PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

This dishonouring of bodies is elaborated in sexual terms in 1:25-27. Following this depiction
of the ironic divine punishment for human rebellion as a “giving over” to bodily impurity and
sexual decadence, Paul extends this “giving over” to “every kind of evil” - which especially
appears to involve acts of relational dissension:
Romans 1:28-31: Theme II: “all” unrighteousness: strife, deceit, etc.
God gave them over to an unsound mind, to do things that should not be done, filled
with every kind of injustice [ἀδικίᾳ], 22 wickedness [πονηρίᾳ], evil greed [πλεονεξίᾳ
κακίᾳ]; full of envy [φθόνου], murder [φόνου], strife [ἔριδος], deceit [δόλου], being
people of corrupt character [κακοηθείας], gossips [ψιθυριστάς], slanderers
[καταλάλους]
Moo notes this movement from sexual to relational vices:
In vv. 22-24 and 25-27 Paul has shown how the sexual immorality that pervades
humanity has its roots in the rejection of the true God in favor of gods of their own
making. In the third and final portrayal of this sin-retribution sequence (vv. 28-32),
he traces sins of inhumanity, of man’s hatred of his fellow man in all its terrible
manifestations, to this same root sin of idolatry. 23
22 In agreement with the committee for the Nestle Aland 27, I find it unlikely that the variant
“πορνείᾳ” is original at this point. Such an intrusion makes little sense of the flow of the
passage, and may be explained as a scribal mis-reading of the subsequent word, πονηρίᾳ.
23 Moo, Epistle to the Romans, 117.
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