Good morning. We continue with Paul’s introduction. He was
very famous for extremely long sentences. Speaking of Jesus – who was declared
the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the
Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace
and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles
for His name’s sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ; to all
who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: grace to you and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That plus all we did yesterday is one
sentence. Until Jesus was raised from the dead, He was just an extraordinary
man with miraculous powers. There have been numerous people throughout the ages
who have performed miracles such as He did; but none of them were raised
permanently from the dead. All three members of the Godhead are mentioned at
work in this sentence. Paul says that his designation as an apostle came
straight from Jesus. In other letters he also includes – not from man. He talks
about the obedience of faith among the Gentiles, because he’s writing to those
who mostly were Gentiles. We, as well as they, are called as saints – not as
“aints”. Father thank You that we are called as saints. Help us to live our
lives as saints showing forth Your life wherever we go.
Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me
Good morning. Paul then gives a list of a lot of things that he has gone through as an apostle. I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. There could be many people that you listen to either in church or through the Internet or other means; but there was only one person (as a general rule it was a person) that lead you to Christ. Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. He was saying that just like a child imitates his or her father, they were to imitate him. He says that again seven chapters later. Since it is easy to forget some things about people we have not seen in a while, Paul says that he sent Timothy to them to remind them of his ways which are in Christ, just as he taught everywhere in every church. Some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. I shall find ou...
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