Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 27 and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper. 29 They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips 30 and scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents. 31 They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
The Gentiles were committing sins against Commandments four through ten (Ex. 20:12-17; Deut. 5:6-21). They did not accept God’s grace and chose to follow their sinful desires and worship creatures instead of the Creator (Rom. 1:23), embracing idolatry and all kinds of immorality. “God handed them over” to impurity, the perverse desires of their hearts (v. 24), disordered passions or unnatural vice (v. 26), and minds incapable of discerning what is good and proper in His eyes (vv. 28-32). Man’s natural functions were exchanged for perverted ones. Their immoral conduct and sexual perversion were an abomination in God’s eyes (Lev. 18:22-23; Lev. 20:13). The vices in verses 26 and 27 were the punishment God allowed for their sins.
They abandoned God and the goodness of God’s creation (Gen 1:27-28, 31). They rejected the first Commandment which is the foundation of all the other Commandments. Love of God is the cornerstone of morality and living a God-centered life. Not only did the whole person become disordered, but the cumulative effect was that the whole community became degraded and could not distinguish between good and evil. Paul listed 21 miscellaneous sins many of which can be found in several of his other Letters. (v. 29-31). God allowed their mind and their conscience to be defiled (Titus 1:15). The Gentiles have the ability to discern right from wrong because it is written in their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15), but their disobedience, and their approval and encouragement of Godless and perverse ways will lead to their exclusion from the Kingdom of God (v. 32).
Almighty God, grant us the will to keep our hearts turned to you and the obedience to follow the moral law which we can discern with our conscience. This we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen!
Chiu, José Enrique Aguilar, et al. The Paulist Biblical Commentary. Paulist Press, 2018.
Brown, Raymond Edward, et al. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Upper Saddle River, NJ, United States, Prentice Hall, 1990.
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