Bible Study with Jairus – Romans 2

Paul’s Letters to the Romans
Bible Study with Jairus – Romans 2

Judging Others
The first paragraph (verses 1-16) of Romans 2 discusses Paul’s criticism of self-righteous people. For example, verse 1 says, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things” (NIV). While paragraph 2 (verses 17-29) discusses Paul’s criticism of Jews who boast in the law. For example, verse 17 (NIV) says, “Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God,” but in verse 23 (NIV), Paul also criticized them as “someone who brags in the law but has dishonored God by breaking the law.”
These words sound harsh. How do you think you would feel if you were a believer in Rome, opened Paul’s letter, and only read up to the second chapter? Why did Paul scold the Roman believers in this way? It’s possible Paul is not berating only Roman believers, but others as well. But Paul did not mention any names, so we have no way of knowing. However, in verse 24, Paul quoted the Old Testament and said, “God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (NIV). Here is it is clear he is criticizing the Jews. There were many Jews in the early church, and there were also many Jews in the Roman church. So, it would be difficult to say that Paul was not criticizing the church in Rome.
Imagine if person A wrote a letter to person B and criticized person C. It might be because both person A and person B don't like person C. But this type of exchange would be out of character for Paul. There was no need for Paul to write a letter to one person and criticize another. Paul did criticize some people such as Alexander in 2 Timothy 4:14, but he made it clear by mentioning his name. The reason why Paul wrote certain letters to a group of believers was mainly to suggest corrections to some problems these believers were facing. For example, Paul wrote 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, which were aimed at addressing the problems of the Corinthian church he founded.
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