Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Why Paul Was Not Ashamed

In our last post, we saw why some might have charged Paul with being ashamed to preach the gospel in Rome.  Yet Paul declares in Romans 1:15-16a: “I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.  For I am not ashamed of the gospel..."
 
But why was Paul not ashamed?  After all, the gospel is a message that was contrary to everything the “enlightened” Greeks of the day believed.  Tbe gospel says there is only one God; the Greeks insisted that there are either many or none.  The gospel says that God came to earth as a man to suffer on a cross between two thieves.  Certainly no god worthy of any kind of honor would do that!  The gospel says that we cannot earn our way into God’s favor, but rather, we must simply turn to Him in faith.  No sacrifices?  No rituals?  This is no god at all!  These highly civilized Greeks were not going to be open to Paul's message. 

The Greeks rejected the gospel because it seemed to them as sheer foolishness.  Yet Paul says he is not ashamed of the gospel, for “it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” 

Why was Paul not ashamed to proclaim the gospel of Jesus in the city of Rome?  Because his gospel is the only hope that any person has of salvation, no matter who they are.  The rich and the poor, the knowledgeable and the ignorant, the master and the slave, the Greek and the barbarian – they are all equal when it comes to the gospel.  None are saved without it, but all who believe are saved by it.

This is why Paul could stand before Felix and Drusilla, before Festus, before King Agrippa and Bernice, and boldly preach the gospel.  These were the authorities!  Yes, Paul preached the gospel to the sick and the poor, but he also preached it to the powerful and the wealthy.  He was not afraid to proclaim in Athens or Rome the same message he proclaimed in less-cultured cities of the day.  There is only one God, the One revealed in the man Christ Jesus.  Paul would not change his message because of how it might be received by the elite of his day. And how did the elite respond?  In Athens, some mocked.  But others were willing to hear him again, and some (by God's grace) believed.

Is the gospel foolishness to the Greeks?  Yes.  But not to those who are called.  Not to those to whom God grants faith.  To them, the gospel is the wisdom of God and the power of God.  It is the way of salvation.  Therefore, Paul is not intimidated, he is not embarrassed, he is not ashamed.  He is eager to preach the gospel, even in Rome.  And preach he did.  God did eventually bring Paul to Rome so that he could proclaim the gospel there.  The last two verses of the book of Acts say this:

“He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.”  (Acts 28:30-31)

Paul was not ashamed.

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.

Richard Wurmbrand: We Must Pledge Our Allegiance to Christ Now

“I remember my last Confirmation class before I left Romania.  I took a group of ten to fifteen boys and girls on a Sunday morning, not to a church, but to the zoo.  Before the cage of lions I told them, “Your forefathers in faith were thrown before such wild beasts for their faith.  Know that you also will have to suffer.  You will not be thrown before lions, but you will have to do with men who would be much worse than lions.  Decide here and now if you wish to pledge allegiance to Christ.”  They had tears in their eyes when they said yes. 

We have to make the preparation now, before we are imprisoned.  In prison you lose everything.  You are undressed and given a prisoner’s suit.  No more nice furniture, nice carpets, or nice curtains.  You do not have your wife any more and you do not have your children.  You do not have your library and you never see a flower.  Nothing of what makes life pleasant remains.  Nobody resists who has not renounced the pleasures of life beforehand.”

Lloyd-Jones on Fads and the Church

“Another argument that I would adduce at this point is that the moment you begin to turn from preaching to these other expedients you will find yourself undergoing a constant series of changes.  One of the advantages of being old is that you have experience, so when something new comes up, and you see people getting very excited about it, you happen to be in the position of being able to remember a similar excitement perhaps forty years ago.  And so one has seen fashions and vogues and stunts coming one after another in the Church.  Each one creates great excitement and enthusiasm and is loudly advertised as the thing that is going to fill the churches, the thing that is going to solve the problem.  They have said that about every single one of them.  But in a few years they have forgotten all about it, and another stunt comes along, or another new idea…and everybody rushes after it; but soon it wanes and disappears and something else takes it place.

This is, surely, a very sad and regrettable state for the Christian Church to be in, that like the world she should exhibit these constant changes of fashion.  In that state she lacks the stability and the solidity and the continuing message that has ever been the glory of the Christian Church.”  Preachers and Preaching, p. 35

Hear Lloyd-Jones' lectures on preaching here.

Rise of the Uncool

The purpose of this blog is to call Christians everywhere away from the temptation to pursue cultural "coolness" and attractiveness rather than biblical faithfulness.  Or to put it another way, this blog calls on Christians to follow Jesus in everything, even when it is uncool.

We live in interesting times.  Right now, at least in some places, being uncool is cool.  We are observing a trend towards valuing authenticity and being repulsed by those who try too hard to fit in with others.  One example of this trend can be seen in the rise of popular nerdiness.  Shows like The Big Bang Theory feature intellectual, socially awkward characters of the sort many of us made fun of in high school.  Now we are wearing their pictures on our t-shirts.  In television and magazine ads we are seeing more and more models (especially male models) wearing glasses and sporting an intellectual look.  Suddenly, it has become cool to be uncool.

This blog, however, is not about pursuing uncoolness.  It is about pursuing faithful obedience to Jesus.  It is about standing for the gospel, even when the gospel is unpopular.  It is about preaching God's truth, even when people mock or even label that truth as hate speech.  This blog is a call for Christians to conform their lives to the teaching of Christ, even when it means sacrificing cool points in the eyes of your friends and relatives.  It is also a call for Christian church to conform themselves to Scripture and not to the faddish preferences of those who attend, be they believers or unbelievers. 

The posts on this blog always revolve around at least one of the following six moral imperatives.

1. Christians must hold fast to the biblical truth even in a culture that is hostile to that truth.
2. Christians must order their lives, including their ideas about gender, sexuality, marriage, and family to the teaching of Scripture, no matter how out of step these ideas may be with the larger society around them.
3. Christians must reject a life of instability, and turn away from the tendency to conform ourselves to rising and falling fads, be they secular or religious.
4. Christians must worship God as He has commanded, focusing our worship services towards Him, and not on entertaining ourselves.
5. Christians must never stop evangelizing the lost, and we must do this using biblically faithful methods, trusting God to save sinners.
6. Christians must prepare themselves to suffer, perhaps even greatly, because of their allegiance to Christ in these things.