{"id":1184,"date":"2009-09-07T19:07:59","date_gmt":"2009-09-08T01:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1184"},"modified":"2009-09-07T19:07:59","modified_gmt":"2009-09-08T01:07:59","slug":"romans-24-gods-goodness-not-ours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/romans-24-gods-goodness-not-ours\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 2:4 – God’s Goodness, Not Ours"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Romans 2:4<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Our salvation is a result of God\u2019s goodness, not ours.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The word translated \u201cdespise<\/span>\u201d is kataphrone\u014d<\/span><\/em>, which is made up of kata<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cagainst\u201d or denoting evil and phrone\u014d<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto think.\u201d Hence, kataphrone\u014d<\/span><\/em> means \u201cto think evil of.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>\u201cRiches<\/span>\u201d is translated from ploutos<\/span><\/em>, based on a root meaning \u201cfullness.\u201d It refers to the fullness of possessions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The word \u201cgoodness<\/span>\u201d is from kr\u0113stot\u0113s<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cmoral excellence or goodness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cForbearance<\/span>\u201d is from anoch\u0113s<\/span><\/em>, which is based on the word anech\u014d<\/span><\/em>, made up of ana<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cup\u201d and ech\u014d<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto have or hold.\u201d Anoch\u0113s<\/span><\/em> means \u201cforbearance, self-restraint, or patience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The word \u201clongsuffering<\/span>\u201d is from macrothumia<\/span><\/em>, which is composed of macros<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201clong\u201d and thumos<\/span><\/em>, which refers to \u201canger, fierceness or wrath.\u201d This word refers to God\u2019s ability to hold back His fierce wrath for a long time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRepentance<\/span>\u201d is translated from a form of metanoe\u014d<\/span><\/em>, made up of meta<\/span><\/em> indicating \u201ca change of place or condition\u201d and noe\u014d<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto think or comprehend.\u201d Hence we see that this word refers to a change in the way we think about something.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, putting this all together we find that Paul is asking, \u201cDo you think evil of the great value of God\u2019s moral excellence, His self-restraint, and His holding back His wrath, ignoring the fact that God\u2019s moral excellence is what leads you to repentance?<\/em>\u201d What Paul is saying is, \u201cGod is very patient and suffers the pain of our sin against Him. And because He is so good, instead of squashing us like ants, He actually takes us by the hand and leads us to an attitude of repentance!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The picture is like that of a loving father who, when his son or daughter has done something wrong, takes the time and effort to lovingly explain the effect of their wrongful action so that they realize they have done wrong and tell their father they\u2019re sorry, asking for forgiveness. The real beauty of this is the fact that without God\u2019s longsuffering and patience and His loving, leading way, we would not repent. For, as Paul says, \u201cthe goodness of God leads you to repentance.<\/span>\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Our sin nature is ever present and it is powerful. Without the greater power of God through His goodness and without His willingness to hold back His righteous anger against our sins, we would not repent of our sinfulness. And without this repentance we would not be saved from our sins. <\/span><\/p>\n

Praise be to God for His goodness!<\/span><\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

If this doesn\u2019t cause you to fall to your knees with a prayer of thankfulness to God for His goodness, then you underestimate the effect of your sinfulness in the presence of a holy God. God must judge sin, but He loves you as His precious child.<\/span><\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2009 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 2:4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? Truth to Learn Our salvation is a result of God\u2019s goodness, not ours. Behind the Words The word translated \u201cdespise\u201d is kataphrone\u014d, which is made up of kata, meaning \u201cagainst\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[490,217,94,491],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-forbearance","tag-goodness","tag-longsuffering","tag-repentance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-j6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}