Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Why Would Anyone Think Paul Was Ashamed?

In Romans 1:16, the Apostle Paul says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel…”  Why does Paul feel the need to say that?  Here is a man who was in and out of prison because of his passion for the gospel.  Here is a man who was stoned because of his commitment to the gospel.  Here is a man who three times was beaten with rods and five times received the forty lashes minus one.  All this because in every town he could not but speak boldly concerning the good news of Jesus Christ.  Who in their right mind would accuse Paul of being ashamed of the gospel?

Even if we knew nothing about Paul’s life and ministry and all the suffering he went through in his service to the gospel, the fifteen verses that come before this one inform us that this is not a man embarrassed by the message of Christ crucified for sinners.  He tells us in the very first verse that he was set apart for the gospel.  His whole life is given to it.  Then, in verse 15, he tells us that he is eager to preach the gospel in Rome.  So why does he feel the need to assert that he is not ashamed of the gospel?

Here is my suggestion: I think verse 16 exists because some in the church in Rome might have doubted what Paul wrote in verses 14 and 15.  He has just told them that he is obligated to preach the gospel to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and the foolish.  The “Greeks” here are not people from Greece, but those in the Roman empire who were considered well-cultured, refined, civilized.  The empire was Roman, but high-culture was Greek.  Those to whom Paul was writing here would definitely have been considered Greeks.  These were people who lived in the capitol city of the empire.  They were surrounded by politics and sports, literature and music, religion and philosophy.  They lived among the worldly-wise.

Now, why has Paul – the apostle to the Gentiles – not visited them, this all-important, strategically located church through which in-roads could be made to reach Gentiles all over the Roman world?  Why has he been on three missionary journeys, visiting some other churches numerous times, and yet so far he has not come to them? 

Paul gives two reasons before first 16: 1) God’s will has prevented him from coming, and 2) he is obligated to all Gentiles, from the least to the greatest.  But someone might be tempted to raise the accusation that the real reason Paul had not come and preached the gospel in Rome is because he was ashamed to do so there.  Here is the center of high-cultured living.  Here is where the movers and the shakers of the world resided.  Rome was a city of Greeks. 

  

Paul knows how Greeks respond to his gospel.  They laugh at it.  Remember 1^st Corinthians 1:18-25?

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.  For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

So to the Greeks who love knowledge and seek wisdom, the gospel is foolishness.  It's nonsense.  Its ridiculous. 

The Christians who were in Rome knew what it was to be considered foolish in the eyes of those around them.  Some looked upon them as misguided idiots; others looked upon them as downright dangerous.  They were accused of creating disturbances in the city.  When Claudius expelled all the Jews from Rome in 49 AD, he did so claiming that the Jews were causing trouble “at the instigation of Chresto”.  Many think this is a reference to the name of Christ.  Fifteen years later Emperor Nero blamed the great fire of Rome on the Christians.  Apparently the Christians were easy targets because they were already ostracized looked down upon by their fellow citizens.  The Christians did not worship the emperor, did not participate in the religious customs and festivals of the day, and did not participate in the immoral lifestyles of the Romans.  The gospel had made them aliens and strangers in their own city.  They were declared enemies of the state, and many were put on trial and fed to lions.  The intensity of the persecution came in waves – sometimes higher, sometimes lower – but the temptation to be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ was a temptation that these Roman Christians knew very well.

So, could it be that Paul himself is ashamed to preach the gospel in Rome?  Might that be the reason he hasn’t yet come?

Absolutely not.  “I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.  For I am not ashamed of the gospel…”  Not ashamed!  In our next post we will see why Paul was not ashamed, and why we should not be ashamed either.