How can Christians thrive (not just survive) as a counter-cultural community—as a culture that models what a true God-centered human community looks like (1 Peter 2:9)—within a society that has mastered the skill of marketing lightweight identities as heavyweight identities? Our society daily pressures us to locate our identity (and, therefore, our significance and meaning) in anything from our status within the culture’s current power structures to our physical appearance as it compares to the young and beautiful people that fill our culture’s magazines. When Christians buy into these marketed identities we cease to be a counter-cultural presence within our society. In other words, Christians who value good things (e.g. being a successful businessman) as ultimate things (e.g. “I’m a nobody unless I’m a successful businessman”) (see Romans 1:23-25) are not functioning as “a royal priesthood” or “a holy (i.e. distinct) nation” within secular culture (1 Peter 1:9-10). So I ask again, how can Christians thrive as a counter-cultural community that values good things as good things and ultimate things as ultimate things within a secular society that finds its significance and meaning in life in lightweight identities that are marketed as heavyweight identities?

The culture of Paul’s day, the culture of the Roman Empire, valued many of the same things our culture values. Rome was all about power. If you think about it, power was what was behind the Roman cross. Crucifixions were the way Rome graphically demonstrated power in the protection of its power and status as a world-dominating empire. Power and status were huge in the authority structure of Roman society from top to bottom. They represented everything that made Rome great. And at the very top of Rome’s authority structure was the man with all the power, Caesar. Therefore, it’s not difficult to imagine the trickle down effect that this had upon the various cultures spread out over the entire Empire. If you were to be considered a “somebody” within the Roman world, you had to possess a certain level of power and status or at least be meaningfully connected with those who did. If you wanted a life with meaning and significance, so the Roman culture said, you had to pursue what the culture pursued, namely, power and status.

I believe this brief historical snapshot of life in the Roman world helps us see more of the impact Paul’s words in Romans 1:15-16 had on the Roman believers who found themselves at the very bottom of the power and status food chain.

“I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…”

Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of the God who has marked out his Son as the true Lord of the earth by raising him from the dead (Romans 1:4). Caesar is not the center of power. He is not the world’s true Lord. No, God’s gospel, which Paul is eager to proclaim in Rome, announces that Israel’s despised Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, whom God raised from the realm of the dead, is the world’s rightful Lord. He is the locus of world-renewing, significance-providing, identity-creating power. What I find beautiful here is that it is clear that Paul finds his identity not in what Roman society markets but in God and his powerful Gospel. The only way we as Christians can thrive as a counter-cultural community within a society that, with great skill, markets lightweight identities as heavyweight identities is if we are firmly grounded in God and his gospel. Only the gospel provides an identity with weight, an identity that can withstand the stresses of being a Christian within a secular culture that values good things as ultimate things.

It is the gospel of Romans 1:15-16 that filled Paul with “good courage” and prevented him from losing heart (2 Corinthians 4:16). So what was it about the gospel in particular that infused Paul with hope when he was despairing of life itself? 2 Corinthians 4-5 answers this question for us. Stay tuned for post three.

(Part One)