ROMANS 1:31

“without understanding, untrustworthy, unfeeling, and unmerciful;”

Negative comments and behaviors can be very hurtful. Have you ever experienced that? I sure have. I will never forget some of the ones I have received in my life. Unfortunately, some of those were delivered by “Christians” who thought they had the right to put me in my place. There is never an excuse for that. We, as believers, cannot be part of that. I hope you agree.

In today’s verse, we have four words that could be good but are turned into a negative by one little prefix. It’s the Greek letter alpha. Just one letter turns these words into the negative. Paul was led by the Spirit to use these four words with this little negative prefix. I truly believe God wants us to see how easy it is to move a good thing to a bad thing. Let’s look at these four words.

APPLICATION

The first word is asýnetos which “describes a person failing to structure information in a meaningful way, and therefore unable to reach necessary conclusions. This person is illogical because unwilling to use good reason.” The good part of this word means to have understanding. Don’t we all want that?

Next is asunthetos which is the negative of a convenant keeper. What is that? A covenant breaker. This person cannot be trusted to keep a covenant with you. They are relationship destroyers. They only care about themselves. No covenants for them. No sir! They are in charge.

The third word Paul uses is astorgos. Now, look closely at this word. It takes a good word storge and makes it ugly. Storge is the Greek word that is normally used to describe familial love. It’s the love a parent has for a child. In that culture, children were often sacrificed to pagan gods. We can see all through Rome the intentional termination of children if they were deformed or even unwanted. This is a horrible word only used here and 2 Timothy 3:3.

The last word we see in today’s verse is aneleemon which goes against the very character of God. It’s the negative of merciful. These people were merciless. They didn’t care about others’ hurts or condition. As long as they came out on top, that’s all that mattered.

Do you see how one little letter, the letter alpha, can turn good into bad. Now, let me ask you something. Have you taken something good and made it bad. It can happen so easily. Let’s follow the Lord in all our decisions and behaviors. Don’t let those little negatives ruin your testimony or the life of someone else.

O Father, let me focus on the good, not the bad. Help me keep those little negatives out of my mind and spirit.

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