O Lord, I am your servant;
….yes, I am your servant, born into your household;
….you have freed me from my chains.
I will offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving
….and call on the name of the Lord. Psalm 116:16-17 NLT
Romans 1:1-7 (<<click here to read the passage)
Working through this week’s sermon, a portion of it got me thinking in another direction altogether. We are in the middle of a series on 2 Peter, the Apostle Peter’s final correspondence. He was trying to shore up believers, knowing that his time on earth would be coming to a close.
A couple of paragraphs from my sermon read,
You can imagine how scoffers would easily try to pick apart the memory and embellishments of an old preacher about to die… I’m sure they were more than willing to roll their eyes and figure Peter’s experience did nothing for them.
At that point, I decided to interject,
…we hold Peter in very high regard, but in our eyes, he has had two thousand years to reach that status. While he was living, many probably saw him as just another old guy. They would have had to disregard his reputation and were foolish to do so, but they, the same as we, are only human.
Then, reading through the notes on today’s passage in Romans, I came to understand that if you think about it, the believers in Rome didn’t have a New Testament – at this point, even the Gospels were all probably a work in progress. So, Paul’s letter to them may well have been the first piece of Christian literature the Roman believers had seen.*
To recap my post – Your “Letters” Might Change the World, from this past July – we learned that while Paul staying in Corinth, he wrote this letter. And what a mighty, impacting letter it was!
Not a single leader of those following Jesus had been to Rome at this point. Paul would actually be the first, as we discovered at the end of Acts. It is suspected that some of the first to take the Good News of Jesus’ life and sacrifice back, had been part of the thousands who found salvation in response to Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost. And here we are, an active, vibrant church in existence due to the power of the Holy Spirit!
I guess what I’m trying to say is that sometimes we have to cut people some slack and let God work through them and us as well. The general populace interacting with Peter would have had to take time to get to know him to realize who he was and the message that burned within his heart.
The believers in Rome were going on what they had heard at Pentecost and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in their lives – then this letter arrived from Paul. They had to open their hearts to its words. They could’ve been suspicious and totally disregarded it but…they didn’t. The Holy Spirit orchestrated a wonderful interaction and their lives, as well as ours, have been changed forever!
Again, sometimes we have to cut people some slack and let God work through them and us as well. We only know a small portion of who they are, and there may be so much more to learn and embrace! We need to keep our hearts open!
*Life Application Study Bible
Aug 31st, 2022, Wed, 7:36 pm
