Equal...

Read Romans 3:1-20

When we consider society, any society, at it's core people want to know and believe there is equal opportunity that all people are created and valued equally.  Yet there's often this question among let's just call them groups of people where there's this competition.  Who's better?  It happens in sports, in the arts when you think of the Grammy's and Emmy's and it happens among people of different backgrounds - gender, age, interests - you name it there's this question about who is better.

And it's this question that comes when we read Romans 3.  Where Paul is writing to the Jewish people and asking them if there's any advantage to being Jewish.  And while his initial answer seems to indicate the Jews are better because he answers saying "yes" to the question is there any advantage, we soon find out all are equal in the eyes of God; no difference between the Jew or the Gentile.  And here's why.

Paul tells these Jewish believers in Rome that they have this advantage because they have the word of God and He came to them with His word.  However, they are asked another question in v. 9 - Are we any better?  Paul emphatically answers Not at all!  Instead he says ALL are guilty of sin.

His whole point is no one is right before God based on his or her own merit.  It's God who makes us right with Himself by sending and giving us Jesus and His sacrifice.  So on our own we all fall short of the glory of God - v. 23.  But in Christ by faith and believing in who Jesus is and what He did for us - because no matter our background at the foot of the cross we are all equal and can be justified by faith.