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We have just a few more words that Paul wants to leave with the Roman Christians before we wrap up this theologically rich letter that we have been studying since January. Paul wants them to be innocent as to what is evil and wise as.
To what is good when we understand the text. This is when we understand the text.
Studying God's Word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Find all our videos online at www .wutt .com as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Here's your teacher Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you Becky. We're in.
Romans chapter 16 verses 17 through 23 again today. If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there. We've talked about watching out for false teachers this week, Monday and Tuesday. We've got a couple of more verses in that paragraph we want to look at and then Paul concludes with greetings from his fellow kinsmen.
We've got a few more names mentioned in verses 21 through 23. In verses 1 through 16 Paul was talking about those that the church needed to greet and here we receive greetings from those who are fellow workers with the Apostle Paul and we'll talk about those names and their significance here in just a moment.
But first let's go back to verse 17. We'll read this again as Paul says, I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.
Avoid them for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Timothy my fellow worker greets you so do Lucius and Jason and Saucipater my kinsmen. I Tertius who wrote this letter greet you in the Lord.
Gaius who is host to me and to the whole church greets you. Erastus the city treasurer and our brother Quartus greet you. Probably one of the most important verses in the New Testament regarding false teaching comes from Christ himself who said watch out for wolves in sheep's clothing.
On the outside they are gonna look like us but on the inside they are ravenous wolves. What they have to say does not come from God but pours forth from the lips of liars. They seek to deceive and devour the people of God.
They are agents of Satan and we need to be wise concerning them and know the difference between the truth and the lie. If we're really familiar with what is true then we will identify the lie right away once it rears its ugly head.
Now the situation that's going on in Rome with these Christians as Paul is writing to them as they have been persecuted for their faith some of them have even been put to death. So there is not a false teaching right now that Paul needs to warn them about or has received any word that they've been led astray by false teaching but this is a common problem for the church in the first century as much as it as it is a problem for the church even today.
No church is immune from the wiles of Satan to try to woo them away from the truth of God and so Paul means to to call the Roman Christians to this as well to know the truth and stand fast in it and watch out for those who deceive.
He says in verse 17 I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught avoid them. And in this whole paragraph here everything that he says concerning false teachers we can find stated in another way throughout the New Testament.
This section looks very similar to something that Paul said to Timothy in 1st Timothy chapter 1 and to Titus in Titus chapter 3 and also to the Philippians in Philippians chapter 3 where he says to them to watch out for the dogs and here to the Roman Christians he says watch out for those who cause divisions as Paul says to Titus and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught as Paul said to Timothy and also avoid them.
A common phrase that Paul used with Timothy as well regarding those who were false teachers for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites. Again similar to something that Paul said to the Philippians their God is their belly and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.
Also similar to something that Paul said to Timothy in his second letter to Timothy where he says that they sneak into households and capture weak women who are burdened by sins and various passions. Verse 19.
For your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you. This is the way that Paul opened his letter and as we talked about last week some of the things that Paul opened the letter with or coming back full circle and he commissioned or commended them for their obedience at the start of the letter.
And so he does that again here your obedience is known to all so I rejoice over you again. Paul not concerned about them following any false teaching at the present time but there's always that risk that Satan could try to woo them away by some sort of lie.
I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The reason Paul is warning them about this is because he does not want them to be wooed away by anything false but instead be wise to that which comes from the Lord Christ and is foundational in the gospel of God.
Being wise to what is good innocent to what is evil. Similar to something that Paul said to the Ephesians in Ephesians chapter 5 have nothing to do with the fruitless works of darkness but rather expose them.
It is a shame to even talk about what they do in secret. And Paul also said to the Thessalonians to hold fast to what is good and abhor what is evil. So similar thing that Paul is saying to the Roman Christians here be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.
There is no reason to have to experience something evil to practice a sin or gain experience in that sin to know that it's wrong to know that it's evil. So don't have anything to do with those things don't even dabble in that.
And then therefore have to repent of those sins. Don't be wise in any of that. Be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. Not experienced in these sins but clinging fast to the Lord Christ and focusing on him as it says in Hebrews chapter 12 fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and the perfecter of our faith.
Verse 20 the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet now. That's very similar to something that Peter says in first Peter chapter 5 which we talked about yesterday. But what Paul truly means to call the Roman Christians attention to here are words that come from the book of Genesis after Adam and Eve sinned against God by eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil which God told them not to eat from.
He had cursed them but he also cursed the serpent that had tempted Eve to eat the fruit that God commanded them not to eat from. And to the serpent God said I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.
He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. And of course when Christ came and undid the works of Satan to destroy the works of the devil as John talks about the reason why Christ came he crushed Satan under his feet.
And just as Christ has done he is going to give to all of us to be able to do as well. There will come a day when we will be with the Lord in glory and we will be part of that triumphant return when Jesus vanquishes his enemies we are part of that assembly.
And so as Christ has crushed Satan under his feet so the same will be done for each and every one of us. We will crush Satan under our feet the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you Paul says. And that's kind of the conclusion of the letter right there with the exception of the doxology that we'll be looking at next week.
Verses 25 26 and 27. Those who are involved in the writing of this letter are the final greetings that we have here. In verses 21 through 23 Timothy is the first one that is mentioned. Who is Paul's most beloved servant.
His most trusted servant. His understudy Timothy my fellow worker greets you. So do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater my kinsmen. Now the Lucius that is mentioned here is probably unique to the book of Romans.
There are other Lucius is is that the the plural form of Lucius. There are other Lucius is that are mentioned in the scriptures. There is a Lucius of Cyrene that is talked about in Acts chapter 13. And some have said that Luke's name is Lucius but I don't think that it's either one.
It's not Lucius or Luke the author of the gospel of Luke. Nor is it Lucius mentioned in Acts chapter 13. It's probably a Lucius that is unique to the time in which Paul had wrote this written this letter to the Roman Christians.
And of course Timothy we know we recognize Timothy. Jason though Jason who's mentioned here is likely the same person that is talked about in Acts chapter 17. It was when Paul and Silas were in Thessalonica and the the Thessalonians were looking for Paul and Silas to kill them but they couldn't find them.
Paul and Silas had been in the house of Jason so instead they took Jason out of the house but he wasn't beaten. He was actually just fine. He ended up paying his bond and was let go. And then Sosipater is probably the is probably the Sopater from Berea who is talked about in Acts chapter 20.
And Sosipater is probably just a different spelling of the name Sopater and Sosipater being a Berean probably also means that he was one of those who was really faithful to the scriptures and tested all things by the scriptures as the Bereans were talked about in in Acts chapter 17 in such a way.
And in in Thessalonica they were also a group of believers that tested all things according to the word and so and so Sosipater is is mentioned here as being with Paul and and it's possible that Paul was writing from Ephesus.
I had mentioned that last week when we were looking at the early part of chapter 16. Some also argue for Paul writing this letter from Corinth and the reason is because of some of the other names that get mentioned here.
First of all Tertius who wrote this letter greet you in the Lord. This was a very common thing for a scribe to write so Paul dictated the letter and Tertius is the one that wrote it down. And so Tertius had an opportunity to sign his own name since everything would have been in his handwriting toward the end of the letter.
I Tertius who wrote this letter I greet you in the Lord. Then you have Gaius who is host to me and to the whole church he greets you. Gaius is mentioned in 1st Corinthians 114 as one of those who had brought to the Apostle Paul a message from the Corinthians.
So because Gaius is mentioned here and Erastus is mentioned last it's possible that Paul was in Corinth when he wrote this particular letter. So there's a couple of different arguments. He was in Ephesus when he wrote it because of the way that Paul speaks of those who are so involved in the Ephesian church like Priscia and Aquila for example in verse 3.
But then there's the argument that he was writing from Corinth because of the way that he mentions Phoebe who was a servant at the church of Sencria and that was a port city that was right next door to Corinth.
And also the way that he concludes with Gaius and Erastus the city treasurer and our brother Quartus greet you. So Erastus is mentioned here as the city treasurer as though they would know automatically what city Paul was talking about.
Well Erastus was the city treasurer of Corinth. We know that from Acts chapter 19 where Erastus remained in Corinth. But we also have from history a mention of Erastus's name as something that is extra biblical.
This is something that Thomas Schreiner writes in his commentary of the book of Romans. He says a large Latin inscription in the stone pavement near the Corinthian theater reads Erastus in return for his Edile ship laid the pavement at his own expense.
An Edile was a man elected to oversee aspects of city finances. Often prominent elected officials would fulfill campaign pledges by providing some public structure to the city although there is some debate over whether the Greek word for city treasurer oikonomos was the equivalent in the Corinthian Roman colony to the Latin Edile.
The mid first century dating of the pavement and the rarity of the name Erastus in the first century Corinth hold out the distinct possibility that this pavement was laid by Paul's fellow churchmen. Very fascinating historical fact about Erastus.
So because Erastus was a a city treasurer of the of the city of Corinth it's likely that Paul was in Corinth when he wrote this particular letter. And once again Paul mentions these names here so that the Roman Christians would understand that they are included in this missionary work of the gospel going out to all the world.
They're probably looking up to people like Timothy and Jason and Tertius and Gaius and Erastus but and the Apostle Paul. But Paul means to include them also in this work of the Lord. Paul rejoices over them because they have been obedient and their obedience is known to all their testimony has helped to keep Christians steadfast and also has won others to Christ.
And so these Roman Christians are just as much a part of this effort to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the world. This is the doctrine of justification as we have it laid out for us in 16 chapters in the book of Romans.
And that for the most part brings us to a close of our study. But we have the doxology to go. These last three verses which we'll look at next week and then we've got also some highlighting we're gonna do as we go back through key passages in chapters 12 through 16 our Lord God as we bring this lesson to a close today I pray that we would continue to watch out for false teachers.
We are aware that there are those who are gonna come with deceitful lies. And just because they use the name of God or use the name of Christ does not mean that they are from the Lord. And so Lord we we want to be very careful and very wise as to your scriptures and so give us by the blessing of your Holy Spirit.
An ability to discern between what is true and what is false and lead our other brothers and sisters in this as well we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to when we.
Understand the text with pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday Tuesday and Wednesday Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday we take questions from the listeners and viewers.
Tomorrow we'll pick up on an Old Testament study when we understand the text.