Understanding Ordo Amoris in Theology

Ordo Amoris. The phrase that Vice President J.D. Vance mentioned when responding to his critics, it lit off a firestorm of controversy in the mainstream media as well as online. It seems that everyone, including the Pope, wanted to comment and opine on what this very old teaching is, what it means, and whether it properly reflects the values that Jesus taught. But while I was excited to see a deep theological concept enter the popular discourse, I wasn't very surprised that everything I heard and read either got the concept, well, wrong or didn't explain it fully. Hi all, I'm Lenny Esposito, and on this podcast, I use Romans chapter 1 to offer a corrective to what you may have heard or have been told about the Order of Morris, and I explain why ordering your love is not only reflecting Jesus, but why it is necessary. for one as a Jesus follower to do. So let's explore Ordo Amoris on this. Come let us reason together. Do miracles really happen? Why should I believe the Bible? Doesn't science contradict religion? How do I know that God is real? Welcome to Come Let Us Reason Together with teacher and apologist Lenny Esposito. Come Let Us Reason seeks to train Christians in how to think more effectively about their faith and how to answer the tough questions. And now, here's Lenny. Paul, again, is writing to the church in Rome, a church that he's not been to. He knows some folks through some of his dealings, but he's not actually visited Rome as yet. And so he's addressing the group there and really desiring to go there. And he says in verse 8, First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you. Because the news of your faith is being reported in all the world. God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in telling the good news about his Son. That I constantly mention you, always asking in my prayers, that if it is somehow in God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I want very much to see you, so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, to be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. Now, I don't want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often planned to come to you, but was prevented until now, in order that I might have a fruitful ministry among you, just as I have had among the rest of the Gentiles. I am obligated, both to the Greeks and the barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish, so I am eager to preach the gospel to you, also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you have given us this opportunity. that we can gaze into the heart and mind of Paul, that we can see his motivations, his passions, his convictions, and that we may, through looking at him as he seeks to model you, model our lives in a similar fashion. And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. It's an interesting passage. Most people in most commentaries really don't spend a ton of time in this section, versus 16 and 17 get most of the attention. But I think there's a lot here prior to that that we can learn and draw from. And one of the things that I wanted to talk about was something that is interesting that happens when things come together, so to speak. Oh, hold on. It's still being difficult. Yeah, it's on. It's just, there he goes. What we're going to talk about tonight, or this morning I should say, is how the passage breaks down into two parts. So, of course, Paul's initial comments are to the Christians in Rome, right? He's introducing himself. Again, they've never met him personally. But the idea of the introduction... Sits verses 8 through 15 and then verses 16 and 17 are really the central premise of the entire book of Romans. Now, you may not think that the stuff through 1 through 15 is all that important. I think it, as I said, sets up the entire book with a good illustration because it asks certain questions when you're reading it. One is, what is the gospel? What is this thing called the gospel that we refer to a lot? Secondly, it asks, how do we understand what the gospel is? Maybe the batteries are dying. There we go. And how do we live this out in our lives? Now, as we heard before, there was a general assumption Most commentators believe that there was some kind of tension, and we talked about this last week, between the Jewish believers who are coming back into Rome and the non-Jewish or the Gentile believers who had kind of stayed there. Remember there was a big dust-up. It seems like anywhere that you go, what happens is, you know, the Jewish people in the synagogues get really upset about all of these things. So, thank you. We will try again. I feel like the Energizer bunny when it just runs down. Exactly. Okay, let's see. That worked once. Might not just be a line of sight issue. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, it might be a line of sight issue. Well, that's to be given. That's a given framework. Put it on top of the offering box and it would... Oh, okay. Fair enough. All right. Well, we'll make it work. Okay. So one of the questions is, what about the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers? What do we do with this tension? And what about non-believers? What do we do about the Jewish hierarchy who keeps causing these difficulties? Now, one of the things that I think is interesting is when you find out that things that you see in the news start to coalesce nicely with the message that you're working on. That's always fun, and this past few weeks I've noticed something that was fascinating to me, that our political headlines are spurring religious discussion. When was the last time that happened? I mean, where pundits and politicians are talking about things that are properly theology. And I found it was really interesting because what happened was, one more. Come, there it is. Our vice president had made some comments. on an interview that got a lot of attention. Now my goal here isn't to get into the politics, that's not what I'm trying to do, but I do want to bring some clarity to the theology that is referenced within the political discourse. So when speaking on immigration issues, I think it's on the Sean Hannity show, Vice President J.D. Vance said this, he said, there's this old school concept, and I think it's a very Christian concept by the way, that you love your family. and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritize on the rest of the world. And he got pushback from that, notably by a gentleman, a British parliamentarian named Rory Stewart, who took to Twitter to criticize Vance, saying, that's a bizarre take on John 15, 12 and 13. He says that makes... That sounds less Christian and more tribal. Now, Romans 15, I'm sorry, John 15, 12-13 is the Bible verse that says, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Realize that John 15 in context is talking about people within the church. It's not talking about people outside the church. Love one another in that regard. But others... responded in kind and it caused Vance to respond to that tweet with one of his own that you'll see on the screen and what he said was basically just Google the words Ordo Amoris now that was like waving a red flag in front of a bull because everybody now wanted to comment on the Ordo Amoris. What is the Ordo Amoris? By the way, even the Pope jumped into this fray. I mean, he was talking about it. It was all over the place, right? Pundits and politicians, guys whose lives have been spent analyzing political thought. start to pontificate on what Ordo Amoris is, which I find fascinating. Isn't it interesting that non-believers will quote scripture to you and tell you what scripture means, even though you've been studying it for 30 or 40 years, and they will come to you and say, no, no, no, no, this is what it really means. I've always found that to be a fascinating dynamic, but a lot of people pointed to the Good Samaritan passage as the model as opposed to Ordo Amoris, and it went back and forth, back and forth. My goal here is to not make that debate. My goal here is to talk about what Ordo Amoris actually is, because the term is getting thrown around all the time and I don't know that it's been clarified properly. Now the term itself Ordo Amoris is simply a Latin term. It means ordered loves, rightly ordered love. That's what it translates. And that's why my message today is called The Gospel and Ordered Love. And you can see, by the way, it's hard to find an image of Ordo Amoris. They just don't really exist. So I actually asked AI to create this, and I had to go through a couple of iterations. And by this point, it did okay, but I'll show you a close-up here. There's a couple of things that AI still... gotten wrong. Oh no, there should be, go back one. Am I missing my, huh, all the, oh I guess it doesn't show up. Oh yeah, yeah, okay, well. So you'll notice the first guy, he has two left hands, for example. And then the third guy, he had like seven fingers on each hand. I had to, I actually had to erase them. It was, it was. I don't know what mutants they were talking about, but whatever bow these suitors are trying to win, she's got her luck cut out for her. So anyway, that was just interesting. So what is an ordered love? What's ordo amoris? What are we talking about? Well, the term first shows up with St. Augustine. And there they are. So yeah, you could see. Yeah, and then this guy has two left hands. I don't know how you do that. He broke his arm for her, I guess. And then the next one, yeah. Yeah, that's concerning to me. I don't think she's going to choose those guys if she's at all worried about genetics. Anyway, yeah, AI, I keep talking, artificial intelligence isn't. That's the term. So, okay. What does Augustine mean by ordo amoris? Well, let's understand, first of all, what love means. When Augustine talks about love itself, what is he talking about? Well, love is an attraction, it's a desire, it's a drive, right? But it's not, it's those things that you place as important in your life. All loves are ordered in some way, Augustine will tell you, by each of us, right? If you love something more than another, You spend more time with that thing, or you put more effort into that activity, or you spend more money on that idea. So all loves are ordered in some way by each of us, and people will naturally place more or less value on certain things over others. This is just what we do. This is part of the nature of man. Now, Augustine notes that many of these things are good in and of themselves, but love can become disordered. out of order, out of whack, okay? So, for example, Augustine's idea is if something has a higher value on one thing than another, he says, he uses two examples in his book, City of God. He uses beauty, for example. He says, well, beauty is indeed a good gift of God, but that the good may not think it a great good. God dispenses it even to the wicked. Good people he's talking about. That the believer, that the Christian, may not think that it's one of these high goods. He says, God even allows wicked people to understand beauty. God even makes wicked people beautiful. And good was abandoned by the sons of God. And thus, when the good that is great and proper to the good was abandoned by the sons of God, they fell to a paltry good, which is not particular to the good. So let me unpack this. Augustine is saying, the ultimate good, the ultimate beauty, the ultimate truth is found in God. But when the sons of man... neglected that then they went for physical beauty as opposed to spiritual beauty right all you women know this oh she's so beautiful yeah but what's she like what's she about right what do you know that that kind of an idea but he's pointing to genesis chapter six that uh When it was abandoned by the sons of God, they fell to a paltry good which was not peculiar to the good, but common to the good and the evil. And when they were captivated by the daughters of men, they adopted the manners of the earthly to win them as their brides and forsook the godly ways they had followed in their own holy society. And thus beauty, which is indeed God's handiwork, but only a temporal, carnal, and lower kind of good, is not fitly loved in preference to God, the eternal, spiritual, and unchangeable good. You hear that? idea. He also uses the idea of money. He uses gold. He says, when the miser prefers his gold to justice, it is through no fault of the gold, but of the man. And so with every created thing. So all of these kinds of ideas that there is an order. Gold is good. It's good to be able to want to live and afford things and feed your family. But if you take gold at the expense of justice, you have a disordered love of gold. It's out of whack. Disordered not in the sense of A follows B follows C. It's not a linear framework. It's an idea of higher and lower. There's a proper way of doing things and an improper way of doing things. The way to properly order love, Augustine will tell us, is to begin with the greatest love of all, which is God. And thus the quote we have from book 15 of the City of God. He says, but if the creator is truly loved, that is if he himself is loved and not something else, in place of him, then he cannot be wrongly loved. We must, however, observe right order, even for our love for the very love by which we love that which is worthy to be loved. So he's saying all these other loves, we got to check and make sure that they are measuring up in their right order so that there may be in us a virtue which enables us to live well. Hence, it seems to me that a brief and true definition of virtue is rightly ordered love. And that's Augustine's comment on it. Now that sounds a little bit like doublespeak, I know, and I don't have time to unpack it completely, but we have a gentleman who can help us, which is St. Thomas Aquinas. So Thomas took this idea and ran with it, and he wrote in his Summa Theologica that love is only rightly ordered when it aligns with God's purposes. This is what he's talking about, that if you love God, then What follows from that is all of your other loves will align with God's purposes. If you love your spouse, then when your spouse wants to do something to succeed, you will contribute in that way. And if your spouse loves you, he will support you in your endeavors, things of that nature. Love is only rightly ordered also, Aquinas says, when it's properly proportioned. If you love gold too much, you're out of whack. So the idea of ordered love, and by the way, ordo carditas is charity. That's the Latin word for charity. So what Aquinas is trying to say is, there is a order to love, but charity is how you act out that love, right? That's the concept. And he gives a listing of the order of charities. And they're basically this. God is to be loved above all things, as the ultimate end and source of all goodness. Listeners. Augustine said, if you love God, if you truly love God, you can't go wrong. If that's your highest love, there's no way to do that badly. There's no evil in that, no matter what you do. Charity begins with the love of God, which is the foundation of loving all else. The second order is loving oneself. Now, don't get in front of me. Okay, it's not loving oneself in all things. It is loving your spiritual position before God. Whatever you do, don't damage your salvation, your God-man relationship. Because what Thomas would say is the true you is your spiritual self. So he's just echoing what Jesus says. What does it gain? What does it help to gain the whole world and lose your soul? Right? That's the concept. So you have to love your relationship with God. If anyone comes between you and your relationship, what did Peter say? We must obey God rather than men. And that's all that that's communicating. Thirdly, neighbors in general. So charity extends to all human beings as they're capable of attaining eternal happiness. And they're united for... divine friendship. So we are to love our neighbor. These are the two great commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. So if you're to love yourself, in what way? In relation to God, then you are to love your neighbor and hope they would have that same relation to God. That's how you love your neighbor as yourself. The next aspect is those who are closer to us by either nature or grace. So this is kind of within the love of neighbor. There's an order of priority. First, you have parents and family. And he points right to the fourth commandment on this. Hey, you have to honor your father and mother. Matter of fact, Aquinas argues that you have to honor your parents and love your parents better than you love your children. You have to love your parents better than you love your spouse, because there is a command to love your parents. And within your parents, he argues that you have to love your father more than your mother. Now we can talk about that later, but that's an interesting point. But we owe a special love to our parents and blood relatives due to the natural ties that we have with them, but also the gratitude because without our parents, we wouldn't exist. They provided life for us. So there's an issue there. Friends and benefactors, people who have benefited us or with whom we share a bond of virtue or mutual good. They're to be loved more intensely. You have an obligation to your friends and family that you don't have to the stranger on the street. There is a step in that. And then there's a love of country and fellow citizens. That follows as a natural extension of the social bonds. We have a love of our own country because that offers us protections and things like that that other countries don't. Beyond the love of those closer to us, we are to love our enemies. And this is, of course, is clear in Christian teaching that enemies are to be loved as an act of charity, not for their evil deeds, but for their potential for salvation, because they're creatures made in God's image. However, this love is less intense and lower in order than love for friends or family. And then lastly, you are to love your own body. And this is where most people try to put their ideas of number two in place, but actually it falls last. Aquinas places the love of one's own physical body after the love of others in the order of charity, since the spiritual good of the soul and other souls takes precedence over the bodily good. And that makes sense. So this is why the Christians would go in and pick up kids who are abandoned by the Tiber, even though it would mean less food for them, or run into Rome when the Plague was ravaging all of the people and things of that nature. So here's the key principles of the Ordo Amoris, or the Ordo Caritatis, I'm sorry. The order is determined by nearness to God, right? Proximity in grace or potential for salvation, then nearness to ourselves. The intensity of love varies. We must love God most perfectly. ourselves spiritually next, and then others according to their relation to us and God. And charity is universal, but it's not egalitarian. It's not the same kind of charity that we apply to everyone equally. There are degrees, there are gradations. The affection of love increases in proportion to the nearness of one or the other. Therefore, Augustine says, man out of charity ought to love himself more than his neighbor, in a sign where of man not ought to give way to any evil of sin. which counteracts his share of happiness. Not even that he may free his neighbor from sin, which is an interesting verse because we're going to talk about that in Romans chapter 9. So this is the idea, again, of loving yourself spiritually. You shouldn't say, you know, you shouldn't do something that may put your salvation in jeopardy just so you could save another. You can't. Okay, let me give you an example. In the 60s, there was a cult called the family moses david berg was the head of the family i don't know if you remember and they would do things because you know it's early 70s i believe this was and there was a big explosion the jesus movement was in full swing all this and berg promoted an idea called flirty fishing that you he would send young pretty 20 something girls out to basically flirt and pick up on men take them back and have relations with them in hopes that they could save those guys in hopes that they could somehow then evangelize them because wow i'm not going to leave this place it's got all the girls and flirty fishing yeah it was a thing um a quiet thomas says no you don't do anything even if you're trying to save someone else That's a disordered love. Even though your motivation for it may be somewhat laudable, you're putting the cart before the horse. You have to love your spiritual position before them. So that hopefully gives you the idea of what we're talking about when we talk about ordered loves. Lewis, in his Four Loves, kind of reinforces this idea when he says, to love you as I should, I must worship God as creator. Have you ever thought about that? If you want to love your spouse better, try loving God better. Lewis says, When I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God, instead of God, I shall be moving towards a state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. But when first things are put first, second things are not suppressed. but increased. What a great idea. What a great concept. And that's what we see in our passage. This is, by the way, part of the point that now you see why the whole political discussion is kind of off the rails. Because it's not simply who do you give preference to? It's why. It's motivation. And what I found with this passage is Paul does a really interesting thing. Interesting thing in reaching out to the Roman church. He's showing that there is an order to love because the church by its nature is a nearness. It's a family. It's a connection. And Paul says, because I have the gospel, which means, and I'm reacting to the gospel. I love God out of the gospel. Gospel love means that I have a reaction to it. It takes effect in me. We hope you're enjoying this broadcast. Come Reason Ministries was created to help provide the answers to those tough biblical, ethical, and philosophical questions, and radio is just one way we do that. Did you know that Come Reason is also available to speak to your local church group, school, or club? Lenny can engage your audience. encouraging them in the truth of the Bible and the power of the Christian faith. Are you having an event or retreat? Come Reason would love to address your group, large or small, to help them hold their faith with assurance and train them to share it more effectively with others. We've spoken in many different group settings in the past on highly relevant topics such as the reliability of the Bible, evolution, social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. popular culture, movies, and entertainment, witnessing to the cults being used by God, living an authentic Christian life, and much, much more. Multi-day series and one-day workshops are also available. Contact us at 866-95-REASON for information about bringing these exciting faith-building tools to your church, group, or event today. Or you can email us at info at comreason.org. The address again is info at comreason.org or simply log on to the www.comreason.org website. What are the effects or the reactions to accepting the gospel? Have you ever thought about that? When you have the gospel, what effect does it have on your person and your life? Well, here are three primaries. First, it prompts thanksgiving in the heart of the believer. I think that's a pretty natural first response. And what we notice in our passage is that's how Paul starts. Verse 8. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ, right? Starts off with thanksgiving immediately for all of you because of the news of your faith is being reported throughout the world. Second, the good news holds benefits for the believer. And thirdly, the good news holds obligations for the believer. And we're going to go through each one of these. So let's start with Thanksgiving. Let's start with verse 8. Paul is thankful to the Roman Church. Now, he hasn't visited them yet, but he does know about them. He's familiar with them. He recognizes that every member of the body of Christ is unique, is important, is special, is even necessary. He, of course, expands on this idea more clearly in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the famous body passage, where he makes this analogy that we are all part of the body of Christ. And this is where we get that terminology. 1 Corinthians 12, 4 through 6 says, Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different activities, but the same God works all of them in each person. So just because things are different. doesn't make them bad. In verses 21 and 22, he extends the idea of being a body and he says, now the eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you. Or again, the head can't say to the feet, I don't need you. On the contrary, those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable. Why do you think he's underlying this? Remember the tension, the Roman Christians, do we really need the Jewish believers? They still do the Sabbath thing. They're still dealing with all that law stuff. Do we really need all them? Maybe it would be better to not have them. Can the eye say to the hand, I don't need you? Can the head say to the feet, I don't need you? No. So he's right off the top establishing this idea that he's thankful for all of them, that they're... Fame has gone out, right? The news of your faith is being reported in all the world. Now let me ask you something, Christian. This brings two questions to mind for us. First of all, do you feel indispensable as part of the body of Christ? Because you are. Do you think that when you miss a church service, It makes a difference. We've often heard the idea of, you know, do not forsake the gathering yourselves together, as is the manner of some. And the illustration commonly used is that of a charcoal, piece of charcoal, that when you take one piece of charcoal away from the fire and set it by itself, it immediately starts to grow colder. And the fire can die out in it. But when you put it next to the rest of the charcoal, it gets warm again. So we look at this as the idea of, I'm going to lose something if I'm away from the fellowship of faith. That's true, but the reverse is true as well. The fellowship of faith loses something when you're not there, because there are unique gifts that you can apply to other people that no one else has. So we're poorer for it as much as you. Do you feel indispensable? Do you view other Christians as indispensable? Ooh, this is a little tougher. Even those we may have, say, theological disagreements with? Ah, he's a Calvinist. Ah, he's an Arminian. Ah, he's a Roman Catholic. Ah, he's a fill-in-the-blank. Maybe they're still indispensable. Maybe God is still using them in unique ways. Or how about those Christians that... with which you have a maybe a personal disagreement or a personality clash. It's interesting that one of the things that the body of Christ does is work in all of us to smooth out of all of our rough edges, right? And that's what we do as we grow in faith. We try to smooth out our rough edges. Well, have you ever thought that maybe some of those people that you meet are sandpaper? Yeah, they're rough. And yeah, they take a little bit off you, but maybe they're just smoothing out all those rough edges for you. Are they indispensable? If you've ever built cabinets, if you've ever done woodworking, too bad Ray's not here, you know how indispensable sanding is. You can't get the project completed unless you make it smooth and square. Sometimes Christians can be sandpaper. And Paul is saying, hey, the Jewish believers are just as indispensable as the Gentile believers. And you'll see that coming up in a minute. And he is thankful for their notoriety, for their faith. Part of the calling in being a Christian is being a messenger, right? We read, of course, the Great Commission in Matthew 28, go out into all the world and make disciples of all nations. This is what Israel's initial calling was. That's what Israel's job was supposed to be, was to be a light to the Gentiles, to be a light to the nations, so that all people would want to come and worship the one true God. Israel blew it. We just went through Jeremiah, right? Over and over again. They would, we don't want to do that. We want to worship our false gods. We want to bring in our idols. We want to do all that. That's why Israel over and over again is always pictured as the adulterous wife of Jehovah. They're the wife that doesn't keep her promise. They're the wife that cheats on the spouse. What is the church pictured as? The virgin bride of Christ, always dressed in white, always pure. The dynamic is the same. We are still married to the divine in that sense, but we are to properly reflect our spouse and make him known throughout the world. So we are now the ambassadors for the faith. And even in a church like that in Rome, they carried that responsibility, especially since they were at the center of influence, right? They were in the seat of power. And people say, wow, well, they even have Christians in Rome. That means something. They're not there. This isn't just Judea. This isn't just a movement in some backwater woods, right? It's not just Barstow or Baker. They're actually in LA. They must be bigger than I thought. So there's thanksgiving in all of that. And of course, one of the blessings in that gospel, once you're thankful, you also start to begin to see the benefits. Verses 9 through 13, God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit and telling you the good news about his son. That's good news. That's gospel. That's the... word that's translated there, that I constantly mention you, always asking in my prayers, that if it is somehow in God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you. Paul wants to visit them. And Paul's first aspect in providing benefit to the Roman church is to pray for them. It's not the last thing he does. but it's the first thing he does. Prayer is an amazingly powerful thing, and sometimes we neglect it. Well, I can't give you any money, or I can't, you know, help you move, but I'll pray for you. It's almost like a Christian dismissal. But prayer is really an important thing, and what we're seeing over and over again is how people are changed through prayer. So don't discount the fact that other Christians can pray for you. Don't be afraid to ask them to develop prayer for you. And don't be afraid. I know we have a wonderful ministry here, the Generations Ministry, where we do just that in community. We pray for others. And how much more comforting is it to come in together with a family and pray for family than it is to be by yourself, praying by yourself, and feeling by yourself. that no one understands. Prayer is a wonderful blessing. It is a benefit of the gospel because we can come together in unity and ask the same God and Father for the same things. Also note that Paul says he has a dedicated calling. There's something specific that God has chosen for him. And that's always a benefit when you can find that thing, when there's this one thing that you know that you're special at, right? Anybody remember when their parents would give them little chores? I got something special for you. I got this picked out just for you. You're going to be perfect at it. Let's try this. You'd get excited about that. I can't wait to see what that is. Well, this is what Paul says. He says there, you know, God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in telling good news about his son. That's my calling. That's my dedication. I am the apostle to the Gentiles. I am supposed to spread this news. And When he says that, he says that it's specific in his spirit. What that means is that like from the bottom of my heart, I serve him. That's what I do. I serve him with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. He's kind of echoing Jesus' words there. That I tell the good news about my son, and I mention you, and I pray for you, and that's part of my gospel calling. Always asking in my prayers that if it is somehow in God's will I may at last succeed coming to you. Now why does he want to be there? He says, for I want very much to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift. Here's another benefit. We get gifts. I love your grace. I love your mercy. But Lord, I love your presence most of all. No, but that is true. God gives us gifts, spiritual gifts. And Paul is praying that he would be able to facilitate that, that I could go to Rome and give you these gifts. Now Paul's prayer, if you read the book of Acts, find out it is answered in the affirmative. It just didn't go the way he thought. He hits Rome about three years after he writes this letter, and he arrives there in chains. That's the whole last portion of the book of Acts, but he's still glad to be in Rome. And He follows it up with the idea of, I want very much to see you. I may impart some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is to be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. So in other words, there's a mutual sharing of gifts that happens. It's not simply Paul from on high bestowing gifts to them. Remember, everybody's indispensable. It's them bestowing gifts to Paul. It works both ways. Paul reaps some kind of fruit in every church he visits. That's what he says. He says, that is to be mercifully encouraged, right? I don't want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often plan to come to you, what was prevented until now, in order that I might have a fruitful ministry among you, just as I've had among the rest of the Gentiles. I get benefit from every, even the Corinthians? Did you see what they did? You see the problems that church had? Yeah, even the Corinthians. As I field questions from believers and non-believers alike, one thing has become abundantly clear. Christians must have a firm understanding of what they believe, not just so that they can defend their faith to the skeptic, but so that they can help turn the minds and hearts of the lost toward a relationship with Christ. Come reason exists to help fulfill this purpose. We provide a non-threatening environment for those seeking answers, as well as to the body of Christ, giving a solid foundation of what Christianity teaches, and why. And now, with the need so great, we are aggressively seeking to step up our ministry, both in teaching opportunities and online. That's why I'm hoping you will partner with us here at Come Reason, in two ways. First, pray for us. Pray for our speakers and staff as we seek to minister to those coming to us for answers to difficult questions. Pray that God would keep his hand upon this ministry, and continue to bring those seekers to us to find satisfying answers to the questions they ask. Secondly, we ask that you consider supporting us through a gift to Come Reason. The conferences, website, and other Come Reason resources and events cost money, and we can only keep them going through the generous support of friends like you. Your gift today of $10, $25, or whatever is right for you, would be a tremendous help as we work to equip the believer and reach the lost. Because Come Reason Ministries is a non-profit organization, we must rely on the support of generous friends like you to carry out the work God has placed before us. Your gift will help underwrite the many aspects of our ministry and help spread convincing Christianity to believers and non-believers alike. Please consider sharing a gift today by going online to www.comreason.org slash donate and making a gift. That's www.comreason.org slash donate to make a gift today. Thank you and may God bless you as your gift blesses others. Now back to the show. The exchange of this blessing, interestingly though, Paul seems to locate within personal, immediate interaction. In other words, you've got to be there. I understand there are points in time where we can't be here always, where we have to watch online. Christendom writ large has adopted online services so frequently that most people don't see any difference between watching online and being in fellowship with other believers. Now, you know here that we put a big emphasis on interpersonal engagement. I mean, we have lunch together and all of these things. We love that idea. So it's important to be here, because that seems to be where that exchange of blessings truly occurs. So there are blessings that Paul notes in Romans. There's also obligations. There's an obligation to the gospel. Oh, I want to receive the gospel to be saved. Are you ready to fulfill the obligations that come from it? How are we obligated? Well, first of all, we're obligated in the way that we fit into the body of Christ. Paul's obligation is met in his preaching of the gospel, right? Specifically in his mission to the Gentiles. Again, we said, he says in 11, Now I'm speaking to you insofar as I am an apostle to the Gentiles. I magnify my own ministry. I'm sorry, this is Romans 11. We haven't gotten here yet. This is Romans chapter 11. He makes it clear to them that this is his calling and this is his mission. This is his obligation. That now I am speaking to you Gentiles insofar as I am an apostle to the Gentiles. I magnify my ministry if I might somehow make my own people jealous and save some of them. In verse 14, he says, I'm obligated to both Greeks and barbarians, both the wise and the foolish. So I'm eager to preach the gospel to you who are also in Rome. So who are we obligated to? We're obligated to the civilized people, the Greeks. And this is a, this is a, the Greeks and the barbarians. This was an idea that started in ancient Greece. And the thought process was, there's us who are civilized. We have democracy. We have pillars. We have Plato and Aristotle and all of these great thinkers. And then there's the uncivilized, the barbarous hordes who live out of like tents and have dirt on their faces. There's an us and there's a them. It's a very Greek way of talking. So to say the wise and the unwise, or to say the Greeks and the barbarians, to a Greek, that would be the exact same thing. And sometimes we unfortunately pick that up. You know, there's the saved and the unsaved. Well, that's true. I mean, those distinctions do exist. But what does that tell us? That doesn't necessarily tell us that one is better than the other, right? The old adage is, I'm just one baker showing another baker where to find bread. It's more appropriate. And what Paul says, we are obligated, first of all, to share the gospel, because that's what all of us... but we're also obligated to take those spiritual gifts that he just talked to us about, whatever they may be, and apply them for the betterment of the body. Why? Because if you love God, if your love is ordered to love God first, and he gives you a gift to use, then you should be using it the way God would have you use it. And you put that love in an ordered way. Do you see how this all starts to connect now? You see why I called it the gospel of ordered loves. Because our obligation is that if we love God and we are thankful to him for what he gave us, then we must turn around and love others in that order or their salvation. Timothy Keller, who wrote on this chapter, had a great analogy. He offered this great illustration. Let's see if we can pull it up here. Keller says, quote, it's illustrative. to think about how I can be in debt to you. First, you have lent me $100. Now I'm in debt to you until I pay it back. But second, someone else may have given me $100 to pass on to you. Now I'm in debt to you until I pass it on. It's in this second sense that Paul is obligated, in verse 14, to everyone everywhere. God has shared the gospel with him. But God has also commissioned him to declare it to others. So Paul owes people the gospel. Has God given you blessing, material blessing, spiritual blessing, proper insight, wisdom in family, counseling wisdom in other circumstances? If those are the gifts God has given you, then you have an obligation to pass them along. Because you want your love to be properly ordered. Now, these Roman Christians were saved, weren't they? I mean, he's thanking God for every one of them. He says that, you know, that their salvation has gone out through all the world. So why does he want to still come and impart the gospel to them? Because the gospel isn't the message of fire insurance. The step of salvation... is something different. So what is the scope of gospel love? And this is verses 16 and 17. He writes, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. Okay. The gospel is, first and foremost, the power of God. It provides salvation. It reconciles us from our dead nature to a holy God. So what do we mean when we understand the word salvation? What does salvation mean? What are we saved from? That should be the first question, right? Well, damnation. That's the easy one. That seems to be what everybody, at least within Christendom, understands. We're saved from, though, depression. We don't have to live a life dreading the next day or drudgery. What an incredible adventure it is to find your spiritual gifts and put them into sacred service. Meaningless living. We've just seen that God gives you gifts and dedicates you for a purpose. So if you have that purpose within you, then you should never feel that there's nothing in life. that is meaningful for you, because you serve the Heavenly Father. You are on a mission directly from the King. Hopelessness. Over and over again you hear the hope of Christ. What is that hope? Well, one of those hopes is that this present world, that always seems to lapse toward evil, will be vanquished. That evil will be overcome and never again to be... ...un. experienced, suffered, pushed into. We are saved from sin's power in our lives, and we're saved from the tactics, attacks, and the lies of the enemy. All of these aspects of salvation is what we will be exploring through the rest of the book of Romans. So you see, salvation does have the concept of, I'm already put in a different position relationally with God than I was prior to receiving Christ. But it also has an aspect of, I've just started on my journey and I'm nowhere near completion. The phrase already and not yet. Get ready to hear that a lot because you'll hear that in Romans. Salvation has an already and not yet aspect to it, and that'll become more apparent as we work through Romans. There are several passages where we deal with these issues. One of our commentators, Tony Merida, said, quote, the gospel is not simply about the power of God, although it is that, but it contains the power of God in the sense that God actualizes his saving work through it. This is why Paul wants to talk to the Romans and give them the gospel, to actualize it, to... Live it out. This is how, if you believe the gospel, you won't just say it's head knowledge. It will affect how you order your loves, how you live your lives. And you do that, by the way, to both the Jew and the Gentile. Yes, maybe the Jewish people are coming back in and trying to say, oh, you guys got it all wrong. since we were away. We're going to set you back and show you how to keep the Sabbath or only eat kosher things or things like that. I don't know that that was what was going on in Rome. That was definitely what was going on in Galatia. And that's what the whole letter of Galatians is all about. But Craig Keener notes that the Greeks, both Jew and Greek, the Greeks were the most anti-Jewish people that you could find. Ancient Greeks, again, there was an arrogance to the Greeks. Anybody watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Remember the scene where the father says, we were doing philosophy while you guys were still swinging from the trees? It's that kind of, that was a real thought process back in those days. And so what Paul seems to be saying is, from the Jew to the Greek, these are the two extremes that the popular culture thinks about from the intellectual college professor to the, you know, garbage man on the street. So that means everybody in between qualifies. So that's when he says both Jew and Greek, that's what he's talking about, for everyone who believes. And then, for it in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Now, what is this righteousness of God then? Well, there's an ethical idea behind it, that that's a moral uprightness, right? Living a righteous life. We see this reflected in Psalm 18. The Lord reward me according to my righteousness. He repaid me according to the cleanness of my hands. This idea that I did good. I didn't sin. I personally kept myself righteous and not lapsing toward evil. But... beyond the ethical idea, this idea of righteousness of God is also a properly ordered way of living, a rightness about things. You work as designed, okay? So there's a rightness in using, say, a screwdriver as opposed to a butter knife to tighten that screw on the drawer in the kitchen. The butter knife could do it, but it's not the right thing to use. You'll eventually damage the screw and damage the butter knife. Right? We're going to talk about that next Sunday when we get into homosexuality and things of that nature. There's a rightness about things, using them as designed. We are designed as people to worship God, to know God, worship him, and enjoy him fully. And Isaiah over and over uses this idea of righteousness of God to underscore it. So, 46, 12, and 13 is one example. Listen to me, you hard-hearted, far removed from my righteousness. I am bringing my righteousness near. It is not far away, and my salvation will not delay. I will put salvation in Zion, my splendor in Israel. So this is what we see in terms of righteousness, a proper alignment with God. In fact, you could outline the entire book of Romans with a concept of righteousness. So let's go through this. Outline of Romans is this. Number, from verse 1 to 320, we see that no one is righteous under God. This is what Paul's talking about. In chapters 3 through 5, we see that by faith in Christ, one is declared righteous. In chapters 6 through 8, we see that Christians are now considered slaves to righteousness. In chapters 9 through 11, we read of Paul's defense of God's righteousness. Chapters 12 through 15, we then see what a righteous life looks like in the church and in the world. And again, he emphasizes that this is not a single immediate change, but an ongoing process. Because he says, from faith to faith, right? The righteousness of God from faith to faith is developing. Now, he points to that famous passage in Habakkuk, the just shall live by faith. that we are only justified by faith. Again, we're going to get into that in the upcoming chapters, but realize chapters 2, 3, and 4, justification by faith is central to the gospel message. It's something that the Catholic Church missed. It's why Luther was so passionate in his 95 Theses, and it powered the Protestant Revolution. And again, from weaker to the stronger, it's the idea that you have these progressives. states of faith. In all of this, we need to learn how to live the gospel. That's what we're going to do. In commenting on this passage, Craig Keener notes, quote, biblical saving faith was not passive assent, but actively staking one's life on the claims of God. It was a certainty sufficient to accept one's lifestyle. Paul apparently applies this text to those who trust in Christ and so are saved from final judgment. So Keener says Paul, because he received the gospel, recognizes his obligation to share the good news in others. He understands that this was an ongoing project, and he wishes to go to Rome to share with the Roman Christians there that ongoing project, to bless them and have them, in turn, strengthen and bless him. He had an obligation. God gave him an obligation with this gospel. But his obligation is also his passion, and that seems to be how God works. Serving God with his whole spirit by telling the good news. He lived for that, and he enjoyed it. And when you find yourself rightly ordered in your loves, the thing that God has called you to do, you will love. You will engage. It won't necessarily be easy. And it won't necessarily be painless. Don't confuse those ideas. But it will be something that you can embrace with your whole spirit, with the bottom of your heart. He had a heart for Christians, even those he hadn't met yet, and he wanted to impart these mutual gifts of fellowship and receiving the same from them. Our commentator, Tony Morita, ends with this question. So, this is the first passion we see that drove this servant at communion with God. Does it drive you? Do you have a vibrant prayer life filled with thanksgiving, intercession, and submission to God's will? Do you have an ordered love, placing God above all, loving those in the church, and even those who seem unlovable? Are you ready to exercise the righteousness of God in your life as Paul did as well? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much that you are a God who provides the answers for us, gives us the owner's manual, not only... creates us, builds us, but tells us how we should function in a way that will glorify you, as well as benefit us and put us on the grandest adventure that we can imagine. May we take these messages to heart. May we seek out and understand what your calling is for each one of us. And may we engage it fully as we seek to honor you through your son, Jesus. We ask it in his name. Amen. You've been listening to Come Let Us Reason together with teacher and apologist Lenny Esposito. Come Let Us Reason is dedicated to defending the claims of historic Christianity, one with answers for every person. Today's program is part of a larger message, which is available on audio. You may order a copy by logging on to our website at www.comereason.org. There you will also find hundreds of articles and resources to help you better defend your faith. Or you may call us at 1-866-95-REASON. That's 1-866-95-REASON. Thank you for listening and until next time, God bless.

But while I was excited to see a deep theological concept enter the popular discourse, I wasn't very surprised that everything I heard and read either got the concept, well, wrong or didn't explain it fully. Hi all, I'm Lenny Esposito, and on this podcast, I use Romans chapter 1 to offer a corrective to what you may have heard or have been told about the Order of Morris, and I explain why ordering your love is not only reflecting Jesus, but why it is necessary. for one as a Jesus follower to do. So let's explore Ordo Amoris on this. Come let us reason together.

Do miracles really happen? Why should I believe the Bible? Doesn't science contradict religion?

How do I know that God is real? Welcome to Come Let Us Reason Together with teacher and apologist Lenny Esposito. Come Let Us Reason seeks to train Christians in how to think more effectively about their faith and how to answer the tough questions. And now, here's Lenny.

Paul, again, is writing to the church in Rome, a church that he's not been to. He knows some folks through some of his dealings, but he's not actually visited Rome as yet. And so he's addressing the group there and really desiring to go there. And he says in verse 8, First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you. Because the news of your faith is being reported in all the world.

God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in telling the good news about his Son. That I constantly mention you, always asking in my prayers, that if it is somehow in God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I want very much to see you, so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, to be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. Now, I don't want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often planned to come to you, but was prevented until now, in order that I might have a fruitful ministry among you, just as I have had among the rest of the Gentiles. I am obligated, both to the Greeks and the barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish, so I am eager to preach the gospel to you, also who are in Rome.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you that you have given us this opportunity. that we can gaze into the heart and mind of Paul, that we can see his motivations, his passions, his convictions, and that we may, through looking at him as he seeks to model you, model our lives in a similar fashion. And we ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen. It's an interesting passage. Most people in most commentaries really don't spend a ton of time in this section, versus 16 and 17 get most of the attention. But I think there's a lot here prior to that that we can learn and draw from. And one of the things that I wanted to talk about was something that is interesting that happens when things come together, so to speak.

Oh, hold on. It's still being difficult. Yeah, it's on. It's just, there he goes. What we're going to talk about tonight, or this morning I should say, is how the passage breaks down into two parts.

So, of course, Paul's initial comments are to the Christians in Rome, right? He's introducing himself. Again, they've never met him personally.

But the idea of the introduction... Sits verses 8 through 15 and then verses 16 and 17 are really the central premise of the entire book of Romans. Now, you may not think that the stuff through 1 through 15 is all that important.

I think it, as I said, sets up the entire book with a good illustration because it asks certain questions when you're reading it. One is, what is the gospel? What is this thing called the gospel that we refer to a lot?

Secondly, it asks, how do we understand what the gospel is? Maybe the batteries are dying. There we go. And how do we live this out in our lives? Now, as we heard before, there was a general assumption Most commentators believe that there was some kind of tension, and we talked about this last week, between the Jewish believers who are coming back into Rome and the non-Jewish or the Gentile believers who had kind of stayed there.

Remember there was a big dust-up. It seems like anywhere that you go, what happens is, you know, the Jewish people in the synagogues get really upset about all of these things. So, thank you. We will try again.

I feel like the Energizer bunny when it just runs down. Exactly. Okay, let's see. That worked once. Might not just be a line of sight issue.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, it might be a line of sight issue. Well, that's to be given. That's a given framework. Put it on top of the offering box and it would...

Oh, okay. Fair enough. All right. Well, we'll make it work.

Okay. So one of the questions is, what about the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers? What do we do with this tension?

And what about non-believers? What do we do about the Jewish hierarchy who keeps causing these difficulties? Now, one of the things that I think is interesting is when you find out that things that you see in the news start to coalesce nicely with the message that you're working on.

That's always fun, and this past few weeks I've noticed something that was fascinating to me, that our political headlines are spurring religious discussion. When was the last time that happened? I mean, where pundits and politicians are talking about things that are properly theology.

And I found it was really interesting because what happened was, one more. Come, there it is. Our vice president had made some comments.

on an interview that got a lot of attention. Now my goal here isn't to get into the politics, that's not what I'm trying to do, but I do want to bring some clarity to the theology that is referenced within the political discourse. So when speaking on immigration issues, I think it's on the Sean Hannity show, Vice President J.D. Vance said this, he said, there's this old school concept, and I think it's a very Christian concept by the way, that you love your family.

and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritize on the rest of the world. And he got pushback from that, notably by a gentleman, a British parliamentarian named Rory Stewart, who took to Twitter to criticize Vance, saying, that's a bizarre take on John 15, 12 and 13. He says that makes... That sounds less Christian and more tribal.

Now, Romans 15, I'm sorry, John 15, 12-13 is the Bible verse that says, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Realize that John 15 in context is talking about people within the church. It's not talking about people outside the church.

Love one another in that regard. But others... responded in kind and it caused Vance to respond to that tweet with one of his own that you'll see on the screen and what he said was basically just Google the words Ordo Amoris now that was like waving a red flag in front of a bull because everybody now wanted to comment on the Ordo Amoris. What is the Ordo Amoris?

By the way, even the Pope jumped into this fray. I mean, he was talking about it. It was all over the place, right?

Pundits and politicians, guys whose lives have been spent analyzing political thought. start to pontificate on what Ordo Amoris is, which I find fascinating. Isn't it interesting that non-believers will quote scripture to you and tell you what scripture means, even though you've been studying it for 30 or 40 years, and they will come to you and say, no, no, no, no, this is what it really means. I've always found that to be a fascinating dynamic, but a lot of people pointed to the Good Samaritan passage as the model as opposed to Ordo Amoris, and it went back and forth, back and forth. My goal here is to not make that debate.

My goal here is to talk about what Ordo Amoris actually is, because the term is getting thrown around all the time and I don't know that it's been clarified properly. Now the term itself Ordo Amoris is simply a Latin term. It means ordered loves, rightly ordered love.

That's what it translates. And that's why my message today is called The Gospel and Ordered Love. And you can see, by the way, it's hard to find an image of Ordo Amoris.

They just don't really exist. So I actually asked AI to create this, and I had to go through a couple of iterations. And by this point, it did okay, but I'll show you a close-up here.

There's a couple of things that AI still... gotten wrong. Oh no, there should be, go back one.

Am I missing my, huh, all the, oh I guess it doesn't show up. Oh yeah, yeah, okay, well. So you'll notice the first guy, he has two left hands, for example. And then the third guy, he had like seven fingers on each hand. I had to, I actually had to erase them.

It was, it was. I don't know what mutants they were talking about, but whatever bow these suitors are trying to win, she's got her luck cut out for her. So anyway, that was just interesting. So what is an ordered love?

What's ordo amoris? What are we talking about? Well, the term first shows up with St. Augustine. And there they are.

So yeah, you could see. Yeah, and then this guy has two left hands. I don't know how you do that.

He broke his arm for her, I guess. And then the next one, yeah. Yeah, that's concerning to me. I don't think she's going to choose those guys if she's at all worried about genetics.

Anyway, yeah, AI, I keep talking, artificial intelligence isn't. That's the term. So, okay. What does Augustine mean by ordo amoris?

Well, let's understand, first of all, what love means. When Augustine talks about love itself, what is he talking about? Well, love is an attraction, it's a desire, it's a drive, right?

But it's not, it's those things that you place as important in your life. All loves are ordered in some way, Augustine will tell you, by each of us, right? If you love something more than another, You spend more time with that thing, or you put more effort into that activity, or you spend more money on that idea.

So all loves are ordered in some way by each of us, and people will naturally place more or less value on certain things over others. This is just what we do. This is part of the nature of man.

Now, Augustine notes that many of these things are good in and of themselves, but love can become disordered. out of order, out of whack, okay? So, for example, Augustine's idea is if something has a higher value on one thing than another, he says, he uses two examples in his book, City of God. He uses beauty, for example.

He says, well, beauty is indeed a good gift of God, but that the good may not think it a great good. God dispenses it even to the wicked. Good people he's talking about.

That the believer, that the Christian, may not think that it's one of these high goods. He says, God even allows wicked people to understand beauty. God even makes wicked people beautiful. And good was abandoned by the sons of God.

And thus, when the good that is great and proper to the good was abandoned by the sons of God, they fell to a paltry good, which is not particular to the good. So let me unpack this. Augustine is saying, the ultimate good, the ultimate beauty, the ultimate truth is found in God.

But when the sons of man... neglected that then they went for physical beauty as opposed to spiritual beauty right all you women know this oh she's so beautiful yeah but what's she like what's she about right what do you know that that kind of an idea but he's pointing to genesis chapter six that uh When it was abandoned by the sons of God, they fell to a paltry good which was not peculiar to the good, but common to the good and the evil. And when they were captivated by the daughters of men, they adopted the manners of the earthly to win them as their brides and forsook the godly ways they had followed in their own holy society. And thus beauty, which is indeed God's handiwork, but only a temporal, carnal, and lower kind of good, is not fitly loved in preference to God, the eternal, spiritual, and unchangeable good.

You hear that? idea. He also uses the idea of money. He uses gold. He says, when the miser prefers his gold to justice, it is through no fault of the gold, but of the man.

And so with every created thing. So all of these kinds of ideas that there is an order. Gold is good. It's good to be able to want to live and afford things and feed your family.

But if you take gold at the expense of justice, you have a disordered love of gold. It's out of whack. Disordered not in the sense of A follows B follows C.

It's not a linear framework. It's an idea of higher and lower. There's a proper way of doing things and an improper way of doing things.

The way to properly order love, Augustine will tell us, is to begin with the greatest love of all, which is God. And thus the quote we have from book 15 of the City of God. He says, but if the creator is truly loved, that is if he himself is loved and not something else, in place of him, then he cannot be wrongly loved. We must, however, observe right order, even for our love for the very love by which we love that which is worthy to be loved.

So he's saying all these other loves, we got to check and make sure that they are measuring up in their right order so that there may be in us a virtue which enables us to live well. Hence, it seems to me that a brief and true definition of virtue is rightly ordered love. And that's Augustine's comment on it.

Now that sounds a little bit like doublespeak, I know, and I don't have time to unpack it completely, but we have a gentleman who can help us, which is St. Thomas Aquinas. So Thomas took this idea and ran with it, and he wrote in his Summa Theologica that love is only rightly ordered when it aligns with God's purposes. This is what he's talking about, that if you love God, then What follows from that is all of your other loves will align with God's purposes.

If you love your spouse, then when your spouse wants to do something to succeed, you will contribute in that way. And if your spouse loves you, he will support you in your endeavors, things of that nature. Love is only rightly ordered also, Aquinas says, when it's properly proportioned.

If you love gold too much, you're out of whack. So the idea of ordered love, and by the way, ordo carditas is charity. That's the Latin word for charity. So what Aquinas is trying to say is, there is a order to love, but charity is how you act out that love, right? That's the concept.

And he gives a listing of the order of charities. And they're basically this. God is to be loved above all things, as the ultimate end and source of all goodness. Listeners. Augustine said, if you love God, if you truly love God, you can't go wrong.

If that's your highest love, there's no way to do that badly. There's no evil in that, no matter what you do. Charity begins with the love of God, which is the foundation of loving all else.

The second order is loving oneself. Now, don't get in front of me. Okay, it's not loving oneself in all things.

It is loving your spiritual position before God. Whatever you do, don't damage your salvation, your God-man relationship. Because what Thomas would say is the true you is your spiritual self.

So he's just echoing what Jesus says. What does it gain? What does it help to gain the whole world and lose your soul? Right?

That's the concept. So you have to love your relationship with God. If anyone comes between you and your relationship, what did Peter say?

We must obey God rather than men. And that's all that that's communicating. Thirdly, neighbors in general. So charity extends to all human beings as they're capable of attaining eternal happiness. And they're united for...

divine friendship. So we are to love our neighbor. These are the two great commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. So if you're to love yourself, in what way?

In relation to God, then you are to love your neighbor and hope they would have that same relation to God. That's how you love your neighbor as yourself. The next aspect is those who are closer to us by either nature or grace. So this is kind of within the love of neighbor. There's an order of priority.

First, you have parents and family. And he points right to the fourth commandment on this. Hey, you have to honor your father and mother.

Matter of fact, Aquinas argues that you have to honor your parents and love your parents better than you love your children. You have to love your parents better than you love your spouse, because there is a command to love your parents. And within your parents, he argues that you have to love your father more than your mother. Now we can talk about that later, but that's an interesting point.

But we owe a special love to our parents and blood relatives due to the natural ties that we have with them, but also the gratitude because without our parents, we wouldn't exist. They provided life for us. So there's an issue there. Friends and benefactors, people who have benefited us or with whom we share a bond of virtue or mutual good.

They're to be loved more intensely. You have an obligation to your friends and family that you don't have to the stranger on the street. There is a step in that.

And then there's a love of country and fellow citizens. That follows as a natural extension of the social bonds. We have a love of our own country because that offers us protections and things like that that other countries don't. Beyond the love of those closer to us, we are to love our enemies. And this is, of course, is clear in Christian teaching that enemies are to be loved as an act of charity, not for their evil deeds, but for their potential for salvation, because they're creatures made in God's image.

However, this love is less intense and lower in order than love for friends or family. And then lastly, you are to love your own body. And this is where most people try to put their ideas of number two in place, but actually it falls last.

Aquinas places the love of one's own physical body after the love of others in the order of charity, since the spiritual good of the soul and other souls takes precedence over the bodily good. And that makes sense. So this is why the Christians would go in and pick up kids who are abandoned by the Tiber, even though it would mean less food for them, or run into Rome when the Plague was ravaging all of the people and things of that nature.

So here's the key principles of the Ordo Amoris, or the Ordo Caritatis, I'm sorry. The order is determined by nearness to God, right? Proximity in grace or potential for salvation, then nearness to ourselves. The intensity of love varies.

We must love God most perfectly. ourselves spiritually next, and then others according to their relation to us and God. And charity is universal, but it's not egalitarian. It's not the same kind of charity that we apply to everyone equally. There are degrees, there are gradations.

The affection of love increases in proportion to the nearness of one or the other. Therefore, Augustine says, man out of charity ought to love himself more than his neighbor, in a sign where of man not ought to give way to any evil of sin. which counteracts his share of happiness. Not even that he may free his neighbor from sin, which is an interesting verse because we're going to talk about that in Romans chapter 9. So this is the idea, again, of loving yourself spiritually.

You shouldn't say, you know, you shouldn't do something that may put your salvation in jeopardy just so you could save another. You can't. Okay, let me give you an example.

In the 60s, there was a cult called the family moses david berg was the head of the family i don't know if you remember and they would do things because you know it's early 70s i believe this was and there was a big explosion the jesus movement was in full swing all this and berg promoted an idea called flirty fishing that you he would send young pretty 20 something girls out to basically flirt and pick up on men take them back and have relations with them in hopes that they could save those guys in hopes that they could somehow then evangelize them because wow i'm not going to leave this place it's got all the girls and flirty fishing yeah it was a thing um a quiet thomas says no you don't do anything even if you're trying to save someone else That's a disordered love. Even though your motivation for it may be somewhat laudable, you're putting the cart before the horse. You have to love your spiritual position before them. So that hopefully gives you the idea of what we're talking about when we talk about ordered loves.

Lewis, in his Four Loves, kind of reinforces this idea when he says, to love you as I should, I must worship God as creator. Have you ever thought about that? If you want to love your spouse better, try loving God better. Lewis says, When I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.

Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God, instead of God, I shall be moving towards a state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. But when first things are put first, second things are not suppressed. but increased. What a great idea. What a great concept.

And that's what we see in our passage. This is, by the way, part of the point that now you see why the whole political discussion is kind of off the rails. Because it's not simply who do you give preference to?

It's why. It's motivation. And what I found with this passage is Paul does a really interesting thing. Interesting thing in reaching out to the Roman church.

He's showing that there is an order to love because the church by its nature is a nearness. It's a family. It's a connection.

And Paul says, because I have the gospel, which means, and I'm reacting to the gospel. I love God out of the gospel. Gospel love means that I have a reaction to it.

It takes effect in me. We hope you're enjoying this broadcast. Come Reason Ministries was created to help provide the answers to those tough biblical, ethical, and philosophical questions, and radio is just one way we do that. Did you know that Come Reason is also available to speak to your local church group, school, or club?

Lenny can engage your audience. encouraging them in the truth of the Bible and the power of the Christian faith. Are you having an event or retreat? Come Reason would love to address your group, large or small, to help them hold their faith with assurance and train them to share it more effectively with others. We've spoken in many different group settings in the past on highly relevant topics such as the reliability of the Bible, evolution, social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion.

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Or you can email us at info at comreason.org. The address again is info at comreason.org or simply log on to the www.comreason.org website. What are the effects or the reactions to accepting the gospel? Have you ever thought about that?

When you have the gospel, what effect does it have on your person and your life? Well, here are three primaries. First, it prompts thanksgiving in the heart of the believer.

I think that's a pretty natural first response. And what we notice in our passage is that's how Paul starts. Verse 8. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ, right? Starts off with thanksgiving immediately for all of you because of the news of your faith is being reported throughout the world.

Second, the good news holds benefits for the believer. And thirdly, the good news holds obligations for the believer. And we're going to go through each one of these.

So let's start with Thanksgiving. Let's start with verse 8. Paul is thankful to the Roman Church. Now, he hasn't visited them yet, but he does know about them. He's familiar with them.

He recognizes that every member of the body of Christ is unique, is important, is special, is even necessary. He, of course, expands on this idea more clearly in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the famous body passage, where he makes this analogy that we are all part of the body of Christ. And this is where we get that terminology.

1 Corinthians 12, 4 through 6 says, Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different activities, but the same God works all of them in each person. So just because things are different. doesn't make them bad.

In verses 21 and 22, he extends the idea of being a body and he says, now the eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you. Or again, the head can't say to the feet, I don't need you. On the contrary, those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable.

Why do you think he's underlying this? Remember the tension, the Roman Christians, do we really need the Jewish believers? They still do the Sabbath thing.

They're still dealing with all that law stuff. Do we really need all them? Maybe it would be better to not have them. Can the eye say to the hand, I don't need you? Can the head say to the feet, I don't need you?

No. So he's right off the top establishing this idea that he's thankful for all of them, that they're... Fame has gone out, right?

The news of your faith is being reported in all the world. Now let me ask you something, Christian. This brings two questions to mind for us.

First of all, do you feel indispensable as part of the body of Christ? Because you are. Do you think that when you miss a church service, It makes a difference.

We've often heard the idea of, you know, do not forsake the gathering yourselves together, as is the manner of some. And the illustration commonly used is that of a charcoal, piece of charcoal, that when you take one piece of charcoal away from the fire and set it by itself, it immediately starts to grow colder. And the fire can die out in it. But when you put it next to the rest of the charcoal, it gets warm again.

So we look at this as the idea of, I'm going to lose something if I'm away from the fellowship of faith. That's true, but the reverse is true as well. The fellowship of faith loses something when you're not there, because there are unique gifts that you can apply to other people that no one else has.

So we're poorer for it as much as you. Do you feel indispensable? Do you view other Christians as indispensable?

Ooh, this is a little tougher. Even those we may have, say, theological disagreements with? Ah, he's a Calvinist. Ah, he's an Arminian. Ah, he's a Roman Catholic.

Ah, he's a fill-in-the-blank. Maybe they're still indispensable. Maybe God is still using them in unique ways.

Or how about those Christians that... with which you have a maybe a personal disagreement or a personality clash. It's interesting that one of the things that the body of Christ does is work in all of us to smooth out of all of our rough edges, right?

And that's what we do as we grow in faith. We try to smooth out our rough edges. Well, have you ever thought that maybe some of those people that you meet are sandpaper?

Yeah, they're rough. And yeah, they take a little bit off you, but maybe they're just smoothing out all those rough edges for you. Are they indispensable?

If you've ever built cabinets, if you've ever done woodworking, too bad Ray's not here, you know how indispensable sanding is. You can't get the project completed unless you make it smooth and square. Sometimes Christians can be sandpaper.

And Paul is saying, hey, the Jewish believers are just as indispensable as the Gentile believers. And you'll see that coming up in a minute. And he is thankful for their notoriety, for their faith.

Part of the calling in being a Christian is being a messenger, right? We read, of course, the Great Commission in Matthew 28, go out into all the world and make disciples of all nations. This is what Israel's initial calling was. That's what Israel's job was supposed to be, was to be a light to the Gentiles, to be a light to the nations, so that all people would want to come and worship the one true God.

Israel blew it. We just went through Jeremiah, right? Over and over again.

They would, we don't want to do that. We want to worship our false gods. We want to bring in our idols. We want to do all that.

That's why Israel over and over again is always pictured as the adulterous wife of Jehovah. They're the wife that doesn't keep her promise. They're the wife that cheats on the spouse.

What is the church pictured as? The virgin bride of Christ, always dressed in white, always pure. The dynamic is the same.

We are still married to the divine in that sense, but we are to properly reflect our spouse and make him known throughout the world. So we are now the ambassadors for the faith. And even in a church like that in Rome, they carried that responsibility, especially since they were at the center of influence, right?

They were in the seat of power. And people say, wow, well, they even have Christians in Rome. That means something. They're not there. This isn't just Judea.

This isn't just a movement in some backwater woods, right? It's not just Barstow or Baker. They're actually in LA.

They must be bigger than I thought. So there's thanksgiving in all of that. And of course, one of the blessings in that gospel, once you're thankful, you also start to begin to see the benefits.

Verses 9 through 13, God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit and telling you the good news about his son. That's good news. That's gospel.

That's the... word that's translated there, that I constantly mention you, always asking in my prayers, that if it is somehow in God's will, I may now at last succeed in coming to you. Paul wants to visit them. And Paul's first aspect in providing benefit to the Roman church is to pray for them. It's not the last thing he does.

but it's the first thing he does. Prayer is an amazingly powerful thing, and sometimes we neglect it. Well, I can't give you any money, or I can't, you know, help you move, but I'll pray for you.

It's almost like a Christian dismissal. But prayer is really an important thing, and what we're seeing over and over again is how people are changed through prayer. So don't discount the fact that other Christians can pray for you.

Don't be afraid to ask them to develop prayer for you. And don't be afraid. I know we have a wonderful ministry here, the Generations Ministry, where we do just that in community.

We pray for others. And how much more comforting is it to come in together with a family and pray for family than it is to be by yourself, praying by yourself, and feeling by yourself. that no one understands. Prayer is a wonderful blessing.

It is a benefit of the gospel because we can come together in unity and ask the same God and Father for the same things. Also note that Paul says he has a dedicated calling. There's something specific that God has chosen for him.

And that's always a benefit when you can find that thing, when there's this one thing that you know that you're special at, right? Anybody remember when their parents would give them little chores? I got something special for you. I got this picked out just for you.

You're going to be perfect at it. Let's try this. You'd get excited about that.

I can't wait to see what that is. Well, this is what Paul says. He says there, you know, God is my witness whom I serve with my spirit in telling good news about his son.

That's my calling. That's my dedication. I am the apostle to the Gentiles.

I am supposed to spread this news. And When he says that, he says that it's specific in his spirit. What that means is that like from the bottom of my heart, I serve him.

That's what I do. I serve him with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. He's kind of echoing Jesus' words there.

That I tell the good news about my son, and I mention you, and I pray for you, and that's part of my gospel calling. Always asking in my prayers that if it is somehow in God's will I may at last succeed coming to you. Now why does he want to be there? He says, for I want very much to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift. Here's another benefit.

We get gifts. I love your grace. I love your mercy.

But Lord, I love your presence most of all. No, but that is true. God gives us gifts, spiritual gifts. And Paul is praying that he would be able to facilitate that, that I could go to Rome and give you these gifts. Now Paul's prayer, if you read the book of Acts, find out it is answered in the affirmative.

It just didn't go the way he thought. He hits Rome about three years after he writes this letter, and he arrives there in chains. That's the whole last portion of the book of Acts, but he's still glad to be in Rome. And He follows it up with the idea of, I want very much to see you. I may impart some spiritual gift to strengthen you.

That is to be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. So in other words, there's a mutual sharing of gifts that happens. It's not simply Paul from on high bestowing gifts to them. Remember, everybody's indispensable.

It's them bestowing gifts to Paul. It works both ways. Paul reaps some kind of fruit in every church he visits.

That's what he says. He says, that is to be mercifully encouraged, right? I don't want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often plan to come to you, what was prevented until now, in order that I might have a fruitful ministry among you, just as I've had among the rest of the Gentiles. I get benefit from every, even the Corinthians?

Did you see what they did? You see the problems that church had? Yeah, even the Corinthians.

As I field questions from believers and non-believers alike, one thing has become abundantly clear. Christians must have a firm understanding of what they believe, not just so that they can defend their faith to the skeptic, but so that they can help turn the minds and hearts of the lost toward a relationship with Christ. Come reason exists to help fulfill this purpose.

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Please consider sharing a gift today by going online to www.comreason.org slash donate and making a gift. That's www.comreason.org slash donate to make a gift today. Thank you and may God bless you as your gift blesses others. Now back to the show. The exchange of this blessing, interestingly though, Paul seems to locate within personal, immediate interaction.

In other words, you've got to be there. I understand there are points in time where we can't be here always, where we have to watch online. Christendom writ large has adopted online services so frequently that most people don't see any difference between watching online and being in fellowship with other believers. Now, you know here that we put a big emphasis on interpersonal engagement.

I mean, we have lunch together and all of these things. We love that idea. So it's important to be here, because that seems to be where that exchange of blessings truly occurs. So there are blessings that Paul notes in Romans. There's also obligations.

There's an obligation to the gospel. Oh, I want to receive the gospel to be saved. Are you ready to fulfill the obligations that come from it?

How are we obligated? Well, first of all, we're obligated in the way that we fit into the body of Christ. Paul's obligation is met in his preaching of the gospel, right? Specifically in his mission to the Gentiles. Again, we said, he says in 11, Now I'm speaking to you insofar as I am an apostle to the Gentiles.

I magnify my own ministry. I'm sorry, this is Romans 11. We haven't gotten here yet. This is Romans chapter 11. He makes it clear to them that this is his calling and this is his mission. This is his obligation. That now I am speaking to you Gentiles insofar as I am an apostle to the Gentiles.

I magnify my ministry if I might somehow make my own people jealous and save some of them. In verse 14, he says, I'm obligated to both Greeks and barbarians, both the wise and the foolish. So I'm eager to preach the gospel to you who are also in Rome.

So who are we obligated to? We're obligated to the civilized people, the Greeks. And this is a, this is a, the Greeks and the barbarians.

This was an idea that started in ancient Greece. And the thought process was, there's us who are civilized. We have democracy. We have pillars. We have Plato and Aristotle and all of these great thinkers.

And then there's the uncivilized, the barbarous hordes who live out of like tents and have dirt on their faces. There's an us and there's a them. It's a very Greek way of talking.

So to say the wise and the unwise, or to say the Greeks and the barbarians, to a Greek, that would be the exact same thing. And sometimes we unfortunately pick that up. You know, there's the saved and the unsaved. Well, that's true.

I mean, those distinctions do exist. But what does that tell us? That doesn't necessarily tell us that one is better than the other, right?

The old adage is, I'm just one baker showing another baker where to find bread. It's more appropriate. And what Paul says, we are obligated, first of all, to share the gospel, because that's what all of us... but we're also obligated to take those spiritual gifts that he just talked to us about, whatever they may be, and apply them for the betterment of the body.

Why? Because if you love God, if your love is ordered to love God first, and he gives you a gift to use, then you should be using it the way God would have you use it. And you put that love in an ordered way. Do you see how this all starts to connect now?

You see why I called it the gospel of ordered loves. Because our obligation is that if we love God and we are thankful to him for what he gave us, then we must turn around and love others in that order or their salvation. Timothy Keller, who wrote on this chapter, had a great analogy.

He offered this great illustration. Let's see if we can pull it up here. Keller says, quote, it's illustrative. to think about how I can be in debt to you.

First, you have lent me $100. Now I'm in debt to you until I pay it back. But second, someone else may have given me $100 to pass on to you. Now I'm in debt to you until I pass it on. It's in this second sense that Paul is obligated, in verse 14, to everyone everywhere.

God has shared the gospel with him. But God has also commissioned him to declare it to others. So Paul owes people the gospel. Has God given you blessing, material blessing, spiritual blessing, proper insight, wisdom in family, counseling wisdom in other circumstances? If those are the gifts God has given you, then you have an obligation to pass them along.

Because you want your love to be properly ordered. Now, these Roman Christians were saved, weren't they? I mean, he's thanking God for every one of them. He says that, you know, that their salvation has gone out through all the world. So why does he want to still come and impart the gospel to them?

Because the gospel isn't the message of fire insurance. The step of salvation... is something different. So what is the scope of gospel love?

And this is verses 16 and 17. He writes, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. Okay.

The gospel is, first and foremost, the power of God. It provides salvation. It reconciles us from our dead nature to a holy God.

So what do we mean when we understand the word salvation? What does salvation mean? What are we saved from?

That should be the first question, right? Well, damnation. That's the easy one.

That seems to be what everybody, at least within Christendom, understands. We're saved from, though, depression. We don't have to live a life dreading the next day or drudgery.

What an incredible adventure it is to find your spiritual gifts and put them into sacred service. Meaningless living. We've just seen that God gives you gifts and dedicates you for a purpose. So if you have that purpose within you, then you should never feel that there's nothing in life.

that is meaningful for you, because you serve the Heavenly Father. You are on a mission directly from the King. Hopelessness.

Over and over again you hear the hope of Christ. What is that hope? Well, one of those hopes is that this present world, that always seems to lapse toward evil, will be vanquished.

That evil will be overcome and never again to be... ...un. experienced, suffered, pushed into.

We are saved from sin's power in our lives, and we're saved from the tactics, attacks, and the lies of the enemy. All of these aspects of salvation is what we will be exploring through the rest of the book of Romans. So you see, salvation does have the concept of, I'm already put in a different position relationally with God than I was prior to receiving Christ.

But it also has an aspect of, I've just started on my journey and I'm nowhere near completion. The phrase already and not yet. Get ready to hear that a lot because you'll hear that in Romans. Salvation has an already and not yet aspect to it, and that'll become more apparent as we work through Romans. There are several passages where we deal with these issues.

One of our commentators, Tony Merida, said, quote, the gospel is not simply about the power of God, although it is that, but it contains the power of God in the sense that God actualizes his saving work through it. This is why Paul wants to talk to the Romans and give them the gospel, to actualize it, to... Live it out.

This is how, if you believe the gospel, you won't just say it's head knowledge. It will affect how you order your loves, how you live your lives. And you do that, by the way, to both the Jew and the Gentile. Yes, maybe the Jewish people are coming back in and trying to say, oh, you guys got it all wrong. since we were away.

We're going to set you back and show you how to keep the Sabbath or only eat kosher things or things like that. I don't know that that was what was going on in Rome. That was definitely what was going on in Galatia.

And that's what the whole letter of Galatians is all about. But Craig Keener notes that the Greeks, both Jew and Greek, the Greeks were the most anti-Jewish people that you could find. Ancient Greeks, again, there was an arrogance to the Greeks.

Anybody watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Remember the scene where the father says, we were doing philosophy while you guys were still swinging from the trees? It's that kind of, that was a real thought process back in those days.

And so what Paul seems to be saying is, from the Jew to the Greek, these are the two extremes that the popular culture thinks about from the intellectual college professor to the, you know, garbage man on the street. So that means everybody in between qualifies. So that's when he says both Jew and Greek, that's what he's talking about, for everyone who believes.

And then, for it in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Now, what is this righteousness of God then? Well, there's an ethical idea behind it, that that's a moral uprightness, right?

Living a righteous life. We see this reflected in Psalm 18. The Lord reward me according to my righteousness. He repaid me according to the cleanness of my hands. This idea that I did good. I didn't sin.

I personally kept myself righteous and not lapsing toward evil. But... beyond the ethical idea, this idea of righteousness of God is also a properly ordered way of living, a rightness about things. You work as designed, okay?

So there's a rightness in using, say, a screwdriver as opposed to a butter knife to tighten that screw on the drawer in the kitchen. The butter knife could do it, but it's not the right thing to use. You'll eventually damage the screw and damage the butter knife.

Right? We're going to talk about that next Sunday when we get into homosexuality and things of that nature. There's a rightness about things, using them as designed.

We are designed as people to worship God, to know God, worship him, and enjoy him fully. And Isaiah over and over uses this idea of righteousness of God to underscore it. So, 46, 12, and 13 is one example.

Listen to me, you hard-hearted, far removed from my righteousness. I am bringing my righteousness near. It is not far away, and my salvation will not delay. I will put salvation in Zion, my splendor in Israel.

So this is what we see in terms of righteousness, a proper alignment with God. In fact, you could outline the entire book of Romans with a concept of righteousness. So let's go through this. Outline of Romans is this.

Number, from verse 1 to 320, we see that no one is righteous under God. This is what Paul's talking about. In chapters 3 through 5, we see that by faith in Christ, one is declared righteous.

In chapters 6 through 8, we see that Christians are now considered slaves to righteousness. In chapters 9 through 11, we read of Paul's defense of God's righteousness. Chapters 12 through 15, we then see what a righteous life looks like in the church and in the world. And again, he emphasizes that this is not a single immediate change, but an ongoing process.

Because he says, from faith to faith, right? The righteousness of God from faith to faith is developing. Now, he points to that famous passage in Habakkuk, the just shall live by faith.

that we are only justified by faith. Again, we're going to get into that in the upcoming chapters, but realize chapters 2, 3, and 4, justification by faith is central to the gospel message. It's something that the Catholic Church missed. It's why Luther was so passionate in his 95 Theses, and it powered the Protestant Revolution.

And again, from weaker to the stronger, it's the idea that you have these progressives. states of faith. In all of this, we need to learn how to live the gospel. That's what we're going to do.

In commenting on this passage, Craig Keener notes, quote, biblical saving faith was not passive assent, but actively staking one's life on the claims of God. It was a certainty sufficient to accept one's lifestyle. Paul apparently applies this text to those who trust in Christ and so are saved from final judgment.

So Keener says Paul, because he received the gospel, recognizes his obligation to share the good news in others. He understands that this was an ongoing project, and he wishes to go to Rome to share with the Roman Christians there that ongoing project, to bless them and have them, in turn, strengthen and bless him. He had an obligation.

God gave him an obligation with this gospel. But his obligation is also his passion, and that seems to be how God works. Serving God with his whole spirit by telling the good news.

He lived for that, and he enjoyed it. And when you find yourself rightly ordered in your loves, the thing that God has called you to do, you will love. You will engage. It won't necessarily be easy.

And it won't necessarily be painless. Don't confuse those ideas. But it will be something that you can embrace with your whole spirit, with the bottom of your heart. He had a heart for Christians, even those he hadn't met yet, and he wanted to impart these mutual gifts of fellowship and receiving the same from them. Our commentator, Tony Morita, ends with this question.

So, this is the first passion we see that drove this servant at communion with God. Does it drive you? Do you have a vibrant prayer life filled with thanksgiving, intercession, and submission to God's will? Do you have an ordered love, placing God above all, loving those in the church, and even those who seem unlovable? Are you ready to exercise the righteousness of God in your life as Paul did as well?

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much that you are a God who provides the answers for us, gives us the owner's manual, not only... creates us, builds us, but tells us how we should function in a way that will glorify you, as well as benefit us and put us on the grandest adventure that we can imagine. May we take these messages to heart. May we seek out and understand what your calling is for each one of us.

And may we engage it fully as we seek to honor you through your son, Jesus. We ask it in his name. Amen. You've been listening to Come Let Us Reason together with teacher and apologist Lenny Esposito.

Come Let Us Reason is dedicated to defending the claims of historic Christianity, one with answers for every person. Today's program is part of a larger message, which is available on audio. You may order a copy by logging on to our website at www.comereason.org. There you will also find hundreds of articles and resources to help you better defend your faith.

Or you may call us at 1-866-95-REASON. That's 1-866-95-REASON. Thank you for listening and until next time, God bless.

Transcript for:Understanding Ordo Amoris in Theology

Transcript for:
Understanding Ordo Amoris in Theology