Who's Reprobate?

This morning I went through Romans 1 & 2 again for about the 100th time. Something is becoming more apparent to me.

A few things jumped off the page for me.

1. Paul was separated unto the gospel of God
Preaching the gospel to the ends of the earth (known world at that time; The Roman Empire) was is only focus in life. He could care less about the fame, fortune, backlash, retaliation from the religious folks, etc. Paul was focused on completing his task and doing what he was called to do.

2. Paul was not ashamed of the gospel
Again, he didn't care about popularity contests. The thought of death or being stoned didn't cross his mind. He preached with boldness and without compromise.

Now we get into the meat of the text, which I believe starts at 1:18 and continues on through to the end of the 2nd chapter. The conversation of righteousness, idolatry, sin nature, reprobate mindsets and religious spirits begin here.

Romans 1:18 reads as follows:
(NIV) The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

I placed bold text here for a reason. We'll see in a bit.

Though we cannot take scripture out of its context, meaning, that we cannot say that this letter to the Romans literally applies to us, we do know that Paul says later in the bible that all scripture is given for inspiration and instruction:

2 Timothy 3
16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

And we also know that the writer of Ecclesiastes mentions this:

Ecclesiastes 1:9
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

... to be continued...