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**Romans 1:16** — *"I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek."*
Paul wrote these words toward Rome — the empire's beating heart, where status and rhetoric determined worth. To arrive there carrying a crucified Messiah as your message was, by every cultural measure, embarrassing.
Yet Paul did not soften the gospel for polished ears. He called it *power* — the Greek *dynamis*, the same root we inherit in "dynamite." Not persuasion. Not philosophy. Raw, restructuring force.
The shame Paul refused was not personal pride. It was the temptation to present a tidier, less offensive version of grace — one that costs the listener nothing.
By grace, we are called to the same refusal.
Consider the gospel you actually carry into your Monday — and whether it still has its original weight.
Paul wrote these words toward Rome — the empire's beating heart, where status and rhetoric determined worth. To arrive there carrying a crucified Messiah as your message was, by every cultural measure, embarrassing.
Yet Paul did not soften the gospel for polished ears. He called it *power* — the Greek *dynamis*, the same root we inherit in "dynamite." Not persuasion. Not philosophy. Raw, restructuring force.
The shame Paul refused was not personal pride. It was the temptation to present a tidier, less offensive version of grace — one that costs the listener nothing.
By grace, we are called to the same refusal.
Consider the gospel you actually carry into your Monday — and whether it still has its original weight.