Romans 2

After making a long laundry list of sins in Romans 1:29-31, Paul almost immediately tells Christians in Rome, “You don’t have any right to pass judgment on any of these people I’ve been talking about. You’d be condemning yourself too, because you do the same things they do” (Romans 2:1). Yet in the letter that he wrote to the church in Corinth, he told Christians there to excommunicate a man who had been sleeping with what seems to have been his stepmother (1 Corinthians 5:12-13). How do you think Paul might defend himself on what appears to be a flip-flop?

For someone who tells people they shouldn’t judge others, Paul does a pretty fine job himself of judging others. When he tells Christians in Rome to leave the judging to God, he says the reason they should do that is because they commit the same kinds of sins he just listed in Romans 1:29-31. What right does he have to say something like that to people he has never met?

Paul warns that “all toxic people who hurt themselves and others by the terrible things they do are headed to hard times and pain” (Romans 2:9). Do you think Paul is talking about pain coming in this life or in the next life? In either case, what kind of hard times and pain do you think he’s talking about?

Several times in this chapter Paul talks about Jews being first and everyone else coming later. Then he says, “God doesn’t play favorites” (Romans 2:11). It’s unclear exactly what Paul means when he refers to the Jews being first. Some of the more scholarly Bible translations phrase it this way: “Jews discovered that first. But now everyone can experience God’s reward” (Romans 2:10). Given the context and the way other Bible translations phrase it, do you think Paul is talking about Jews being first on the timeline of history or first in importance to God?

LIFE APPLICATION. Paul says, “People who aren’t Jews have their own good law. It’s a law of nature. Doing the right thing, which the Jewish law teaches, is something that can come naturally to anyone” (Romans 2:14). Paul seems to be saying that the Jews have their law to guide them but that people who are not Jews seem to have a law programmed right into them—a law that helps them know the difference between right and wrong. If that’s so, what’s the point of missionaries, mission teams, and even local churches with a pastor telling people the rules God expects them to obey?

LIFE APPLICATION. Paul says God’s law is not only written into the hearts of nonbelievers but also expressed in the way those people live: “You can see it in the way they live their lives. . . . That’s because the quiet voice of their conscience defends them when they do right and accuses them when they do wrong” (Romans 2:15). If that’s true, prove it. How have you seen nonbelievers act like Christians are supposed to act?

LIFE APPLICATION. Paul wrote to what sounds like Jewish Christians in the church at Rome and said, “I have a question for you if you call yourself a Jew. I’m talking about people who put their faith in the Jewish law and brag about their special relationship with God” (Romans 2:17). Could he just as easily be talking to Christians, as in, “I’m talking about people who put their faith in the Bible and their church and who brag about their special relationship with Jesus”?

LIFE APPLICATION. Paul is not subtle at all when he indicts Jewish people for hypocrisy. “You preach that it’s wrong to steal. Do you steal? You tell others that it’s wrong to commit adultery. Do you sleep around?” (Romans 2:21-22). Then he says that by bragging about their religion while living in blatant hypocrisy, “You break the law. You dishonor God” (Romans 2:23). Do you think that applies to Christians today as well? If so, in what ways do Christians act like hypocrites? And how do people outside the faith watching this react?