It’s interesting to note that God actually told Paul at the start of his ministry that preaching the message of God’s grace was going to be a tough task. It seems that Paul was thankful for the privilege of being able to preach it anyway.

Regardless if people rejected the message, and called it foolish, and discredited it, Paul still found that the greatest blessing on his life was simply in the fact that we was given the honour to preach it, live it, and see the results of God’s grace active in his life and the lives of those in the church who also accepted it.

Paul’s problems were not just with the unbelievers; he had as many problems with people in the church as he did with those outside the church. Most likely he didn’t get physically attacked by those inside the church, but his character got attacked and he was constantly discredited. In other letters he recalls to the church how he was often treated like an imposter; a faker. Paul told the church that although other preachers discredited him by saying he’s wasn’t competent to preach about the things of God; he rejoiced anyway, remarking that it’s ok if he doesn’t have the qualifications in the eyes of the world, because God credits him as competent.

Paul lived out of a revelation that he was not competent because he was someone special, or because other preachers commended him, but rather because God made him competent to be a minister of the new covenant by the working of his grace.

Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 2 Corinthians 3:5-7

Paul received this apostleship; that is the apostleship to preach the gospel as it should be preached; the good news of God’s grace. He also talks about obedience that comes from faith. This is another major point that Paul addresses in this letter. Paul helped the church in Rome understand, and he helps us today to understand, that obedience to God does not come from the law, but it comes from faith; faith in our new creation reality that we have received through the perfect work of Christ.  It is living in this reality that produces obedience to God.

It is a divine revelation, and it is glorious, but in order to accept and understand it, we are first required to put aside our religious ideas and religious mindset and simply allow the Spirt, speaking through Paul’s letter,  to take us on a journey to understand the good news, and the empowerment of God that we have inherited in the gospel.

Most, if not all of us, have had religious tradition handed down to us and have been taught false, religiously minded ideas about the law; teaching that actually encourages us to embrace the law as a useful guide for good Christian living! What could be further from the truth? When these false beliefs regarding the law are left unchallenged, or even worse actually encouraged, the result is what the apostle Paul refers to as spiritual slavery.

This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. Galatians 2:4-5

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

Just like the early Church Paul was talking to, when we are challenged with the possibility that we have believed the wrong thing about both the law and God’s ways, we can easily become offended and find ourselves trying to defend the law. This does us no favours; in fact we can find ourselves only defending a theology of slavery!

Paul himself had to accept he had been terribly wrong about God’s law and God’s ways on the road to Damascus. He had spent his entire life zealous for the law as a means of work’s righteousness. On the road to Damascus he too had to listen to the voice of the Spirit and change his understanding completely in order for his understanding of the law and it’s purpose to fall into line with the reality of Jesus.

It does us good to remember that Paul’s point of view on this issue comes directly from Jesus. Jesus gave Paul the grace to explain to us this glorious revelation, something that does not come natural to the religious mind, but if we are willing to  open our hearts to hear what Paul has to say, and what the Spirit has to say through Paul’s letter, I believe we will be greatly blessed by what he has to explain to us.

Through his journey, when we come to the end, I believe we will be more liberated in the good news and freer in our spirits. It is, after all, for freedom that Jesus came, and it is for freedom that Jesus set us free. So let’s understand how to be truly free; free from sin, free from the wrong understanding of the law, and free to live an empowered life to God!

…More to come…