Today’s Scripture is Acts 28 & Romans 1.
What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you for sharing the Gospel? As I think back to only being called hurtful things & losing standing in the eyes of colleagues, I know I’ve definitely had it easy in that regard. Perhaps you’ve faced painful deterioration of personal relationships for your faith; maybe losing a job or esteem among other people; maybe, depending on where you live or have served, government/societally mandated suppression or violence. Perhaps even evading death, if so empowered by the Holy Spirit! By the time he went into Roman captivity at the end of Acts for his supposed crime of sharing Jesus’s message across many nations, Paul had been through all this and more in fulfilling his calling. He’d been tossed into prisons, run out of countless cities (smuggled out, even), incited entire riots; even surviving his own stoning by a thread. Even after facing the brunt of countless insults, threats, and shaming from Gentile and Jew alike in his journeys, he had this to say in Romans 1:16-17: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ’the righteous shall live by faith.’”
The Roman church Paul was wrote these words to was no stranger to his plight: they were a group of firm believers embattled in one of the largest western empires of all time in the peak of hedonism and indulgence. It’s a timeless plight that echoes into our experiences in the modern church as well. Read Romans 1:18-32 for yourself: I’m almost certain, as you read through Paul’s description of this self-serving behavior, many specific examples can pop up in your head of things you see every day in the world around you. But in his letter to Rome, Paul lays out our hope that rings true even louder to this day: no matter how unworthy of salvation we as a whole are and how little we deserve better, God takes the fallen and uprights them through their faith. God conquers evil trying to overtake us and shines over the spiritual darkness within us through faith. And it is this faith alone in Christ the Messiah that offers us life: both in our lives being enriched and made worthwhile in this life, and in the eternal life we know awaits us. And it’s because of these truths that Paul knew nothing could, nor should, keep him from wanting to boldly declare the gospel.
The book of Romans is a difficult one, forcing us to confront our own human unrighteousness and just how much we really need God’s righteousness. But our motivation to do so is clear. In verse 17, Paul quotes the prophet Habakkuk, and the encouragement bestowed upon him from the Lord. In a time of darkness, when God’s people were assailed by the Chaldeans, Habakkuk prayed for answers, and instead was reminded of the Lord’s promise to destroy the wicked & deliver untold wrath upon the unrighteous, while the upright shall live eternally with Him. The prophet says this in Habakkuk 3:17:
“Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
And the fields yield no food,
The flock be cut off from the fold,
and there be no herd in the stalls,
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”
We praise God, not because of earthly blessings or temporal gain, but because God is so good that we can’t not praise Him. He is the source of our joy, our light, and our salvation. Paul traveled all across the old world to find this truth and share it with us: people form all walks of life, no matter what they’ve struggled with or what the evils of the world have thrown their way, can be made clean and upright in their faith in the Lord. So I lift Habakkuk’s prayer as my response to Paul’s reflection and writing on God’s wrath: that even if the weight of the entire world is wielded against us, that God’s righteousness and redemption would shine through what our upstanding faith has done to our lives. That no matter how the world turns a blind eye to its own affliction & mock, shame, or takes from us, that we would know God’s wrath will be delivered upon those who resist Him in due time. That in God, and only in God, will we look for our joy – for only in the Lord will we find it.