Josiah Hoi's Blog

This is a new series of posts that functions as an appendix to the hermeneutics class that I’ve been teaching at CrossLife. One of the challenges that I’ve faced teaching a lay-level hermeneutics class is transposing what seminary-level hermeneutics and Greek/Hebrew exegesis into something that is both faithful to the grammar of the languages and usable for your average Christian. These posts will hopefully provide a slightly deeper dive into exploring the intersection of Greek/Hebrew and English.

For the past several months, several of us at church have been meeting on Saturdays in order to practice teaching small group lessons and receive feedback on our exegesis/didactic methods. It’s been a tremendously encouraging time to see fellow brothers and sisters in Christ working diligently at studying the Bible and thinking about its relevance to Christians. This past week, Nathan taught on Romans 1:16-17.

“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. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”” (Romans 1:16–17 ESV)

Nathan did a fantastic job teaching Romans 1:16-17. It’s been a while since I’ve worked my way through Romans, and it was refreshing to hear that passage taught to us in a lucid and compelling manner. Now one of the points that I harp on when teaching hermeneutics is paying close attention to the conjunctions because they control the flow of thought. Nathan pointed out the chain of “for”s in these verses – verse 16b provides the reason for verse 16a, and verse 16a provides the reason for 15.

There was one “for” that I had difficulty wrapping my head around – the “for” in verse 17. How does that make any sense in terms of reasoning? It’s not difficult to see that Paul is not ashamed because the gospel is powerful. But how does the revelation of the righteousness of God cause Paul to be not ashamed? Looking back at my previous work on Romans, I never commented on that conjunction and its importance. But suddenly, while I was listening to Nathan talk about the centrality of these two verses, I realized that the whole of Romans really was an exposition of these two verses.

The reasoning from 16a to 17 doesn’t make much sense on the surface. But once you’ve spent the time working through Romans and Paul’s systematic exposition of the gospel, you can’t help but come away with praise for God. Paul himself does so twice: once in Romans 8:31-39, and once in Romans 11:33-36. An extended meditation on the gospel causes us to so internalize it that we cannot be anything else except unashamed of the gospel.

There have been a few instances in my studies where I’ve spent so much time working on a text (Revelation, Philippians, Romans, 1 Peter) that I start to dream about it. I find that when I zone out while driving or running, my mind defaults to turning the word of God over in my mind. I start to view the world through the lens of that text. And I think that’s the same with Romans 1:16-17 – the more time you spend in Romans, the more that specific verse will make sense.