The passions of our flesh are personal
Paul had to struggle with legalism. Others struggle with Fifty Shades of Grey. Between these extremes of morality are fifty other shades of passion, many of which are entirely asexual. No matter their manner they are still shades of darkness. Life there is really death there; bad motivations corrupt good actions.
No one is exempt from ungodly passion
We know from other places that Paul considered himself the chief of sinners. I bet you don’t consider yourself that way; I don’t. Sometimes I wonder whether Paul was being overly introspective in taking this view of himself. Whether he was or not is beside the point. The key thing to take from what Paul was saying in these verses of chapter 2 is that every person has a bad background. No one is exempt from being born into Satan’s kingdom, born fallen. At the beginning1 every person is dead in trespasses and sins. We all like sheep have gone astray; some go astray to bad things, and others go astray to good things. All, though, are on the world’s course.
God finds strays
Satan may go back and forth on the earth seeking those whom he may devour. God, though, goes back and forth seeking the lost. “When I am lifted up I will draw all men to me,” said Jesus before his crucifixion. That was God the Father’s intention. He found Paul; he found Stephen and Mary Magdalene. What about Zaccheus? Or, the centurion who felt the earthquake when Jesus died exclaiming, “Surely he was the Son of God.” The list could be drawn on and on all the way down to your life and mine. Consider Lee Strobel or Josh McDowell. If you want to go political think of Richard Nixon’s hatchet man Charles Colson. What about those from Donald Trump’s retinue who are prison bound? Will some of them find God behind bars in a similar manner? I don’t know; God does.
The thoughtful person can look about them and make their own list of unlikely candidates for God’s kingdom. They are there, though they do not start there. Even “good ones” follow disobedient paths.
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