In Defense of Boldness, Part 1
Romans 15:14‑16
Romans chapter 15 is our study for tonight. I want us to look at verses 14 through 21, Romans chapter 15 verses 14 through 21.
As we think about this passage, and I'll get into it in just a moment, there's a key word here. I want you to notice that key word. It's in verse 15, it's the word "boldly." It's the word "boldly." Really verses 14 to 21 is in defense of Paul's boldness. The whole section is written to defend the way in which he spoke to the Romans. You see, he had never been to that church. He did not found that church. He never pastored that church. He did not personally know that church or fellowship with that church. And yet, throughout this tremendous epistle he had spoken to them with great boldness. Very forthrightly, shoulder to shoulder, nose to nose, he had confronted them on some very crucial issues, not the least of which was the matter of the stronger and the weaker in chapters 14 and 15. But he had been very bold in speaking to them and his boldness needs an explanation. How can one whom they have never met who has not founded that church nor pastored that church be so bold with them?
And so he writes this brief section in his epilogue to the great treatise in the epistle which ended in verse 13 and his intent in this section from verses 14 to 21 is to justify his boldness. And it becomes, I believe in my own thinking, a justification for the boldness of anyone who speaks on behalf of the eternal God.
I was speaking with a pastor recently who told me he was...he had the privilege of speaking in our chapel at the college and he told me he was impressed with the attentiveness of the students. He said, "I don't know that I've ever spoken in a college where the students were so attentive to the Word of God." He said, "I spoke recently at another college and," he said, "in that college when I began to speak there was a girl in the back row fixing her hair while I was speaking and she kept doing it. And finally I stopped...and you can imagine this in a college chapel...and said, `Young lady, you in the back fixing your hair, I demand your attention for the Word of the living God.'" And she dropped all of her paraphernalia, slid down and afterward some young man came up to him, he told me, and said, "Sir, you were out of line. You have absolutely no right to demand attention from anyone." To which he replied, "Young man, I don't need you to tell me what right I have or have not, it's not a question of me. But I will tell you this, young man, when the Word of the living God is spoken, you better listen."
Now there is a defense for boldness and Paul gives that kind of defense right here. Now the word "boldness" means not hesitating in the face of danger. It conveys the idea of courage and daring. Certainly this is a word to describe the Apostle Paul. He was a courageous man. He was a daring man. He had a marked and really unusual boldness. He did not back down but rather spoke with great courage. In Acts 9:27 he preached boldly, it says, at Damascus. In Acts 13:46, "Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said it was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you." Chapter 14 verse 3, "Along time therefore abode they," and this speaking again of Paul and his compatriots, "speaking boldly in the Lord." Chapter 19 and verse 8, "And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the Kingdom of God."
The testimony of the Holy Spirit in those passages in the books of Acts is that Paul spoke with great courage and great boldness. And he like that preacher I mentioned to you demanded a hearing for the Word of the living God. I mean, if when E.F. Hutton speaks everyone ought to listen, how ought they to listen when God speaks? And this is what he defends in this part of the epistle to the Romans. He was bold. He was forthright. He was unhesitating. He was unflinching in his presentation of the truth and in his contradiction of any sin or any error.
And if we go back in Romans for just a brief look at that, let's look at chapter 6 for a moment. Verse 12 indicates something of his boldness as he speaks to these Christians at Rome and says, "Let not sin therefore reign in your moral body that you should obey in it in its lusts, neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead," and so forth. And then he says in the rest of chapter 6 that since you have been made free from sin in terms of its dominion you ought to yield yourselves, verse 16, as servants to righteousness. This is exhortation.
In chapter 8 we find it again. In verse 9, "You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you, now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His," as if to say I don't care what your claims are, if you possess not the Spirit of Christ you do not belong to God. And verse 13, "If you live after the flesh you will die." Very bold, very direct, very forthright. In chapter 11 again beginning at verse 17 he talks about the fact that the branches known as Israel in this analogy were broken off. The trunk of blessing, the Abrahamic covenant, the Gentiles were grafted in. But he says in verse 24, "If thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature and grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? I would not, brethren, you should be ignorant of this mystery lest you should be wise in your own conceit that blindness in part is happened to Israel only until the fullness of the Gentiles come in." Don't get proud because Israel's been put out and you've been brought in to covenant blessing, God is going to bring them back in. And if you who were not the natural branch were put in when they were broken off, don't think smugly that you are secure for you too could be broken off by God's justice in the future. Again a very confrontive word.
Chapter 12 verse 3, another confrontive statement. He tells them not to think more highly of themselves than they ought to think. Chapter 13, he begins to talk about the government and he says, "The rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil. Will you then not be afraid of the power?" In other words, if you're doing evil you ought to fear the power of the government. In chapter 7 he very strongly and resolutely commands them to pay their taxes, rendering tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom is do, fear to whom fear is do, honor to whom honor is due. In verse 8 he says they are to owe man nothing, nothing but love. In verses 11 to 14 they are to get busy, walking, verse 13, honestly, not in wild parties and drunkenness or immorality and so forth and so because verse 12 says the night is far spent and so forth. Very confrontive language, very direct. Chapter 14 is the same. Verse 1, "The one that is weak in the faith receive..." and then he goes on through chapter 15 to discuss the obligation of the strong and the weak.
So here are these confrontive exhortative sections of Romans and some folks in the Roman assembly might be saying, "Where does this guy get this authority? How is it that he is so exercised in his spirit to speak to us in this manner? Where does he come with this boldness?" And he defends his right to that boldness in this section.
The body of the letter is over. It ran from chapter 1 verse 18, after the 17‑verse introduction, beginning in verse 18 clear through verse 13 of chapter 15 which we concluded last week. That's the main body which is a beautiful description of salvation by grace through faith with all of its implications. Now in this concluding section, having given them his theology, he gives them his heart. Having described to them his doctrine, he gives them his own soul. Having told them what he believes to be the truth of God, he now tells them some of his own ministry perceptions. And he touches on very personal matters. First the reason for his boldness, as I mentioned, in verses 14 to 21, then his plans for the future, verses 22 to 33, then some personal greetings in chapter 16 and a final benediction at the end of chapter 16 and he's finished.
So, this is all very personal as he gives them his heart. And it's important for him to do that because having written so boldly he doesn't want to ruin the relationship with them before it can even get started. He doesn't want to undermine their association because he wants to go to Spain and he sees this church at Rome as a key point to stop off in, collect some supplies so he can go on and evangelize Spain. And he wants a conciliating spirit, he wants them to know not only his doctrine but his heart so that they will not misjudge his confidence and boldness as if it was insensitivity and an unloving spirit.
So, let's begin then at verse 14 and see how he defends his boldness. Verse 14 says, "And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, confident also to admonish one another." Now let's look at that for a minute. That's a very conciliating statement, isn't it? It took him 16 chapters to get around to the amenities, or 15 anyway. It took him through chapter 15 verse 13 before he really opens up his heart and speaks to them in conciliating terms. And he begins by saying, "And I myself..." in spite of all that I have written, in spite of calling for obedience and holiness and the killing and mortification of sin, in spite of commanding you to pursue righteousness and commit yourself to Christ and use your spiritual gifts and be marked by humility and love without vengeance and love without retaliation, in spite of calling for submission and the love of the weaker brother and to care for each other, in spite of all that, "I myself...I myself." It is my personal opinion, "I am persuaded of you, my brethren, that you are..." and then he extols them with three virtues. In spite of all that I said I know you are a good people, I know you are a virtuous people. I do not have a low estimate of you.
I feel like Paul does so very often when I've poured out my soul in the sermon and I wonder whether people going away feel like I assume them to be the lowest of the low. That's not so. The exhortation that I give and have given through the years have always been with those who are most dedicated to Christ in mind. When people ask me to whom I preach I always say I preach to the most committed people in the congregation. I'm not interested in scolding the marginal people, I think the Spirit of God will work in their hearts. I am interested in feeding and strengthening and encouraging those who are already committed to the truth of God because they're the strength of the church. And when someone is confronted with the truth, it is not the reflection of a low estimate, it is the reflection, as in the case of Paul, of an estimate that says I know your character and virtue is such that you will take what I say and apply it to the glory of God in your own blessing. So it does not reflect a low estimate.
He even calls them "my brethren," and that indicates the bond that he feels with them. A bond that was really first introduced in chapter 1 verse 8 when he said, "First I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world." He was commending them even in that verse and now commends them again. And he has strong convictions that three things are true of these people. Now these three would make a sermon in and of themselves, marvelous things. Three commendations that are equalled, I think, in the Scripture only in the commendation to the church at Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. This is a marvelous church, this Roman church. You will notice in going through the whole Roman epistle that he doesn't have to treat any given single sin issue because there, perhaps, was no glaring thing which needed direct attention, such as in the case of writing to the Galatians, or to the Corinthians. And his estimate of their virtue is a high estimate, so much so that he warmly commends them for three things.
Look at them in verse 14, marvelous. "You also are full of goodness." That basically means you are rich in moral character, you are rich in moral excellence which is always the work of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, same term, goodness. That means moral excellence. That means the virtue that is opposed to all evil. They hated evil. They hated sin. And they loved righteousness. They were able to do what chapter 12 verse 21 said to overcome evil with good. They were a virtuous church...kindness, generosity, moral purity in their word, moral purity in their action was characteristic of this church. They were not spiritually deficient in their character. They had given abundant evidence of their true salvation. They were those who had been the workmanship of God, created in Christ unto good works which God before ordained that they should walk in them, Ephesians 2:10. They were manifesting that, they were doing good things. And he said, "Not only that, you are full of goodness." You are a church characterized by moral virtue.
Now this does not mean they were perfect or without sin, else would all the exhortations of Romans been useless. They were not perfect but they were good, they were morally excellent, they were committed a quality Christian experience. They had much. They are reminiscent of the Apostle's words to the Colossians in chapter 1. He says in verse 3, "We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which you have to all the saints and the hope which is laid up for you in heaven of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel." And he goes on to talk about what a good group they are. But he also begins in verse 9, "Because of this we do not cease to pray for you and desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might," and on and on and on.
In other words, you're...you're a great church, we pray you'll even be a greater one. And so the idea here is that Paul sees in them a fullness of goodness that is not perfection. There is room for improvement but is a mark of their spiritual virtue. This is a commendation that is genuine and true but does not preclude Paul's prior exhortation. And I can say the same to you, you are a church full of goodness and that is not to say there is not necessity for greater goodness, the two go hand in hand.
The second commendation he gives, not only were they full of goodness but they were filled with all knowledge. Paul is generous with his terms here. The word "filled" is a verb, passive verb, having been filled with. They had received all knowledge. They not only were a good church but they were doctrinally sound. They were theologically sound. And here is this beautiful balance of virtue and truth that we have been seeing in our studies of 1 Timothy where it talks about holding a true faith and a pure conscience. Truth and virtue go together. And here is a church that has both true and virtue. The virtue is in the term goodness. The truth is in the terms all knowledge. Spiritual knowledge, practical application of that knowledge was theirs. They had that possession. They knew God. They knew His revealed truth. They were able to stand on that. And they were in that beautiful balance that God would have His church possess of truth and purity, moral excellence and spiritual knowledge, grasp of the truth and goodness of the heart. As I said from 1 Timothy, "Faith and a good conscience." That's a beautiful beautiful combination for which there is no equal.
Now for every believer...listen carefully...for every believer that is a possibility. By virtue of the Spirit of God given to us we can know true goodness. We can hate sin and love righteousness. We can have the fruit of the Spirit, and as Paul said to the Colossians, "Be filled with all the fruits of righteousness," we can, we should be. And we can have all knowledge for Christ is to us knowledge and wisdom and in Him, Paul says to the Colossians, are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We can have these two. We ought to have these two. They're substantive, they're basic to the life of the church, and this church had those things...moral excellence and spiritual knowledge.
As a result of that, you will notice at the end of verse 14 a very important statement. "Since you are full of goodness and filled with all knowledge, you are able also to admonish one another." You are competent to admonish. In fact, we could translate it, "you are competent to counsel...you are competent to counsel." They can act without Paul, is what he is saying. You can act without me. With all you know, having all knowledge revealed by God, with all you are having true goodness of life, you are able to counsel one another. You are able to admonish one another. And the word here is noutheteo, it means to lead someone away from a false path into a true path by warning and teaching. It's a comprehensive word for counseling. And, of course, in our particular culture today we hear so much about who is competent to counsel. And there are those people who would tell us that the only ones competent to counsel are worldly trained psychiatrists and psychologists. I heard that day after day after day after day during the trial of the law suit in which I was engaged, that people in the ministry are utterly incompetent to counsel, that there's no way we can handle quote/unquote "psychological problems," that there are problems far beyond the purview of anyone, treating it with the Word of God, you have to know Freud, you have to know Karl Rogers, you have to know Yung, you've got to know all this and have all kinds of worldly information in order to deal with people's problems. But what the Scripture says here is if you have all knowledge of the revelation of God and your life is characterized by being full of moral purity, you are competent to counsel, in spite of what the world may say. And it's tragic that even in some church circles and some theological circles and within some Christian institutions, the line has been sent out that no one without worldly humanistic psychological training is competent to counsel...and that's not true. We are competent to admonish one another within the family of God based upon the quality of our life and the knowledge of the revelation of God.
Paul says you don't even need me. In the early church at Rome they didn't have a psychiatrist, they didn't have a psychologist, they didn't have a therapist, nobody had clinical experience. And they were in...they were in a city that was perhaps like any other major city in the world in our own times, cosmopolitan, replete with every imaginable human drama, traumatized in every dimension, but because they were filled with true goodness and the knowledge of God's truth, they were qualified to counsel.
I was thrilled when Larry Crabbe(?) who is a well‑known Christian counselor, perhaps writing the most significant things today on the subject, came to our chapel and the college and said, "There is no such thing as a psychological problem. All problems are either spiritual or physical. Anyone who says there is a psychological problem somewhere in the middle that isn't either physical or spiritual has a low view of sin, doesn't understand what sin is." Furthermore he said, secondly, "The first thing you have to realize is there's no psychological problem, everything is rooted in man's sinfulness. The second thing you have to realize is...and he says this as a psychologist with a Ph.D....the Word of God is utterly sufficient." That's the word he kept using...the Word of God is utterly sufficient. And the third thing he said is that the well being of people occurs within the community of the church...within the mutual love and care and ministry of the church.
Whatever kind of counseling needed to be done at Rome the people were able to do it. They didn't need Paul. They didn't need an out‑of‑town expert. In the normal course of the life of the church, the believers could counsel one another because problems were related to the spiritual. And problems of the spiritual nature are resolved in the sufficiency of Scripture and in the corporate love and support of the community of redeemed people.
In Colossians there's a beautiful description of how this function of the church works. And Phillip's translation really captures it, let me read it to you, Colossians 3:12 to 17, he writes, "As God's picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God Himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind; accept life and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone, forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you. And above everything else, be truly loving for love is the golden chain of all virtues. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts remembering that as members of the same body you are called to live in harmony, and never forget to be thankful for what God has done for you. Let Christ's teaching live in your hearts, making you rich in true wisdom, teach and help one another along the right road." And we could substitute the word, "Counseling through your psalms and hymns and Christian songs, singing God's praises with joyful hearts."
Wow! You see, everything happens within the fellowship. And sometimes the greatest counseling there is is just singing praises. And then the final verse in Colossians 3 verse 17, "Whatever work you may have to do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, thanking God the Father through Him."
You see, if I may beg the point for a moment, sound counseling is not sitting in an office with someone who collects $75 to $100 for 45 minutes of telling you nothing and reciting back to you just what you said. I've talked with so many people who have gone through that...so many people. The place is the church, the source is the Word of God, the counselors are the people of God who are saved, who are filled with goodness, who are filled with knowledge, the rich knowledge of Christ's Word, giving them wisdom...the normal functioning of the life of the church where we stimulate one another to love and good works, Hebrews 10. There's no secret mysterious field of mystery that no one can figure out. Christians whose lives are right and know the truth of God are competent to share that truth out of a pure life and be used by God to help others.
So, the Roman church was solid, commendable church, commendable church. "Then why write them? I mean, if they're such a good church why are you writing them?"
Well let's look at verse 15 and see what he says. "Nevertheless, brethren, nevertheless I have written the more boldly." In spite of the fact that you're such a good group, I've still written the more boldly unto you in some sort as putting you in mind and the reason is because of the grace that is given to me of God. You know why I did this? Listen to this. You know why...you know why I wrote you like this? I'm under mandate. I mean, I did this because God made me do it. That's right. I'm under mandate.
Verse 15 is interesting. "Nevertheless, in spite of how good you are, brethren," again he emphasizes that comradery, "I have written the more boldly," which is to say rather boldly, or more boldly than perhaps you think I ought to have written, not knowing you and you not knowing me, "but I have done it unto you in some sort..." that literally means in parts of the letter, "in parts of the letter I've been very bold, I know that, but I've done it as putting you in mind." What does that mean? To do what? To remind you...to remind you...to remind you. I know your spiritual quality but I also know you're not all you could be because I know my spiritual quality and I know I'm not all I could be either. So I want to remind you. And that is really what the mandate is all about. He wrote Romans not to tell them something they didn't know but to remind them of things they did know. Not because they were an ill‑equipped and weak church but because they were a well‑equipped and strong church, not because they were vacillating carnal Christians but because they were uncompromising strong Christians but there was still much to remind them of.
You remember how Paul tells Timothy to keep teaching sound doctrine over and over and reminding the people and nourishing them in it. And you remember how Peter writes in 2 Peter 1 and says, "I keep telling you these things so that after I'm gone you'll hear their echo the rest of your life." I want you to remember. I want you to remember. You see, any good teacher knows two things. Two things you have to recognize in teaching. One is familiarity and the other is forgetfulness. Those are two things we have to take in to account. I realize the principle of forgetfulness. That is to say what I have said in the past you have already forgotten. I don't like that principle but it's true. If I were to quiz you on this morning's service, I don't want to do that because I don't want to see your answers, but I realize what I have said you have forgotten. You know how I know that? Because what I've said I've forgotten...and people sometimes say, "Do you ever listen to your tapes?" And I have a standard answer, "Only to find out what I believe on things." And that's the truth because I can't remember how I interpret a passage either, if you go back far enough. So we do tend to forget. And any good teacher knows that you must repeat things. That's why throughout the teaching of our Lord there is the repetition of many great truths. And the same with Paul. His epistles intersect over and over again with the same truth. You have to understand forgetfulness.
The second thing you have to understand is familiarity. While reminding them you cannot say things in the way you've always said them or they don't hear them because the terminology is so familiar they think they understand what you're saying and it's water off the duck's back. So the challenge of teaching is to repeat to your people the same stuff over and over again in ways they think they've never heard. Now you know. That's the big secret. But that's the challenge. People say, "Do you use notes when you preach?" Of course I use notes, if I didn't I'd revert back to saying the same thing in the same way every week and you'd all be gone. And so in order to stay fresh, that's the challenge of the ministry, that's what puts me in the study 30 hours a week...to stay fresh so that what I say to you, though we may understand the general truth, comes to you in terms you've not heard before in passages you've not studied before.
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