Episode Synopsis:

Gentiles had a difficult time understanding why Jews would circumcise their male children. There was no Gentile heritage or memory of Abraham. Further complicating the situation was the fact that, among Jews in Rome—as with Jews across the Greco-Roman world—circumcision was understood to be a meritorious act. Those who were circumcised were numbered among the people of God, and those who were not were not. Imagine the difficulty of converting from Gentile paganism to Judaism and then having to undergo a very painful surgery in a very delicate place. Proselytes not only needed to embrace monotheism, embrace Jewish feasts and ceremonial washings, follow the dietary laws, and obey the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments), but also undergo circumcision as adults.

But just as Paul challenged the Galatian Judaizers—the covenant God made with Moses at Mount Sinai was not to be confused with the gracious covenant God made with Abraham—so too the true meaning of circumcision was not found in the cutting of flesh. The cutting of flesh was an outward sign of the cutting of the heart—a way to speak of faith in Jesus Christ. In Romans 2:17–29, Paul is not only correcting the Jewish misunderstanding of circumcision—a serious error in its own right—but also letting Jewish Christians know that uncircumcised Gentiles could be numbered among the people of God and become true children of Abraham without undergoing circumcision.

Paul’s discussion of circumcision (verses 25–29) flows out of his efforts to take the Jews to task for their hypocrisy in verses 17–24. The Jews demand certain behavior of others—stop stealing, stop committing adultery, stop robbing temples. But many Jews were doing the same things themselves. The Jews are supposed to instruct those who live in ignorance and walk in darkness—the Gentiles. They were to show them that truth is found in the law of Moses, the very embodiment of God’s will. But instead of leading and teaching the blind and foolish Gentiles, the Jews commit the very same sins themselves. Imagine the blatant hypocrisy of insisting upon something permanent like circumcision, all the while committing the same sins that you insist the person about to submit to the procedure is supposed to stop doing.

This leads to one of the most tragic lines in the whole of the New Testament (verse 24): “For, as it is written, `The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’”

For show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/