Paul sends greetings from his friends.
Click here for an online Bible. Romans 16:19-24
Paul provides some encouragement for the church of Rome. Their obedience to God has been noteworthy. Paul rejoices in their obedience. But he warns them to cling to the good and avoid the bad.
They can take heart because God is the winner in the struggle against evil. Paul expects the second coming of Christ to occur soon. From our vantage, we know that soon is not the way we would define soon. Yet we are too live as if it could happen any day.
Paul sends greetings to Rome from his fellow Christians in Corinth. Many of these names we see in the book of Acts.
We often think of Paul as all alone or with only his trusted Timothy or Silas. Here we see that there are many fellow believers who labored alongside of Paul in the spread of the gospel. Most of their names we don’t know. Yet they started the early church which took the gospel to the world.
We have a responsibility just as they did. We are to be part of a larger effort to take the gospel to the world. Some of those Paul mentioned traveled with him and started new churches. Others stayed in their home towns and served the Lord there. The same is true for us. Some are called to be missionaries and take the gospel to remote areas while most of us stay in our home towns and serve.
Our home towns are still the mission field. We encounter people every day that Jesus died for. They need to here the gospel. We work alongside of others day in and day out. They need to see us live our faith.
Christianity is a team effort. There are no spectators.
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1 comment:
I like the way the Message puts verse 19, "I want you also to be smart, making sure every "good" thing is the real thing. Don't be gullible in regard to smooth-talking evil."
Evil is out there in the world and we should be able to recognize it - it permeates even Christian churches. I admit I can usually see the wrong thing if it's obviously against God's word, but sometimes the evil isn't so obvious and it takes the Holy Spirit to clarify what is truth.
Usually Satan isn't dressed in some horrible red outfit with a hideous screeching burning face. Each time I've encountered him he's been dressed like any other "normal" person and has been quite attractive - a foolish ploy to get me to fall for his lies.
I believe we are living in the times of "Godlessness In The Last Days" warned about in 2 Timothy 3:1-5 NIV, "But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them."
And I try to heed Paul's warning, by identifying and staying away from evil, but sometimes that evil is hidden in plain view like with New Age and Freemasonary.
As I am a woman who is prone to having a weakwill, I am grateful that God's word says the evil will be very obvious, "They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone." (2 Timothy 3:6-9).
The truth is easy - the truth is Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life - no one comes to the Father except though Him.
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