Thursday, 11 August, 2005: Today’s Bible readings.

Romans 1:1-7

¹ Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, ² which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, ³ concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh ⁴ and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, ⁵ through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, ¹ including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,

⁷ To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

In following the Robert Murry M’Cheyne’s Daily Bible Reading Calendar, today we begin our second time through the book of Romans this year. The schedule takes us through the New Testament and the Psalms twice a year, and the rest of the Old Testament once.

Our meditation will be on the very opening of the book, where Paul introduces himself and addresses his audience. Paul calls himself a “servant of Christ Jesus”. The word “servant” is the Greek word “doulos” which means “a slave, bondman, man of servile condition” [Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament].

A “doulos” (slave) belongs to a “kurios” (lord). And in Paul’s case, he states that he is a slave to Jesus Christ, and is appointed as an apostle (“sent one”) for the purpose of preaching the gospel (“good news”). This gospel isn’t anything new, as it “promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures”. And so Paul is just making plain after the work of Christ that which was not clearly understood before, but nevertheless previously was prophesied.

What do we learn from this?

Paul was given a specific task, that of apostleship. As such, he wrote to the church in Rome, and this letter has been divinely preserved for us in the book we are going to read through in the next half month. Paul’s purpose is by the grace of God to “to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations”. Paul desires the gospel to go out in power and spread through the whole world. And he desires this gospel to change peoples lives, that their faith impacts their conduct, and all for God’s glory.

This hits us in the area of our own conduct. Does my faith make any difference to my conduct? Paul’s desire is to bring about the “obedience of faith”. Not just faith, and not just obedience.

But it also hits us in the area of our concern for the lost around us. Do I desire that God’s glory be magnified by the gospel changing other people’s lives? Or do I just see the gospel in terms of my own salvation?

Paul had a tremendous responsibility given to him. He was appointed an apostle of Jesus Christ. But he did not think of himself as a celebrity. Instead, he describes himself as a slave. A servant. He was appointed to bring the gospel to people, and his concern was to faithfully discharge his duties as a slave of his Lord. He desired to point people to his Lord and in so doing, to glorify his Lord.

And although we are not called to be apostles, we also are slaves to our Lord, and our concern should be to faithfully discharge our duties to Him in a way that brings Him glory.

Where is Christ in this passage?

Paul tells us that the Old Testament scriptures point us to Christ. They tell us about the “Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh”. The scriptures are all about Christ. If we don’t see Jesus Christ in the Old Testament scriptures, the problem is not that He isn’t there. Rather the problem is that we are missing Him in the scriptures.

And the resurrection of Christ declares to us that not only were the Old Testament scriptures correct in what they tell us about the coming Son of David, but that what Jesus had to say about Himself is accurate. “[He] was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord….”

The proof that the Old Testament scriptures are accurate and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is in His resurrection from the dead.