Objective of this lesson: to set a context for this quarter's lessons: How do people who belong to God through Jesus Christ who exist in an evil environment also live for God?
The likelihood is that if you have been a Christian for several years, you have heard a number of lessons on these verses.
These should be very familiar verses to most of the students.
Romans 12:1,2 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Much of the time today's Christians consider those statements in light of today's realties. Paul did not live in the 21st century when he wrote those statements. The Christians at Rome who received those statements did not live in any nation in the 21st century world. The concepts were not about existence in the 21st century world.
Most lessons your students have heard on these verses are presented as though Paul wrote to us. Paul did not have us in his thoughts when he wrote this letter. Help your students realize it is a letter, and it was from Paul to Christians in Rome. That certainly does not mean the principles are not applicable to our struggles. However, it does mean we need to exercise deliberate effort to grasp Paul's point. We must not impose our concerns on Paul's statements (in any writing) and decide our concerns are Paul's concerns.
To establish a context and to thereby establish some contextual insight, we will begin by looking at their situation. First, recognize the book we call Romans is actually a letter Paul sent to Christians who were living in the city of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire. If a person wished to live 'where everything is happening', he went to Rome. There is where the Roman emperor lived. There is where the Roman senate met. There is where the laws for the Roman Empire were made. There is where the Imperial Guards, the troops who protected the emperor, were stationed. There is where you would see the empire's military victories celebrated. There is where you would see the latest innovations in the pursuit of 'the good life'. There you could be involved in and witness the pursuit of pleasure by the western world's most important people. There was the center of the western world's imports, business dealings, slave trade, etc. Rome was home to powerful people 'who made things happen'. If that was the environment a person wished to live in, Rome was the place to be! It was a living display of the latest innovations of power and the latest pursuits of pleasure! In the western world of the first century, Rome was the prominent place with great access to power and money.
Being a part of the scene or being "where things are happening" is important to a lot of people today. Some people enjoy living in a large city because "I can feel the energy in this place." Some enjoy being in an environment where history is being made. Some like multiple opportunities and multiple directions for life. Help your students understand that if you wanted to be a part of "a happening scene" in the first century, Rome was the place to be.
That certainly does not mean everyone in Rome was wealthy or a part of the privileged. As continues to be true of most populous cities, there were more poor people in Rome than wealthy people there. As continues to be true, most only 'saw' what was happening, but never 'was' an important part of what was happening. This same city also was an excellent climate to nurture and sustain envy and all the evil forces that are companions to envy.
The majority of the residents in first century Rome were poor people. The leadership in Rome went to significant lengths to see that such people were fed and entertained. It was by caring for such needs that the officials kept a potentially rebellious group under control.
Generally speaking, Jews who lived in Palestine did not care for gentiles, and gentiles living anywhere did not care for Jews. Though there were different perspectives among Jewish people [for example, Palestinian Jews {Jews living in the Jewish homeland} and Diaspora Jews {Jews living outside of Palestine} often held different perspectives with differing contacts with gentiles]. Also different perspectives existed among gentiles {any none Jewish person} [for example, gentiles who were God fearers were quite distinct from idol worshippers].
Do not oversimplify the situation. There were many kinds of Jewish perspectives and gentile perspectives. There definitely were exceptions created by individual reactions [consider the Jewish reaction to a gentile request in Luke 7:2-5]. However , generally speaking, Jews and gentiles did like not each other. In some places there were anti-Semitic feelings toward Jews [some gentiles regarded the Jewish people to be lazy, social isolationists, and religiously judgmental]. Many Jewish people regarded gentiles as religiously foolish and socially indiscriminate.
Generally speaking, the chasm between Jews [a small group of people] and gentiles [the greater majority of people] was enormous and deep. As an example, the diet of Jewish people was quite distinct from the diet of gentiles. The house guests of Jews were often only other Jews. The Jewish people did not work at all on Saturday. Eating differently, socializing differently, and working differently produce some enormous, basic differences.
Two illustrations of great differences between devout Jews and idol-worshipping gentiles are found in dietary practices [Leviticus 11] and not doing any work on Saturday [Exodus 20:8-11].
Such differences made their way into church practices. Most of us in congregations of the Church of Christ in America are gentiles. Most of us have never been in an orthodox Jewish worship setting. Most of us have never attended an orthodox Jewish synagogue. In places where the congregation is primarily Jewish, Jewish Christians today still do things in ways that is different to the traditions of us gentile Christians.
Even today, most congregations in most cultures do things in ways that either reflect their culture or the history of congregations in that area. In something as simple as the way in which the Lord's Supper is practiced [there are no specific 'do this in this way' Bible instructions], there are some places where people never use bread of any kind and cannot grow grapes. They are unfamiliar with unfermented grape juice. Consequently the distinctions between kinds of bread means nothing to those Christians. The only fruit of the vine they know are wines made from grapes.
The differences between the way Jewish Christians did things and the way gentile Christians did things were often much more different than that example.
Rome was basically a gentile city. Christianity began in the Jewish city of Jerusalem with all Jewish or Jewish proselyte converts.
Make certain your students understand that first century Rome was in no way a Christian city with Christian influences and Christian ways. It was an idolatrous city that recognized many differing religious groups [mostly idolatrous].
Distinctions in the 'how' things were done created significant problems among Christians. Jewish people including most Jewish Christians could not comprehend how non-Jewish people could approach the God the Jews worshipped from the time of Abraham without doing things the way Israel did them. The tension between Jewish Christians and gentile Christians was often real and stressful. Each group was just too different! Those differences were quite evident when Paul wrote his letter to Christians in Rome!
Jewish Christians who were comfortable with gentile Christians were a distinct minority--people like Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Priscilla and her husband Aquilia, etc. Most Jewish Christians were not comfortable with gentile Christians (Acts 15; 21:19-21). The tensions between the two groups in the church were quite real.
This tension was one of the primary reasons Paul wrote the letter to the Christians in Rome. Discarding the introduction and the conclusion, the bulk of the letter falls into two emphasis sections. The first focuses on the question, "How does God save people?" Paul addressed that question by noting salvation was a universal human need that definitely included gentiles. The second addresses the question, "If a Christian lived in Rome, how would he or she act?" Or, "What would it look like for a person to follow Christ in the environment of Rome?"
A huge question in Rome in the Christian community: If you are not Jewish or dedicated to Jewish ways, what would being a Christian in Rome look like? For an introduction to that struggle, read the first part of Romans 14.
Paul introduced the second emphasis or section with today's text. If a person is to be a Christian in the environment of Rome, he or she must have a basic understanding. The basic understanding: the Christian belongs to God. He or she does not belong to the pursuit of power, or the pursuit of pleasure, or the pursuit of the latest innovation, or the pursuit of wealth. He or she belongs to God. Conflicts in the Christian life's focus would occur. Yet, the one settled realty was this: "I am a Christian, and as a Christian I, by choice, belong to God. The one living God Who gave me Jesus first and foremost benefits from my existence." Paul discussed what that fact meant in the environment of Rome. He urged Christians in Rome to give allegiance to God--no matter what occurred in that city's environment! Though many gods were worshipped in Rome, the Christian would worship only the God Who gave them the resurrected Jesus.
Today's text is the opening lead-in for Paul's answer to what being a Christian in Rome's evil environment looked like. Paul began by insisting that they must have a basic, foundation understanding. The understanding: The Christian literally belongs to God, exists to pursue God's will, and uses his/her life to honor God.
For Discussion:
Too many of us look at Paul's instructions as though they were primarily written to us with our world/environment in mind.
We Christians of today must understand that Paul wrote the letter we know as Romans to first century Christians living in the evil environment of Rome. He was speaking of their struggles. We must understand his point to them in their evil environment if we make accurate application of Paul's instructions to our circumstances.
The question was this: If we are to exist as Christians in Rome's unchristian environment, what will our lives look like? These people were first generation Christians. They had no Christian examples. For many gentiles who worshipped idols, it was an enormous leap to go from idolatry and the worship of many gods to accept and live by Christian moral values and the worship of one God. Paul's instructions were quite practical as they addressed their reality. "This is what it looks like to be a Christian in your ungodly environment."
Link to Student Guide
Lesson 1