of avoiding, shunning or omitting; either the cessation or intermission of an act commenced, or a withholding from beginning an act. |
| 4 | Longsuffering | Bearing injuries or provocation for a long time; patient; not easily provoked. In other words patient to others around you! |
| 4 | Repentance | Real penitence; sorrow or deep contrition for sin, as an offense and dishonor to God, a violation of his holy law, and the basest ingratitude towards a Being of infinite benevolence. Repentance is a change of mind, or a conversion from sin to God. An example would be, I was going down the wrong path and then turned to the right path! Repentance is always mistakenly compared to belief and you will be saved instead of repenting and believing you will be saved! |
| 5 | Hardness | Firmness; close union of the component parts; compactness; solidity; the quality of bodies which resists impression; opposed to softness and fluidity. Cruelty of temper; savageness; harshness. Hardness of the heart. Stiffness; harshness; roughness; as the hardnesses of sculpture. |
| 5 | Impenitent | Not penitent; not repenting of sin; not contrite; obdurate; of a hard heart. In other words a heart that will not repent. |
| 6 | Render | To return; to pay back. In other words God will “pay back” every man according to his works or deeds! |
| 6 | Deeds | Doing, labour, work. |
| 8 | Contentious | Given to angry debate; quarrelsome; perverse. Lost people like to do this and even disobedient born-again believers. |
| 8 | Indignation | Anger or extreme anger, mingled with contempt, disgust or abhorrence. Holy displeasure at one’s self for sin. |
| 8 | Wrath | Violent anger; vehement exasperation; indignation. The just punishment of an offense or crime. |
| 9 | Tribulation | Severe affliction; distresses of life; vexations. In Scripture, it often denotes the troubles and distresses which proceed from persecution. This verse is referring to the Tribulation of the “evil doer“ |
| 9 | Anguish | Extreme pain, either of body or mind. This verse is referring to the Tribulation of the “evil doer“ |
| 11 | Respect | To regard; to have regard to in design or purpose. This verse means God has no regard of people. He treats everyone the same! |
| 14 | Gentiles | These are people that do not worship God these people are NOT Christians or Jews! This word is often mistaken to be a Christian. It is not! A pagan; a worshipper of false gods; any person not a Jew or a christian; a heathen. |
| 22 | Abhorrest | To hate extremely, or with contempt; to lothe, detest or abominate. |
| 22 | Sacrilege | The crime of violating or profaning sacred things; or the alienating to laymen or to common purposes what has been appropriated or consecrated to religious persons or uses. |
| 24 | Blasphemed | To speak of the Supreme Being in terms of impious irreverence; to revile or speak reproachfully of God, or the Holy Spirit. To speak evil of; to utter abuse or calumny against; to speak reproachfully of. |
| 27 | Transgress | In a moral sense, to overpass any rule prescribed as the limit of duty; to break or violate a law, civil or moral. To transgress a divine law, is sin. Legislators should not transgress laws of their own making. |
Application:
There is a huge difference between a religion and a relationship. Religions are man made such as the the Catholic religion, that should never ever be considered Christian. Recently I found out through my 10 day travels that in New Orleans, Voodoo is a part of the Catholic religion and some of the churches just don’t acknowledge it! Then there are the cults like the Seventh Day Adventist which is a twist of the cult, Jehovah Witness, then there is the cult of Mormon/LDS. Relationships are personal with another, It is God made! To call Christianity a “religion” is an insult to God. This chapter is hitting on a religious person, the religious hypocrite. One that has the outward appearance of a religion to be noticed. There are times that I get caught up in the actions of “religion” and forget that it is my relationship I should focus on. It is not about those around me. It is about my PERSONAL relationship with my Savior Jesus Christ! Many times I find myself getting caught up in hypocrisy and it makes me so angry. Angry at myself. I can’t stand it at times! What is my relationship like with the Lord? Is it a game I am playing? Is it a patch on my arm that says look at me? Is it a personal relationship that desires to be close to the One that saved me? Is God my “religion” or is He my Lord? Is God just a god or is He my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! I need to come to my senses on these questions. Religion is not the path to salvation Jesus is the path to salvation! He is the ONLY path! He is the way the truth and the life! Romans 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. When I am caught up in a religion I need to repent of that and seek forgiveness! 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Once a gain this chapter reveals to us that we CAN make judgement on an issue! We just need to make sure we are not being a hypocrite about it! If we are teaching someone how NOT to do something then we need to make sure we ourselves are not doing that thing we are telling them NOT to do! Countless times I hear the statement,
“As Christians we should not judge.”
This is completely and totally not biblical and flat out wrong! I find myself repeating this over and over again to many different people that cannot seem to disable and end this unbiblical statement! It makes Christianity look foolish and we are taking God out of context in this subject of “judging others” We need to stop saying this and start rightly dividing the Word of God! I have talked about this in one of my other posts titled, Is Your Blog Content According to God’s Will? If you want to read my previous chapters of the Book of Romans you can go to http://michaeltpratt.com/category/romans/.
