What Must I Do?

The question of how to move from darkness to light is not a new one. Two thousand years ago a man in Philippi asked the Apostle Paul and his friend Silas this question:

“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:30-31)

What does believing in Jesus mean? The Bible gives us a very clear road map:

1. We need to admit the fact that all us have sinned. Romans 3:23 says “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Sin is not a popular word today; it makes us feel uncomfortable, and besides, it’s not like we’re serial killers or anything. But we’re not being measured against Charles Manson; we’re being measured against a perfect, holy God. Given that, we all fall short.

2. We have to understand that the penalty for sin is death, but God has given us a way out of that penalty: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 ESV). We deserve eternal separation from God for our sins, but Jesus, through his death and resurrection, has given us a way to eternal life with God.

3. Know that Jesus did this while we had no reason to expect it: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). Further, it was not because of anything we did: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Our good deeds don’t save us; salvation is a free gift.

4. We must also understand that there is only one way to God, and that is through Jesus. Jesus himself said this: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. (John 14:6 ESV). Peter also said this of Jesus after the resurrection: “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12).

5. Finally, knowing these things intellectually is not enough. We must take a step of faith and personally ask for this free gift of salvation. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” (Romans 10:9-10).

As simple as it may seem on the surface, that’s the Gospel, the Good News. And that is how we’re born again. But though it may be simple, it is by no means easy. None of us want to admit that we’re sinners, or that we need a savior, and there are sins we don’t want to turn away from. We certainly don’t like the idea of surrendering control of our lives to anyone, even God. But it’s a step of faith you will never regret. If you are ready to take this step, here is a simple prayer you can pray. The words themselves are not magical, nor nearly as important as the intent of your heart:

God, I recognize that I am a sinner and that I cannot save myself from the punishment I deserve. I believe that Jesus died and rose again to pay the price I couldn’t. I accept this free gift of salvation, ask you to forgive my sins, and I turn now from them. Jesus, I ask you to come into my heart and be both my Savior and my Lord. Help me to follow you all the days of my life. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.

One final thought: if you took this most important step of turning from your sins and asking Christ to forgive you and save you, don’t expect an angelic choir to descend from heaven the minute you do. There probably won’t be flashes of lighting or anything like that. You may be emotional afterward, and you may not. Salvation is not a feeling, it’s a fact. If you ask Christ to save you and mean it, be assured that he will. “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

 

Fred Luter Will Become the First African-American President of the SBC

In a story published yesterday, Baptist Press confirmed that Louisiana pastor Fred Luter is willing to have his name placed into nomination for president of the Southern Baptist Convention. 

Luter is the only announced candidate thus far, and if elected (as he is expected to be) at the denomination’s annual meeting in June, he would become the convention’s first African-American president. Luter currently serves as the SBC’s first vice president, the first African-American to hold that post. 

It is significant that this historic election would occur as the United States commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, and even more so given that the SBC was originally founded when Baptists in the South split with their Northern brethren over the issue of slavery. The convention formally apologized for its past in 1995. 

“If he runs, he’ll get elected overwhelmingly. He may be unopposed,” Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, said in a story on the website nola.com. 

Besides being well-known and respected throughout the denomination for his preaching, Luter is also admired for rebuilding his own church, Franklin Avenue Baptist, after it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. He had been sought by churches nationwide, but chose to remain in New Orleans. 

Akin and other Southern Baptist leaders are eager for Luter to run, both because of his leadership abilities and to show the changing face of the SBC. In 1990, 95 percent of Southern Baptist congregations were white; now the figure is closer to 80 percent. In recent years the denomination has actively sought to reach out to African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians.

For his part, it seems that Luter has more important things than making history on his mind. In an interview last August he told the Baptist & Reflector newspaper that if he did become president of the SBC, his goal would be a simple one: “to bring us together as a convention” so that “we can truly be the body of Christ. We need to major on the things that have made this convention great through the years — evangelism and discipleship.”

 

“Through Gates of Splendor” – A Review

Occasionally I will post a book review on this site, especially when it is one that I feel will either challenge or encourage people in their walk with Christ. Elisabeth Elliot’s “Through Gates of Splendor” does both, and although it was released more than 50 years ago it is one of those books that every generation should take the time to read.

The book tells the story of what the press at the time called the “Auca Five,” five Christian missionaries working in Ecuador in the mid-1950s who were speared to death trying to bring the Gospel to the remote Waorani tribe. At the time, the tribe was known as the Auca, which means “naked savages,” because of their violent opposition to outsiders as well as the bloody infighting within the tribe. The five martyred missionaries were Nate Saint, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Jim Elliot; the author, Elisabeth Elliot, is Jim Elliot’s widow.

“Through Gates of Splendor” is a worthwhile read for several reasons. It gives us a window into the lives of missionaries working in a very remote area; even with the Internet and cell phones, many missionaries today live in much the same way as Elliot and his friends did in the 1950s. It examines the personal journeys of five very different young men that ultimately brought them to their end on an Ecuadorian sand bar on January 8, 1956. But the meaning for today goes far beyond any cultural or biographical information we can gain from it.

Elisabeth Elliot’s book recounts how the five men had worked in different areas of Ecuador among different tribes, all the while hoping for an opportunity to reach the Auca, who had never even heard the name of Jesus. When that opportunity came, the men jumped at it. They had a few very positive encounters during that first week of January, only to have tragedy strike.

Elliot’s book never tells exactly how the men died; for her purposes how they lived was much more important. But Steve Saint, the son of missionary pilot Nate Saint, did learn the story many years later, from the very men who killed his father. An article he wrote in Christianity Today explains what happened on that last day (the article can be found here). The bottom line was this: approximately six Auca men attacked that afternoon with spears, leaving no one alive.

The fact that the tribesmen used spears and had to approach across an open area in daylight to reach the sandbar is critical for one reason: the five missionaries were armed with pistols. They could have very easily fought off their attackers, but they only fired warning shots in the air, even as they were being speared, because they had taken a vow that they would only use them as a defense against wild animals, never against humans.

Revelation 12:11 says, “they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” Rarely has this verse been better illustrated than by the sacrifice of these five young men. They knew as they lay dying that they were leaving behind a combined five wives and eight children, but the souls of the Auca meant more to them. And it was the very fact that they did not fight back that caused the Auca to invite Elisabeth Elliot into their village a few years later to explain why, resulting in a number of them becoming Christians (and the tribe to henceforth be known as the Waorani). In yet another display of forgiveness, Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint, the sister of Nate Saint, lived for two years among the Waorani after the massacre, ministering to both their physical and spiritual needs.

These five men, and the families they left behind, were heroes in a way rarely seen today. Jim Elliot once said that “he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” We have come so far from this type of sacrificial mindset that it’s almost hard to believe that it ever existed. But their story did happen, and it is one that we need to know and to pass on to our children.

 

Grasping the Opportunity

Christianity has always been a missionary religion. However, statistics show that only about 3 percent of Christians ever share their faith, in spite of the fact that telling others the good news about Jesus is commanded in the Great Commission:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:19-20 NIV)

With such a clear directive from Jesus, why is it that 97 percent of us disobey by never telling another person that they can have a relationship with Christ? There are several reasons, ranging from a fear of rejection to the belief that we don’t know enough. I think one of the biggest reasons, however, is that we’re simply not alert to the opportunities that come our way every day.

 Many Christians today only think about sharing their faith when their pastor preaches on the need for all of us to be engaged in evangelism. Then any thoughts about telling the Good News to their family, friends, neighbors, and anyone else the encounter vanishes until the next sermon or the next time the church offers an evangelism class. This was not the case with Jesus’ first disciples, however, and we have the same Holy Spirit they had.

The book of Acts is filled with examples of men just like us making the most of every opportunity to share their faith:

1. Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up. And as he did, the man’s feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened. He jumped up, stood on his feet, and began to walk! Then, walking, leaping, and praising God, he went into the Temple with them.

All the people saw him walking and heard him praising God. When they realized he was the lame beggar they had seen so often at the Beautiful Gate, they were absolutely astounded! They all rushed out in amazement to Solomon’s Colonnade, where the man was holding tightly to Peter and John.

Peter saw his opportunity and addressed the crowd. “People of Israel,” he said, “what is so surprising about this? And why stare at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or godliness? For it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of all our ancestors—who has brought glory to his servant Jesus by doing this. This is the same Jesus whom you handed over and rejected before Pilate, despite Pilate’s decision to release him. You rejected this holy, righteous one and instead demanded the release of a murderer. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact!

“Through faith in the name of Jesus, this man was healed—and you know how crippled he was before. Faith in Jesus’ name has healed him before your very eyes.

“Friends, I realize that what you and your leaders did to Jesus was done in ignorance. But God was fulfilling what all the prophets had foretold about the Messiah—that he must suffer these things. Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away. Then times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will again send you Jesus, your appointed Messiah. (Acts 3:7-20 NLT)

When we read this passage the natural inclination is to focus on the healing of the lame beggar; after all, that’s not something you see every day. But in only seeing the miracle God performed through Peter, we overlook Peter using the miracle as an opportunity to turn the conversation away from himself and toward Jesus. The people were marveling at the miracle, and Peter saw his chance to tell them about the One who enabled him to perform it. How many times every day could we start a conversation about Christ with someone simply by stopping long enough to give the praise and credit for a positive event to the Author of all blessings?

2.  As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and he was now returning. Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah.

The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.”

Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.

The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this:

   “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter.
      And as a lamb is silent before the shearers,
      he did not open his mouth.
    He was humiliated and received no justice.
      Who can speak of his descendants?
      For his life was taken from the earth.”

The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?” So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus.

As they rode along, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look! There’s some water! Why can’t I be baptized?” He ordered the carriage to stop, and they went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. (Acts 8:26-38 NLT)

In this passage, Philip was led by the Holy Spirit to a particular location, but it was still up to him to recognize the opportunity and make the most of the situation. When he heard the Ethiopian official reading from the book of Isaiah he asked a simple question: “Do you understand what you are reading?” And the man answered honestly that he needed someone to help explain it to him. Many people would like to know more about what the Christian life is all about, but we don’t bother to initiate a conversation with them. Even when we find ourselves engaged in a conversation about spiritual things with a non-Christian we are often afraid to share what Jesus has done in our lives because we don’t want to risk offending anyone. Many are as eager to hear as the man in this passage was, and we should not hesitate to share the Gospel with them.

3.  While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city. He went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there.

He also had a debate with some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. When he told them about Jesus and his resurrection, they said, “What’s this babbler trying to say with these strange ideas he’s picked up?” Others said, “He seems to be preaching about some foreign gods.”

Then they took him to the high council of the city. “Come and tell us about this new teaching,” they said. “You are saying some rather strange things, and we want to know what it’s all about.” (It should be explained that all the Athenians as well as the foreigners in Athens seemed to spend all their time discussing the latest ideas.)

So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.

“He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.

“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.

“God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him. For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:16-31 NLT)

For many of us, this is actually the worst possible scenario. As hesitant as we might be initiating a conversation about our faith, answering someone who asks us to explain it can be even more intimidating. This is why Peter tells us to always be ready to give the reason for the hope we have in Christ (1 Peter 3:15). But Paul did not shy away from speaking to the intellectuals of Athens, and we should not be afraid of those who challenge us to defend our faith today. Paul did not attack the many gods they worshipped, but rather pointed them to the one true God. We can follow his example, not needing to get into debates about science or philosophy but simply sharing the Gospel.

So what is the Gospel we’re supposed to share? The gospel, the evangel, the good news that Jesus brought is not nearly as complicated as we often try to make it. In a nutshell, Jesus’ message was that we have all sinned and none of us deserve Heaven. But God loved us enough, even while we weren’t loveable, that He sent Jesus to take the penalty that we deserved. The apostle Paul put it this way:

“My friends, I want you to remember the message that I preached and that you believed and trusted. You will be saved by this message, if you hold firmly to it. But if you don’t, your faith was all for nothing. I told you the most important part of the message exactly as it was told to me. That part is: Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures say. He was buried, and three days later he was raised to life, as the Scriptures say. Christ appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. After this, he appeared to more than five hundred other followers. Most of them are still alive, but some have died. He also appeared to James, and then to all of the apostles. Finally, he appeared to me.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-8 CEV).

Jesus said in Luke 19:10 that he “came to seek and save the lost.” How does He save us? When asked how to be saved, the apostle Paul gave this answer: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…for if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Acts 16:31, Romans 10:9 NIV).

That’s the Good News. We can keep it to ourselves if we want, but we’re disobeying Jesus by doing so. We should never forget that the only reason any Christian has the assurance of eternal life is because someone shared the Gospel with them first. We need to constantly be on the lookout for opportunities to tell people about Jesus, because the Gospel is the best news there ever was. We should seize every chance we get to share it.

 

The Forgotten Mission Field

A while back one of my posts commented on a report on the decline of Christianity in Europe (you can read the whole thing here). In a nutshell, the report detailed declining church attendance across the Continent and predicted the end of Christianity in Europe within the next 100 years. It was an extreme claim to say the least, but it did contain some alarming statistics showing a serious drop in church attendance.

In that first post I commented that in order to remain true to the Great Commission, we should divert at least some of our missions resources to Europe. In the past week, however, I have come across some new statistics about the state of Christianity in Europe that are much more alarming. Christianity is indeed in decline across Europe, but when comparing the percentage of Evangelical Christians to the percentage of Muslims in the four largest European countries, the results are staggering (numbers come from Operation World and The Joshua Project, 2010 edition):

Spain  1.0% Evangelical Christian,  2.4% Muslim

France 1.0% Evangelical Christian,  10.5% Muslim

Italy 1.1% Evangelical Christian,  2.6% Muslim

Germany 2.1% Evangelical Christian,  4.4% Muslim

When you compare these percentages to a few countries we typically view as traditional “mission fields,” the numbers are even more striking:

Peru 11.6% Evangelical Christian,  0% Muslim

Rwanda 26.9% Evangelical Christian,  5.2% Muslim

Romania 5.4% Evangelical Christian,  0.6% Muslim

Vatican City 2.5% Evangelical Christian,  0% Muslim  (That’s right…there is a higher percentage of Evangelical Christians in the capital of the Catholic church than in France, Spain, Italy, or Germany).

I use the comparison to Islam in part because Christianity and Islam are the two religions with the greatest missionary focus. It is clear from these numbers that, in Europe at least, the Muslims have much better focus than we do. How is it that we are less committed to spreading the Truth than they are to spreading a lie?

There are no doubt some readers who will take exception to the fact that I have only included Evangelical Christians, though if you’ve read any of my other posts it really should not be a surprise. But by way of explanation for my Catholic readers, please see my post on “Evangelicals and Catholics” here. 

The bottom line is simple. Two thousand years ago the Apostle Paul expressed his desire to take the Gospel to Spain (Romans 15:23-28), and it is apparent that the task remains unfinished. We must, as local congregations, as Southern Baptists, and as Evangelical Christians put Europe back into our missionary focus. It is a hard field, to be sure. Islam is only one of many obstacles that also include a general disdain toward religion in general and a rise in New Age and Occult practices. But we are commanded to go, not to worry about whether the seed we scatter will bear fruit. That is up to the Lord, not us.

And besides the need to evangelize the continent, we must (as I stated in the first post on Europe) show the believers that are there that we have not forgotten them. That one percent of France, Spain, and Italy that are remaining faithful to the Gospel must see that we stand with them. We must “strengthen what remains and is about to die (Rev. 3:2).” There is no time to waste.

 

Halloween and the Gospel

It is once again that time of year when Haunted Houses spring up all over town and children scramble to get the year’s most popular costume. Soon, hordes of little ghosts, witches, and vampires will prowl our neighborhoods seeking the thing that, for most people, Halloween is all about: candy. It is also the time of year for the annual debate among many Christians about how to respond to Halloween.

Probably for as long as the holiday has been celebrated, Christians have split into three main groups: those who think it’s a glorification of Satan and should be outlawed, those who think it’s the best time in the world to bring the Gospel to people who are into occult practices, and those who think that the other two sides should settle down (after all, it’s really just about candy). My own view is something of a mix of these.

Certainly there are people who get excited about Halloween because they are interested in, or even committed to, Satanism, witchcraft, and the occult. But these same people are into these things on Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Arbor Day as well (the Druids are especially into Arbor Day), so it’s not the specific day that’s the problem. However, I do not want my children involved with Ouija boards, tarot readings, or séances, all of which are more prevalent at this time of year, so as always common sense is needed. But a haunted house and some candy never hurt anyone, and making such a big deal about it makes us all look like Ned Flanders.

For the side that sees Halloween as a day to “win the devil worshippers to the Lord,” take a step back and ask yourself if you’ve talked to a neighbor or coworker about the Lord since last Halloween. Sharing the Gospel is a year-round calling. And don’t put Gospel tracts in the kids’ trick or treat bags unless you’re also putting a large amount of candy, otherwise you’ll get a worse reputation on the block than the guy in my old neighborhood who gave us pennies instead of candy (seriously…pennies).

Where outreach is certainly possible is through the numerous Fall Festivals that most churches host around Halloween. These events give parents a safe place for their whole family to play games, eat free junk food, and get candy. Since fewer of us even know our next-door neighbors than at any time in our history, the chance for some sense of community can make the church, and ultimately the Gospel, more attractive to those who might otherwise never come.

The key to a Fall Festival being a doorway to sharing the Gospel is truly caring about the people who attend. If your only goal in holding an event like this is to boost church membership or if your see the un-churched as projects, people will know and won’t be back for any reason. If you’re doing it to give families a safe alternative on Halloween and because you want your church to have a positive impact in the community, people will know that too and will be more open to listening to the message of the Good News.

Halloween is meant to be a fun time for the kids and we should make it as fun (and safe) as possible. If the opportunity to share the Gospel presents itself, we should do that as well. As Peter said in 1 Peter 3:15: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”

 

Why The First Chapter of Romans Matters

There is no disputing the fact that we live in a time when great numbers of people scoff at the Bible. And while more and more people seem to either believe the Bible is completely true on the one hand or that it’s all a fairy tale on the other, there are some enterprising folks out there trying to create what they call “common ground” with regard to the Bible. However, what they’re doing has nothing to do with common ground.

Most who know the Bible would agree that Paul’s letter to the Romans is not the easiest book to read. But while it does contain some fairly serious theology, that’s not the biggest problem that people, both inside and outside the Church, have with it. Romans makes us uncomfortable, mainly because it says in no uncertain terms that we are all sinners who need to be saved from our sin. And the first chapter of the letter describes some of that sin in blistering detail.

This brings us to the way some are hoping to ease the discomfort the chapter causes. They feel the best way to eliminate the fight over the first chapter of Romans is to simply remove it from their Bibles, and that is exactly what some so-called churches have done. They believe we can all get along much better if this archaic and offensive section is simply thrown away. It’s an approach that understandably appeals to a lot of people, and fits well with an Old Testament verse from the Book of Judges: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25 NKJV)

To cut to the chase, the problem that many claim to have with chapter 1 of Romans is that it very specifically condemns homosexuality. There are other passages in the Bible that do this as well, but none as forcefully or eloquently as Paul does here. This has caused people to label Paul a homophobe, a bigot, and any number of other epithets, but these accusations do not make him wrong. He is right from start to finish here, and not just about homosexuality:

18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. 27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.

28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too. (Romans 1:18-32 NLT)

So yes, Paul does indeed condemn homosexuality. But I think that some people express outrage at Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality simply to draw attention away from other things he condemns just as forcefully, such as any type of sexual immorality, which from a Biblical perspective is any sexual activity outside of marriage. He then goes on to list sins such as elevating ourselves above God, idolatry, greed, envy, murder, deception, hatred of God, pride, lack of mercy, hatred, insolence, and just about anything else we as humans could possibly do wrong. And that’s the whole point: we all need a savior because every one of us is guilty of something deserving God’s punishment.

This is the other aspect of chapter 1 of Romans that some object to: if God is a God of love, then why would he punish us, even if we sin? This argument is almost too ridiculous to even comment on, but I will. God is indeed a God of love, but he is also a God of justice. He loves us but must punish our sin, much like we as parents still love our children even though we have to punish them sometimes. So what is the solution?

Simply put, the answer to the problem is Jesus. John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” This dilemma of love and justice is what Paul spends most of the letter to the Romans explaining, and in a nutshell it works out like this:

1. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23 NIV)

2. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NIV)

3. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 NIV)

4. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:9-10, 13 NIV)

Throwing out (or just ignoring) the parts of the Bible that make us uncomfortable is not the answer, because it is usually those very parts that enable us to see the areas of our life that need the most work and ultimately lead us to where God wants us to be in our walk with him. Just as a person who doesn’t know they have a disease will see no need for treatment until they are given a troubling diagnosis, how can we see our need for a savior until we look honestly at ourselves and the sin in our own lives? This is precisely why the first chapter of Romans matters.