ROMANS 2: TO BE OR NOT TO BE
When I first read this chapter, I thought: “Good grief, this will take several readings to get my head around it!” So, if you’re finding it difficult to understand, just write in the comments box below. In time, we can journey through it together. To begin with, it’s good to know that this chapter is part of a 1st Century letter written by a Hebrew academic to Jewish and non-Jewish Followers of Yehoshua ben Dovid (Jesus, Isa) who were living in Rome. In this case, it is not Romans that the Letter to the Romans was written, but Romans, Jews, foreigners, and anyone else living in Rome at that time who could be interested in the Creator God and His unfolding Global Masterplan.
With the tight control across the Roman Empire and good basic infrastructure (particularly roads), news about the Hebrew Yehoshua ben Dovid (Jesus, Isa) had spread quite easily throughout the Roman world. Within weeks of Jesus’ death and resurrection, 
there were Jesus Followers – Followers of The Way – returning from Jerusalem to many countries: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs.[a]
Through these early Believers, a lot of teaching had sprung up – both good teaching and bad teaching. Paul, a Jewish academic trained in Judaism from a young child, was able to write letters to explain where Yehoshua fitted into their ancient Hebrew prophecies (the Creator God’s existing script, that we now call the Old Testament), what Yehoshua accomplished on the cross for the whole world and how “forgiveness of sin” now affects our way of life going forward.
Today’s chapter can be broken up into two parts and both can be understood if you can imagine that our Maker is our Father. If the Creator God (who made us in His own imgaine to function in His Likeness) happens to be a truly Good Father, then He would act with impartial fairness. In addition, any discipline 
would be rightly based on what His children know is wrong – whether that knowledge came from His specific teaching or via their in-built created conscience – deep down they knew it was wrong because they felt that it was wrong instinctively in their heart. A two-year-old for example, who takes money from its mother’s purse, is disciplined differently to a 10-year-old taking the money. The older one is old enough to know what’s right and wrong, but has chosen to steal. The younger one likes those shiny circles and wants to put them in his pocket. The younger one will kick and squeal on the floor with no understanding why he can’t keep those shiny circles that he found. The older one will hide in the shame (and probably lie about it or blame someone else) after being caught with them.
In this same way, our Father God will interact with us on an individual basis on His “Day of Judgement”. When the children come running into His House from the garden, all crying and fighting and blaming each other, Father God will sit down on His judgement seat, line us all up, and one-by-one make a right/correct/perfect assessment of each one of us in this way…
When I point the finger at others, blaming everyone else for doing things wrong, I’ll be judged with the same measurements that I’m using. A good Father would say to my accusations: “What’s good enough for the goose is good enough for the gander. Let’s now see how your behaviour, words, and thoughts hold up under the weight of your own measurement for ‘right-ness’.” [v1-3] With the measure I use, it will be measured to me.[b]
How did I respond to my Father God’s kindness, tolerance, and patience throughout my lifetime? Did I take His grace for granted? [v4] A child who escaped discipline at the time (and feels lucky that they still have their privileges) will know that he got away with it unscathed, and he’ll not press his luck for a second time. Or, the child who runs wild, boasting to his friends: “My Dad doesn’t discipline me, so I can do what I like.” When his Father finally cracks down on this child, there’s a very high chance that he will deal a seriously heavy blow. [v5-9]
Like all good fathers who boast about their good children, Father God is only looking for good behaving children in order to give them glory, honour, immortality, and peace. [v7&10] But it’s important to note here that these things (ordinarily) belong only to God.[c] And yet, He’s wanting to share them with us, His off-spring, bestowing on us His glory and His honour, His immortality, and His peace.
Like all good fathers, our Father God shows no partiality. All children are treated equally though this is based on two things: (i) knowing His Law (the written script, His Handbook for LIFE that the Creator God has made available to all of us) then obeying it; or (ii) not having access to the Manufacturer’s Handbook – His Rule Book – but somehow knowing intuitively (with a fully functioning conscience) what is right and what feels wrong. Then, training oneself to listen to that God-given conscience by sticking with what’s right. [v11-15]
So, Shakespeare’s statement: “To Be or Not To Be” really is the question. The choice is ours and it’s as simple as it was when we were little children. Will we offer to our Father God “goodness” and be acceptable, or not?[d] No-one on the planet has an advantage, or excuse.[e] We’re all in the same boat. When we meet our Maker (and, according to this gospel – this “good news” message), Father God will assess the secret heart of us all, through His Right-Hand Man[f], the promised Redeemer, Christ Jesus our Lord. [v16]
The Second half of this chapter expands on how this “divine assessment” is both impartial and “just”, yet still possible when some people have access to the rule book while others don’t. One way to get your head around this, is to imagine that you’re in charge of a sleep-over with the friends of your children. Now there’s six kids in your house instead of three, and only half of them know your house rules, the culture of your family. How are you to keep order and discipline with all six children so that the sleep-over is a fun time for everyone?
Those who don’t know the house rules are viewed by the over-seeing adult in charge of the house according to the basic idea of conscience. At their age, they should know better i.e. they don’t jump on the furniture, they don’t write on the walls, and they don’t steal things from the parent’s bedroom. Why? Because you should naturally have common sense, even at six years old, to sense instinctively that when you visit people’s houses you’re on your best behaviour. If they won’t listen to correction, they are likely to be rejected – you are glad to see them go and you won’t be welcoming them back, if at all possible!!
At the same time, the children who belong to the family and have been taught the house rules, have two jobs. They’re not only required to follow the house 
rules (especially when the house is full of their friends and mum’s run off her feet serving them all), but to also assist in helping their friends to follow the house rules. While the family children aren’t blamed for the bad behaviour of their guests, they would be in big trouble later if they saw their friend’s bad behaviour, but then using acceptance and tolerance as their guiding priciple, they ignored it. They didn’t say anything to help or to stop it. Worse still, they abandoned the family rules in order to either join in or else encourage this new ‘foreign’ behaviour!
In this same way, Paul is giving the new Believers in Rome a choice: To Be or Not To Be appropriate members of the Creator God’s family. If they bear the family name and rely on the family promises and inheritance, this comes with house rules. If they boast that they know the Father’s will, and approve of the essential things that He has in His house rules; if they’re confident that they can be a guide for others (a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature) according to the house rules – will they not behave themselves the way they have passed on those house rules? [v17-21] Once the house rules are made known to the friends visiting the house, is it not now an embarrassment to the Father when His own children behave exactly as they should not? [v22-24]
There are many stories where children were children in family name, but the parents don’t know what went wrong with them. As a result, they love their children but the family relationship has broken down. They are estranged culturally from the very ones who carry the family name. At the same time, you may have heard the phrase: “You’re the son/daughter I never had”. It’s spoken of others who have come into the family home and have been wonderful to the parents, filling the shoes of those who were never there to begin with, who are no longer there, or are too busy to bother. Surely those who act as beloved children are valued as greatly as birth children. Some are adopted in and given an inheritance in the family Will. [v26-27]
Paul, in today’s chapter, speaks of the circumcised and the uncircumcised. This dates back 2,500+/- years earlier, to Abraham, who entered into a covenant agreement 
with the Creator God. The outward branding/sign was to submit himself to being circumcised. He then circumcised every male in his household which was 300+ men.[g] If the Creator God is a shepherd, this was like a way of marking His sheep. But by the 1st Century AD, the family sheep were relying on their branding and not on their behaviour. [v24-29]
This is still happening among people who use the Christian branding today. When we christen our children for example, by branding them with a cross in water on their forehead and getting their name recognised. We have a family party but ignore any time after that for the rest of their lives any need for understanding or engaging with the rules/culture of the One who gave us Life. Apart from showing up at Father God’s house for family celebrations once or twice a year (at Christmas and Easter, or for weddings and funerals), the branding does little for our behaviour and lifestyle. We forget that branding is of little value without practicing what that branding means. [v23] Someone once said, “Going to church does not makes you a Christian, any more than going to McDonald’s would make you a hamburger.” [v28]
So, when it comes to my Maker forgiving me (and putting up with my quirky little issues today), I don’t want to show contempt in return, simply because I’ve not realized that my Father God’s kindness is intended to “lead me to repentance” – a lasting change in my heart. Instead of looking for some sort of advantage (finding a legal excuse or ticket in, which guarantees something from the Creator simply because He made me), Father God’s patient training every day has only ever been in the hope of everlasting and permanent change as I pray to Him right now to take away my sin, to heal away my brokenness, and to change my heart again…
If I can get my head around the simple choice that I have today: To Be of Not To Be, I may go a long way in BE’ing an active, functioning, prized asset among the images of God of my Maker’s family[h] and that in the end, divine praise will come to me from my God. [v29]
CLICK to return to today’s “Daily Breadcrumbs”
[a] Acts 2:5-12 & v37-41
[b] Matthew 7:2
[c] 1 Timothy 1:17
[d] Genesis 4:7
[e] Romans 1:20
[f] Exodus 23:21
[g] Genesis 17:1-14
[h] Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 7:6; 14:2; 26:18 and Malachi 3:17