Big Points and Small Points

Scripture Verses that Caught my Attention Today: Romans 1:24-2:1 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Rom. 1:26 For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

Rom. 1:28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. 29 They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.

Rom. 2:1 Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.

AND Romans 3:23-24 “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…”

Observation: It’s a set-up. Paul sucks people into condemning others, then he condemns the finger-pointers and finally points out how everyone is dependent on the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The smaller points in these passages might be debatable. The larger point of these passages is not.

Application: Upon reading the observation above, the questions that most likely come to mind include: “what are the ‘smaller’ points?’ and, what is the ‘larger’ point?” Fair enough.

The smaller points are the specifics in terms of the different kinds of things that Paul either believes are wrong or believes that those to whom he is writing believe are wrong. It’s a laundry list of sorts—a listing of all kinds of things that either Paul thinks are wrong or that his followers think are wrong or both. These days a lot of people focus on his comments in regard to same-gender sexual activity--and that’s certainly worth discussing—but it is certainly NOT the main point of his passage. Although he describes same-gender sexual activity as ‘degrading,’ he describes a host of other things—including those who ‘envy,’ have ‘strife,’ are ‘gossips,’ or are ‘foolish’—as ‘wickedness.’ And so while it is easy to be drawn into a debate about any one of these smaller illustrations of what Paul considered degrading or wicked, the larger points still stand:

Large point 1: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Large point 2: “they are now justified by his grace as a gift…”

Paul is not trying to argue that some people are good and other people are bad. He is persuasively arguing that all people (himself included) are bad and that the only hope for one and all is through the crucified and risen one.

The moment that we forget either of these larger points, the moment that we consider ourselves to be ‘less bad’ than anyone else, that is the moment when we become another form of ‘wickedness’ which Paul describes as “boastful” or, possibly, “haughty.”

This is not to say that we can’t or shouldn’t have some honest discussion around any of Paul’s ‘examples.’ But everything must still be kept in its proper place. Small points go in the small basket; big points go in the big basket. Repeat, over and over and over again.

Prayer: Lord, there’s more that perhaps could or should be said, but for now I think it’s enough for you to reminds us to keep Paul’s big points and small point in their respective places.

(Readings today included: Romans 1-4)