To Brag or Not

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

TO BRAG OR NOT

Rom 2:17-24

17 Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; 18 if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; 19 if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— 21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."  

NIV

In his argument, Paul turns his attention to the Jews that are among this church in Rome. The main theme here is that although the Jews are the chosen people of God and they think of themselves as superior to the Gentiles, their privileged position, or their better knowledge of God, and their long-lasting relationship with God puts them in greater danger of condemnation by God. This truth which is being drawn to our attention includes hypocrisy because Paul says that although they talk about that great game of being God’s chosen people, they do not walk that talk and the Gentiles see their hypocrisy. This becomes twofold or maybe threefold. First, the idea of superior knowledge brings greater responsibility. Second, Boastfulness and bragging should never belong in the community of faith. And thirdly, what kind of reputation among others do our lives produce. Let us deal with this superior knowledge first. We know that when we first came to Christ, the only knowledge we had was about salvation, about being freed from the penalty of death and that we were going to live forever. Our faith was fresh and exciting. However, as the years progressed, we became more and more aware of the truth throughout the scripture regarding living this life through faith in Jesus Christ. The more we learned the more we became aware of the sinfulness that entraps us. At first, we were thrilled at our newly found life, but that feeling waned as our knowledge increased, for now, we began to see the need for rules to live by and how we could fulfill them without failure. The problem was we could not fulfill any of the rules we interpreted from scripture, all we found in our studies was that we needed Jesus more and more and that it was God who began all this work in us, and it is God who is going to finish that work. So, we came to the realization that all our knowledge brought us into greater condemnation, except it should bring us to see our faith in Jesus as our only salvation, and not how well we can follow all the rules. Second, there is this idea of feeling superior to other believers because of our higher degree of knowledge. Having a braggadocios attitude only reveals hypocrisy. Paul certainly gave the Jews this calling out for their bragging about their higher knowledge of God and yet did not live accordingly. Bragging is in direct opposition to humility, therefore, how would it be possible to brag about how humble one is, however, we must be diligent in not thinking more highly of ourselves than we should, for any reason, whatsoever that is. Thirdly, our lives will always produce a reputation in one way or another. But what is our reputation? Do we think we are better than anyone else because of our amount of knowledge? Do we think ourselves better because of our position either in the world or in the church? What do other believers think of us? What do non-believers think of us? Surely, we are not simply to live in order to please man, but rather live to please God, and we know it is impossible to please Him without faith. Nevertheless, the manner in which we live does create our reputation among all men, and we have to be such that we are representatives of our Lord Jesus Christ.