Romans 1:26-32 - Daily Devotion - 6 June 2026 St Barnabas Anglican Church Fairfield & Bossley Park 26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents. 31 They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless. REFLECTIONSWritten by Stephen Shead This is such a sensitive passage that I think it needs a few more words than normal. We need to handle it with clarity, compassion, and confession. Clarity goes in two directions. The Bible is crystal clear on sex and relationships: God designed sexual intimacy exclusively for the context of a life-long, binding, faithful marriage between a man and a woman. Any other sexual relationships are sin – including the “unnatural” same-sex relations that Paul describes in verses 26-28. But the Bible is also crystal clear that all sin leaves us equally condemned before God’s judgment throne. God’s wrath is revealed against “all the godlessness and wickedness of men” (v 18). Paul highlights same-sex sinful relationships as an illustration of the way that sin corrupts and distorts God’s good design for his creation – it is an obvious corruption of what is “natural.” But he immediately goes on to describe every kind of wickedness in the same way – as God giving people up “to a depraved mind,” so that they wilfully disobey God and approve of evil (v 28-32). Paul lumps it all together – from same-sex relations, murder and God-hating, to greed, jealousy, gossiping, boasting, and disobeying parents. Homosexual sin is not a special category of sin, because the heart of sin is what Paul described earlier: failing to glorify God or give him thanks, and exchanging the worship of God for worshiping created things (v 21-23). All sin is an outflowing of that, and makes us equally “worthy of death” (v 32). That leads to: compassion. If you know unbelievers who are actively gay, you should think of them with exactly the same compassion as you think of your unbelieving friends who are argumentative or gossips or hold grudges. We should be horrified at the sin – all of it equally! – and we should eagerly reach out to them in compassion and love with the message that Jesus brings forgiveness and fullness of life. And with our Christian brothers and sisters who struggle with same-sex attraction, we should view them with exactly the same compassion and grace as we view our brothers and sisters who struggle with anger, jealousy, or pride. In fact, we should view them exactly as we view ourselves – because we are exactly like them! That’s Paul’s whole point: sin is equally corrupting and contemptible, no matter what the particular sin is. That means when we read this passage, it should move us, not to condemnation of others, but to personal confession. If you read this and mentally point your finger at those terrible people out there (is that what you did?), you’ve missed Paul’s point entirely. Each of us should read it with contrite hearts, reflecting on the depravity and evil of our own sinful tendencies and desires. (If you’re not convinced yet, the kicker is the very next sentence, which we’ll read tomorrow: “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on another!”, Romans 2:1.) Today’s passage is pretty heavy – but you should also know that this is part of Paul’s long lead-up to the best news of all: that anyguilty sinner can receive God’s righteousness through the death of Jesus on the cross. So as you finish today, bring your own sinful tendencies and desires to God, and ask him by his Spirit to help you see that they are depraved corruptions of his glory and beauty. But also, through Jesus, ask God to help you live by glorifying him and giving him thanks (v 21). ABOUT THE AUTHORStephen is our Senior Minister.
