“For I am not
ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who
believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Romans 1:16
It is. Power. God.
And everyone needs it.
It’s rather easy these days for me to pull back in my
busyness and think, “Well, if that is how the world is going to think of Christianity,
I’ll just pull back into my own little world, and watch the world go to hell in
a handbasket. I’ll be OK. And as far as the world goes, may the Lord
have mercy on it.”
Shame on me.
Maybe this passage, which was the first thing I saw in my
email this morning, was sent to me as a wakeup call. I claim to be an
evangelical; honestly I feel like I have been sleeping.
Wake up!
A couple of things come to mind about this passage. First there is, in God, “the power…for
salvation.” The world does not have to go to hell in a handbasket. In God,
through Jesus, is an offering of hope; a glimpse as it were, that hell and the hand basket can and should be avoided. My sitting back and willingness to watch
it happen is ungodly. God did not sit
back; in the fullness of time he gave us Jesus so we could climb out of the handbaskets that we craft as dwelling places.
God has the power to save, to rescue.
By sitting back and watching the world go to hell in a
handbasket…I’m just resting in my own little handbasket myself. That is not
God’s call for any believer’s life, certainly not mine.
The second thing that jumps out at me is this. Paul says power of God for salvation is for “everyone who believes, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek.” Paul uses an
example of two widely divergent cultures, ones that he personally had feet in, cultures
that I’m sure thought the other was going to hell in a hand basket, and says God’s
salvation is offered to both. The offer
is universal. It knows no barriers, there are no walls that constrain it, there
are no handbaskets that are too deep that the offer can’t rest in and thrive
out of.
No are no barriers, no matter what may be going on in
society, that keeps the offer from being valid.
But…one has to believe. The offer may be universal, but salvation is
not. There is that catch that Scripture
is consistent about. Sorry Rob Bell.
My job remains, then, to proclaim that offer. No matter
what is going on in society. My job is
not to pull back, but to facilitate what God can and is willing to do. No need for anyone to stay in the handbasket,
save by their own choice.
And, uh, I need to climb out of mine….
