Reading for Tuesday, 4th Week of Lent

Romans 7:13-25

Several times in today’s reading, Paul speaks of the “flesh” under which he is enslaved. Over the years, a too literal reading of this has led people to conclude that Paul had some secret sexual sin that he had to struggle with, even after his conversion to the Way of Jesus Christ. It is crucial to understand that “flesh” in this context means more than the physical body. It also refers to all that which is weak and transitory about us. In some translations, it isn’t “flesh,” under which Paul is enslaved, but “unspiritual nature.”

So, when Paul writes, “I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin,” he doesn’t necessarily mean that with his physical body he serves the law of sin. What might he have meant? Before he was blinded by the light on the road to Damascus, Paul was a Pharisee, zealous for the law. He was passionately committed to fulfilling every letter of the law that God had given to Moses. And he “knew” to the core of his being that Jesus of Nazareth was a dangerous and false prophet who led people away from God’s law, and was rightfully executed. And his God-given mission was to hunt down Jesus’s followers.

Imagine how you would feel to realize in one second that everything you were convinced of as being good and right was, in truth, evil. That is what happened to Paul when he heard a voice saying, “this is Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5). Thus did Paul come to know that in his “flesh” he had done evil, even when his “mind” was fully convinced of the right.

For many of us today, of course, it may well be self-indulgence to which we are enslaved, and because of which we cry out like Paul, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” For others, like Paul, it may be self-righteousness that enslaves us. So, which is it?