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Keeping the law inwardly, parts 1 and 2

Lynne Baab • Tuesday March 10 2026

Keeping the law inwardly, parts 1 and 2

Overall theme for the next few months: God’s law is love

Lesson 5: Keeping the law inwardly (Romans 2:12-29)

Key verse: Real circumcision is a matter of the heart — it is spiritual and not literal. Romans 2:29

1. Stepping into the Word

Sometimes we talk about obeying the letter of the law but not its spirit. Sarah can remember coming home as a teenager before her curfew in order to obey the letter of her parents’ law, but after they were asleep she snuck out again. They had never told her not to go back out after coming home! She had come home at the right time, so she was obeying what they said to do!

Some employees are required to be at the desks a certain number of hours per day, and they obey that requirement, while spending many of those hours surfing the internet and looking at social media. They are obeying the letter of the law while failing to meet their employers’ priority of productive work while at their desk.

Both Jesus and the apostle Paul uphold the idea that God has values and a mission that God wants us to embrace, but both Jesus and Paul upend the notion that God cares about obedience to the letter of the law. These great teachers link our actions with our heart. Jesus says to the Jewish leaders, “The tree is known by its fruit . . . . Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:33-34). Jesus goes on to talk about the “good treasure” inside a person that manifests itself in their actions (v. 35).

Throughout Paul’s letter to the Romans, he builds an argument that we all need God’s grace to change our hearts so that we can embrace God’s values. We can’t force our hearts to change. We can only open ourselves to the work of God’s Spirit in our inner being so that God can mold us. We receive God’s love and grace. We offer to God our willingness to let our hearts be changed.

God of grace, thank you that the Holy Spirit is at work inside us, transforming us into people who know you, love you, and long to follow you. Give us willing hearts to allow you shape us and use us in the world to show your love.

2. God’s law and human hearts

Paul begins his letter to the Romans with greetings, an introduction, and a statement about the power of the Gospel. In Romans 1:18, Paul begins a complex theological argument about the nature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His argument extends throughout most of the book of Romans. The first building block of his argument, found in the second half of the first chapter, is a critique of the behavior of the Gentiles. The second chapter opens with several verses about how foolish it is to judge others. After all, Paul argues, most of us are doing the same things that we criticize in others. In the middle of Romans 2, Paul focuses his argument on the shortcomings of the Jews. By the time he gets further into his argument, he will make his central point about why God’s grace is so essential: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

         “Doers of the law” are the ones who will be justified, not those who merely hear it or know it (Romans 2:13).Paul makes an intriguing point when he says that in some instances the law is written on the heart of Gentiles so that they are able to obey God’s law (v. 14 and 15). Here Paul is breaking down ethnic barriers as he does in Galatians 3:28, where he says that in Christ “there is no longer Jew or Greek.” While faith and works are often played off against each other, in these verses in Romans 2, Paul indicates that good works do indeed have value, that there will be “glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good” (v. 10). Good deeds, Paul seems to be saying, are an expression of faith, a connection articulated in James 2:14-26).

In Romans 2:17-24, Paul forcefully argues that even those Jews who know God’s law intimately are not able to fully obey it. Some Jews view themselves as good teachers and parents, but they are not obedient to the very laws they teach (v. 19-21). Paul names stealing, adultery, and idolatry as actions forbidden by the law but commonly practiced by Jews who view themselves as faithful (v. 21-23).

The people of Israel viewed circumcision as the definitive marker of Judaism, yet Paul argues that true circumcision involves the heart (Romans 2:28-29). For the Jews of the first century, Paul’s emphasis on internalizing the law would have seemed strange and confusing. For so many centuries they had emphasized actions. The New Testament teaches that Jesus makes it possible for the Holy Spirit to write God’s law on our hearts.

Why do you think Paul places so much emphasis on the heart?

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Next week: Keeping the law inwardly, parts 3 and 4. Illustration by Dave Baab: Rockaway Beach, California.

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This lesson appeared in the Fall 2023 edition of The Present Word adult Bible study curriculum published by the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Used with permission.



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