Bible Study Seattle

After giving thanks for the faithful, Paul describes those without faith in God.  He describes many of the ‘smart, progressive’ people of our day whose ‘wisdom’ graces the pages of many popular magazines.  “This is why God has given them up to the vileness of their hearts’ lusts, to the shameful misuse of each other’s bodies.  They have exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, by worshiping and serving created things, rather than the Creator — praised be he for ever. Amen.  This is why God has given them up to degrading passions; so that their women exchange natural sexual relations for unnatural; and likewise the men, giving up natural relations with the opposite sex, burn with passion for one another, men committing shameful acts with other men and receiving in their own persons the penalty appropriate to their perversion.  In other words, since they have not considered God worth knowing, God has given them up to worthless ways of thinking; so that they do improper things.  They are filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and vice; stuffed with jealousy, murder, quarreling, dishonesty and ill-will; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God; they are insolent, arrogant and boastful; they plan evil schemes; they disobey their parents; they are brainless, faithless, heartless and ruthless.  They know well enough God’s righteous decree that people who do such things deserve to die; yet not only do they keep doing them, but they applaud others who do the same.”  Romans 1:24-32

Obviously the degree of vileness varies greatly.  But this passage would not be read in many churches today!  There is so much compassion and tolerance for evil, yet we do have compassion for those who are off course (which is all of us to some degree).  We long for the day when everything is pure and right.