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"For what I am doing, I do not understand."

Text: Romans 7:15

THE USE OF THE PRESENT TENSE

Some are uncomfortable with Paul’s use of the present tense to describe his struggle with sin. These try and explain away Paul’s use of the present tense by saying that he was merely using “a dramatic present” to describe the past! How should we interpret the following text, for example?

“For what I am doing, I do not understand.
For what I will to do, that I do not practise;
but what I hate, that I do.”
Romans 7:15

A HUMBLING REALITY

It is wiser to interpret Paul’s use of the present tense as his attempt to describe his own personal struggle with sin! Paul would be the first to admit that he is not perfect in any sense of the word. It is heartening to know that even the mighty apostle Paul struggled with the same problems that all of us struggle with daily.

1. “For what I am doing, I do not understand”

a) There is honesty in this text.

b) There is candidness too.

c) Do we fully comprehend all that we are doing?

d) Deep humility will cause us to admit that we often do not fully comprehend all that we are doing.

2. “For what I will to do, that I do not practice”

a) Just how strong is our human will?

b) We must admit that we often fail to do what we will to do.

c) The many good things we desire to do, we often fail to follow through.

3. “But what I hate, that I do”

a) How well we can identify with Paul when he wrote these words.

b) We hate our sinful tendencies, and we try hard not to sin but we do not always find success.

c) We often end up doing the very things we hate to do!