The Power of the Gospel

What are you called to be? To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints (v. 7a). That is your vocation.

There is also irony here: when Christ sets us free from slavery to the flesh, He calls us to the royal liberty of slavery to Him. That is why we call Him Master. We acknowledge that it is from Him that we get our marching orders. He is the Lord of our lives. We are not our own. We are not autonomous or independent. Unless people understand their re

There is yet a middle usage of the term kurios in the New Testament. It is used to describe a slave owner, which is an apt description of Jesus, and it is from this that Paul describes himself. He is not just a servant but a slave.

In the New Testament, the title “lord” or kurios is used in three ways. There is a simple, common usage, where calling someone kurios is like addressing him as “sir,” a polite form of address. The supreme use of kurios refers to the sovereign God, who rules all things.

God used the Apostle Paul mightily, and he is a lesson of God’s grace. Paul himself reminds us, “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy” (1 Tim. 1:13). This was the Paul whom God had set apart. Just like Paul, we have been delivered from our former sins in Christ, and God calls us into His service for t

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.” Bondservant is an improvement, but I think the proper translation should read, “Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ.” The Greek word that Paul uses here is doulos. A doulos was not a hired servant who could come and go as he pleased. A doulos was a person who had been purchased, and once purchased he became his master’s

Let us walk in humble reliance on the Spirit every day as faithful servants in our freedom from sin.

As we will see later in Romans 1, Paul labors the point that God has manifested Himself so clearly to every human being that nobody has an excuse for denying Him. When Jesus is declared to be God’s Son through the power of the resurrection, that declaration may be all that we ever get. We might be like Thomas and say, “Unless I see in His hands the

In Old Testament times, the Jews greeted one another the same way they do today: Shalom aleichem, “Peace be unto you.” The response to the greeting was Aleichem shalom, “Peace also to you.”

The word for saint in the New Testament is the word that means “sanctified one,” one who has been set apart by the Holy Spirit and called inwardly by Christ to Himself.