Romans 1:18-32
Truth Suppressed by Unrighteousness
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18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
19For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.
22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,
23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.
25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen.
26For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips,
30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents.
31They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.
32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.
Berean Standard Bible
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Paul explains why humanity needs the saving gospel. God's wrath is revealed against people who suppress the truth through wickedness. Creation displays His eternal power and divine nature, yet they neither honor Him as God nor give thanks. The problem reaches deeper than not having enough information: they resist the Creator whose work they see.
That resistance changes worship. People exchange God's glory for images of created beings. They serve what God made instead of the One who made it. Claimed wisdom becomes foolishness when it refuses Him.
Paul repeatedly says that God gives them over: to impurity, to dishonorable passions and to a depraved mind. This is judgment, not approval. Turning from God has consequences within the desires and conduct people pursue.
He includes sexual conduct in that account, describing women and men turning from the created relationship of woman and man toward same-sex acts. He then names a wide range of wrongdoing: envy, murder, strife, deceit, gossip, arrogance, disobedience and lack of mercy. The passage addresses worship, bodies, thought and relationships together. We should not select a sin associated with other people and overlook the wrong we practice ourselves.
The final warning includes approving wrongdoing in others. We can become comfortable with what we once knew was wrong, especially when it benefits us. Paul's next words will confront the person who judges others while doing the same things. This diagnosis calls for repentance and the mercy of Christ, not a position from which to despise our neighbors.
Questions
1 What are people doing with the truth?
AnswerThey suppress it through ungodliness and unrighteousness. The problem is not a lack of every sign of God but a refusal to honor the truth they have received.
2 What exchange does Paul describe?
AnswerPeople exchange the Creator's glory for images of created beings. Worship becomes disordered when what God made is treated as the highest thing.
3 What does “God gave them over” show?
AnswerIt shows judgment working through a person's chosen direction. God is not approving the passions or conduct; the repeated phrase describes people being handed over to the consequences of their rebellion.
4 What sins appear in the final list?
AnswerThe list includes envy, murder, deceit, gossip, arrogance, disobedience, and lack of mercy. Paul places social cruelty and relational sins beside more publicly condemned acts.
What This Means for Us
Giving thanks to the Creator is one response this passage specifically calls us to recover. Name a gift you have treated as something owed to you and thank God for it. Then ask whether a created thing, such as approval, money or pleasure, has begun directing choices that belong under His authority.
Take the list of sins personally enough to confess what is true of you. Refuse gossip, correct a deceit or act mercifully where you have been hard. Christ's mercy invites honest repentance while leaving us no reason to treat another person with contempt.
Prayer
Creator and holy Judge, forgive our thanklessness and the ways we resist Your truth. Turn us from sin to Your mercy in Christ. Renew our worship, our desires and our treatment of others, and keep us from approving the wrong You call us to leave. Amen.
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