Romans (The NIV Application Commentary)

God’s right to fashion from the clay the kinds of vessels he wants. Some will be vessels of “honor” (time; NIV “for noble purposes”), others vessels of “dishonor” (atimia; NIV “common use”).

She brought this attitude into her Christianity and was eternally in despair because she had not lived up to the Lord’s expectations of her. She could not grasp her security in Christ—that Christ had taken her sins so that her performance was no longer the basis for her acceptance.

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?

We need to preserve security and responsibility in balance.

to remind us that suffering is a natural and expected part of the Christian life (cf. 5:3–4; 8:17), and to root the experiences of Christians in the experience of God’s old covenant people.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

“Calling” is not a general gospel invitation. It is God’s effective summoning of us into relationship with himself through Christ (see 1:7).

Security without responsibility breeds passivity, but responsibility without security leads to anxiety.

We hear in those words the reaction of arrogant humanity,