Sermons on Romans 1:32

Romans 1:32 Interpretation:

"Sermon title: Understanding Divine Justice and the Penalty of Sin"(Beulah Baptist Church) reads Romans 1:32 as a vivid demonstration of human obstinacy before God—people “know” God’s righteous decree (that those acts “deserve death”) yet persist and even approve others’ sin—and the preacher uses that observation to frame the whole sermon’s claim that penalty is both necessary and deserved, pressing the verse into an extended meditation on God’s vindicative justice (not vindictive), the difference between natural and personal aspects of penalty, and the moral fact that knowledge of God and of guilt does not guarantee repentance; no appeal to original-language nuances is made, but the sermon ties the verse into an extended pastoral-theological argument about conscience, natural consequences, and the distinct role of divine wrath versus chastening.

"Sermon title: Responding to Moral Chaos with Hope and Love"(Alistair Begg) interprets Romans 1:32 as Paul’s climactic indictment of a society that not only practices grave immorality but institutionalizes and propagates it—Begg emphasizes the communal and legislative danger of people “giving approval” (i.e., recruiting others and normalizing the behavior), reading verse 32 as evidence that moral knowledge and conscience are present yet willfully suppressed, and framing the church’s response not primarily as condemnation but as confession of its own sinfulness and bold proclamation of the gospel; Begg’s treatment is pastoral and sociological rather than lexical, offering metaphors (pear-stealing, recruitment) to show the compounding social logic of approval.

"Sermon title: Staying Anchored in Truth Amid Cultural Confusion"(Oakwood Church) takes Romans 1:32 as a snapshot of our cultural moment—“they know the right thing but give hearty approval to doing that which is evil”—and focuses the interpretation on the ethical significance of approval (silence or tacit consent) so that the sermon’s chief interpretive move is to translate Paul’s indictment into a pastoral challenge: inaction or failure to speak truth in love functions as approval and helps normalize sin; the sermon’s angle is therefore ecclesiological and missional rather than philological.

"Sermon title: True Freedom: Beyond Environment and Natural Influences"(Desiring God) uses Romans 1:32 as a crucial data point in an argument about natural revelation and moral knowledge: John Piper reads Paul to mean that even apart from Scripture “they know God” and “they know” God’s righteous decree, which supports the contention that moral knowledge is written on the heart and that people suppress it—he therefore interprets v.32 not merely as ethical rebuke but as philosophical proof that behaviorist naturalism fails to account for moral culpability; the sermon treats the verse as evidence for the theological claim that true freedom (faith-enabled choice) is supernatural, not strictly a matter of environment.

"Sermon title: Hope and Redemption Amidst Cultural Rebellion"(Desiring God) interprets Romans 1:32 with sombre clarity: public celebrations of sinful practices (e.g., Pride) are described as not merely self-harm but communal recruiting to death—Paul’s phrase “they not only do them but approve of those who practice them” is read as the moral horror of turning shame into glory, and the sermon pairs that indictment with pastoral hope (call to prayer and witness) rather than mere cultural condemnation; Piper frames the verse as both judicial pronouncement and impetus for prayerful evangelism rather than mere moralizing.

Romans 1:32 Theological Themes:

"Sermon title: Understanding Divine Justice and the Penalty of Sin"(Beulah Baptist Church) develops the distinct theological theme that divine penalty primarily vindicates God’s character (vindicative, not vindictive) and that Romans 1:32 exposes human rebellion that makes such vindication necessary; the sermon pushes a careful distinction between chastisement (motivated by love) and penalty (motivated by justice) and uses the verse to argue that willing approval of sin places people under the lawgiver’s personal wrath rather than remedial chastening.

"Sermon title: Responding to Moral Chaos with Hope and Love"(Alistair Begg) brings out a practical-theological theme that Paul’s indictment implies an obligation of proclamation rather than mere cultural condemnation—because people “give approval” and recruit others, the church’s appropriate response (rooted in the theological conviction of God’s mercy) is not only moral outrage but humble confession and evangelistic proclamation that the goodness and loving-kindness of God can save even those who participate in approved evils.

"Sermon title: Staying Anchored in Truth Amid Cultural Confusion"(Oakwood Church) highlights the theological theme that silence or inaction in the face of cultural sin functions as moral approval—consequently, church members who fail to speak truth in love share responsibility for cultural normalization of sin; the sermon links v.32’s observation to a doctrine of witness, arguing that ethical assent (implicit or explicit) matters theologically because it shapes communal norms.

"Sermon title: True Freedom: Beyond Environment and Natural Influences"(Desiring God) extracts a theological theme from Romans 1:32 that moral knowledge and culpability are part of natural revelation—thus v.32 supports a Christ-centered definition of human freedom (freedom as capacity to be swayed by truth) and undergirds the claim that only supernatural regeneration creates true moral freedom; this is a theological rebuttal to naturalistic behaviorism grounded on Paul’s claim that people “know” God’s decree yet suppress it.

"Sermon title: Hope and Redemption Amidst Cultural Rebellion"(Desiring God) emphasizes a theological theme that public celebration of sin is simultaneously a revealing of human brokenness and an occasion for hopeful prayer—v.32 shows both judgment and the possibility that God may intervene with revival, so the church’s theological posture should combine sober mourning over cultural celebration with persistent intercession and evangelistic hope.

Romans 1:32 Historical and Contextual Insights:

"Sermon title: Responding to Moral Chaos with Hope and Love"(Alistair Begg) situates Romans 1:32 within first-century Roman cultural norms by pointing out how parental duty (pietas) and other social obligations were foundational in Roman society and that Paul’s list indicts a civic culture in which those norms are collapsing; Begg uses that background to argue that Paul is not cataloguing exotic sins but diagnosing an already-disordered society where the erosion of duty and filial piety signals a broader moral decay, thereby helping listeners see Paul’s list as a sociological, not merely theological, critique.

"Sermon title: Hope and Redemption Amidst Cultural Rebellion"(Desiring God) places Romans 1:32 in the sweep of biblical history by noting that Paul is reporting patterns already present in his day (echoing Hosea’s Israel and pagan inversion) and therefore treats Paul’s description as historical reportage of pagan societies turning “glory into shame”; that historical framing underscores that the inversion Paul condemns is not a future anomaly but an ancient recurring pattern in which creaturely worship displaces Creator-worship, making Paul’s indictment both historically situated and timelessly diagnostic.

"Sermon title: True Freedom: Beyond Environment and Natural Influences"(Desiring God) explicitly reads Romans 1 (including v.32) as Paul’s claim that natural revelation gives moral knowledge to all people (“what can be known about God is plain”), and presents this as a culturally and historically rooted argument: Paul’s appeal to nature and conscience in Romans is treated as an ancient apologetic move that addresses both Greco-Roman intellectuals and our modern behaviorist claims, thereby placing Paul’s moral indictment into first-century polemical and apologetic context.

Romans 1:32 Cross-References in the Bible:

"Sermon title: Understanding Divine Justice and the Penalty of Sin"(Beulah Baptist Church) ties Romans 1:32 to a broad set of Old and New Testament passages—Psalm 9:16 (the Lord known by His executed judgment) and Ezekiel 36:16–19, 20–23 (Israel defiles the land and is judged “according to their ways,” with God vindicating His holy name) are used to support the sermon’s claim that punishment is just and vindicative; Proverbs 5:22 and Psalm 9:16 are appealed to for the “self-detecting” nature of sin, Hebrews 12:5–6 and Psalm 89 are used to distinguish chastisement from penalty, and Matthew 10:28 and Matthew 25:41 are cited later to explain physical, spiritual, and eternal death—each passage is mobilized to show that Romans’ claim about knowing God’s decree fits a wider biblical teaching about conscience, divine justice, and the consequences of persistent rebellion.

"Sermon title: Responding to Moral Chaos with Hope and Love"(Alistair Begg) clusters Romans 1:32 with other Pauline and prophetic references—Paul’s own teaching in Romans 2:15 (the law written on hearts and conscience bearing witness) is used to explain how Gentiles “know” God’s righteous decrees; Begg also gestures to lists in 2 Timothy that parallel Paul’s catalog of vices, and to Titus (the ethical instruction to remember what we were) as the corrective pastoral method—these cross-references support Begg’s point that knowledge-of-God plus conscience does not force repentance and that pastoral proclamation (not mere moralizing) is the remedy.

"Sermon title: Staying Anchored in Truth Amid Cultural Confusion"(Oakwood Church) links Romans 1:32 to several New Testament texts to argue for a coherent Christian response: Colossians 2:8 is the sermon's starting text (warning against philosophy and empty deceit), Romans 1:21–23 is read directly to show the pattern of exchange of Creator for creature leading to v.32, Ephesians 5:31 and John 8:31–32 are appealed to for marriage, identity, and truth as antidotes, and the sermon uses these cross-references to frame pastoral practices—prayer, proclamation, and discipleship—as the church’s response to cultural approval of sin.

"Sermon title: True Freedom: Beyond Environment and Natural Influences"(Desiring God) situates Romans 1:32 within Paul’s larger argument in Romans 1:18–21 (natural revelation) and links it to 1 Corinthians 2:14 (the natural man’s inability to receive spiritual truth) to argue that Paul is claiming universal moral knowledge that is suppressed; these cross-references are used philosophically to challenge naturalistic behaviorism and to show that Paul treats conscience and natural revelation as sufficient for basic moral accountability.

"Sermon title: Hope and Redemption Amidst Cultural Rebellion"(Desiring God) groups Romans 1:32 with Hosea (the prophetic lament that glory is turned into shame) and with Philippians 3:18–19 (Paul’s catalogue of those who “walk as enemies of the cross”) and also refers to Paul’s assertions in Romans 1:21 and surrounding verses to maintain that Paul is diagnosing a social inversion; the sermon also mentions (textually) 1 Corinthians in connection with exclusion from the kingdom, using these cross-references to show continuity between prophetic indictment, Pauline diagnosis, and pastoral concern for those trapped in approved evils.

Romans 1:32 Christian References outside the Bible:

"Sermon title: Responding to Moral Chaos with Hope and Love"(Alistair Begg) explicitly cites non‑biblical Christian commentary when treating Romans 1:32, quoting Iain Murray’s summary that the morally debased “not only are they content in damning themselves but in congratulating others in doing these same things that they know result in damnation,” and uses Murray’s line as an authoritative pastoral amplification of Paul’s point: Murray’s commentary is used to sharpen the moral horror of communal approval and to reinforce Begg’s pastoral call to proclamation rather than mere cultural decrying.

"Sermon title: Staying Anchored in Truth Amid Cultural Confusion"(Oakwood Church) explicitly references contemporary Christian commentator Elisa Childers while discussing modern responses to cultural change and Romans 1:32’s implications; Childers’ list of commonly encountered progressive or relativizing statements (e.g., “The Bible is just a human book,” “The resurrection need not be factual,” “The church’s historic position on sexuality is archaic,” etc.) is recited to show how modern Christian-adjacent rhetoric functions to normalize deviations from biblical morality, and the sermon uses her catalog as an external Christian voice that diagnoses the precise kinds of theological drift that enable cultural approval described in Romans 1:32.

Romans 1:32 Illustrations from Secular Sources:

"Sermon title: Understanding Divine Justice and the Penalty of Sin"(Beulah Baptist Church) uses vivid secular and personal illustrations to elucidate the moral point behind Romans 1:32: the preacher tells of a British Christian woman arrested for silently praying outside an abortion clinic (later vindicated), Texas childhood dares of slapping cattle and suffering the natural consequences, and the true story of a man who became an alcoholic, lost his family, then in a drunken crash became disabled and spent long months in hospital—these stories are deployed to show both that people know consequences and yet persist (reflecting v.32’s hardness) and to illustrate the sermon’s larger thesis that sin brings observable, often tragic natural consequences even while moral knowledge may exist.

"Sermon title: Responding to Moral Chaos with Hope and Love"(Alistair Begg) threads multiple secular cultural examples through his exposition of Romans 1:32: he describes a heated Little League father who will “punch your nose” rather than accept correction as an example of social degeneracy; he invokes Paul Simon and Simon & Garfunkel’s recording of “Silent Night” and the 1960s’ promise of social revolution to show cultural inversion; he cites modern art scandals, rock-star vandalism (smashing guitars), and the 1960s’ drink-and-drug culture as signs that when people “quit acknowledging God” they create new, imaginative ways of normalizing depravity—these cultural vignettes serve to translate Paul’s ancient catalog into contemporary civic examples of approval and normalization.

"Sermon title: Staying Anchored in Truth Amid Cultural Confusion"(Oakwood Church) supplies contemporary secular illustrations that tie directly to Romans 1:32’s diagnosis: the sermon cites the resurgence of astrology among young people and Etsy’s marketplace for paid “seers” as examples of people seeking spiritual counsel outside God; it gives the striking statistic that the hashtag #trans had 50.2 billion clicks (as of Jan 2025) to show cultural normalization, recounts the Grok 4 (Elon Musk’s AI) interaction where AI—when asked under scientific parameters—concludes intelligent design is the best explanation and then defaults back to evolutionary consensus, and references films (Possum Trot) and large-scale foster/adoption movements (David Platt’s example) as examples of both the cultural problem and a possible church response—each secular example is used to show how approval and normalization function or to model practical Christian alternatives.

"Sermon title: True Freedom: Beyond Environment and Natural Influences"(Desiring God) anchors its theological use of Romans 1:32 in secular intellectual history by engaging behaviorist psychology: the sermon centers BF Skinner’s radical behaviorism (the claim we are products of environment and reinforcement) as the secular rival explanation for moral action and shows Paul’s v.32 (people knowing God’s decree yet suppressing it) as evidence that humans possess moral knowledge beyond mere environmental conditioning; Skinner and the behaviorist framework are therefore used as a foil to demonstrate that Paul’s anthropology and the need for supernatural regeneration better account for moral culpability than strict naturalism.

"Sermon title: Hope and Redemption Amidst Cultural Rebellion"(Desiring God) uses contemporary public events and cultural phenomena as concrete illustrations for Romans 1:32: the sermon centers National Coming Out Day and modern Pride celebrations as instances where communal approval publicly honors behaviors Paul says “deserve death,” calling these days “catastrophic” culturally because they normalize what Scripture condemns; Piper also points to the very real pastoral stories of people converted from that life (e.g., Rosearia Butterfield’s experience referenced indirectly) and frames public celebration as communal recruitment—both the secular holiday (Coming Out Day) and the social movement of Pride are treated as direct modern analogues to Paul’s description of societal approval.