As Paul sat to write perhaps the clearest words to frame the Biblical convictions of a Citizen of Heaven, living on earth—he was sitting in Corinth. Looking down across the city must have grieved his soul. Paul lived around gymnasiums filled with nude men who were wrestling, boxing, and sprinting. In the distance seeing the men and women going into the bathhouses, brothels, and heading up the trail to the shrine prostitutes up on the acro-Corinthos must have even more grieved his Spirit-filled heart. Just as it grieved the Lord He served.
Just a couple of days by ship from Corinth was the center of the Earth in Paul’s day—Rome. Swarming with soldiers, citizens, slaves, and commercialism, Rome reigned over nearly all of the known world of Paul’s day. How were Christians to live in the world of the New Testament? Especially in the capital city of Rome–rife with homosexuality, abortions, gambling, infanticide, slavery, oppression of the poor, egalitarianism, and every form of the occult?
Paul sits down to write to that very city where saints had to live, work, and vote. He writes to them the seven verses that summarize their responsibilities of citizenship on earth. We often forget that the Roman World had much citizen involvement. There was a long history in Rome of elected bodies that variously guided, counseled, and at times legislated the Roman World. Although there was an Emperor who ruled, there was still much about daily life that was determined by a very advanced and regulated representative government.
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