Romans 16:19b (ESV) – “…I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.”
Special agent Evans watches approvingly as a man with a scowl is handcuffed and placed in the back of the unmarked car. A rookie police officer who is also at the scene approaches Agent Evans in amazement. “I can’t believe he was using counterfeit money this whole time,” the rookie cop begins. “I mean – how do you do it? How are you so good at detecting fake money? You must study all of the fraudulent money out there, making a record of all of the tricks that they use, so that you are ready when you see it. Is that how?!?”
As the car with the criminal in the backseat drives away, Agent Evans turns his attention to the interrogation by the curious officer. “That’s not it at all,” Agent Evans responds. “I don’t spend any time on any of that nonsense – studying ‘fake’ bills or ‘tricks’ that they’ve used before. As it turns out, the key to doing this well is spending as much time as possible with real, genuine money. A bank teller touches thousands upon thousands of genuine dollar bills during a given amount of time. He/she feels the texture and the weight of what the real thing feels like. Over and over again. Then, when a fraudulent bill passes through his/her fingers, the teller knows instantly that something is wrong. It just feels different. And that’s what I do. I study everything there is to study about the real deal – the genuine artifact. Everything there is to see, to feel, to taste, and to smell about a real dollar bill. And then, when a faker comes along, I know something is wrong.”
As stated in the verse from the beginning, Paul desires for the Christians in Rome to be “wise as to what is good.” Like Agent Banks, the people of God should seek to learn all that they can about “the real deal” – as found in the Word of God. Then, when something false comes along, or when some kind of deception tries to creep into their lives or into the church, they will know that something is “up” because it just doesn’t “feel right.”
Some say, “I love God, and I love His Word. But I think I need to find out more about other religions so that I can have greater faith or so that I can defend the truth when asked questions.” A person will then proceed down that path. He/she studies what is out there, and they read and read and read. However, the person never comes back to the Word of God. What then takes place is the equivalent of mixing one genuine dollar bill with 99 fake ones. After spending so much time with that pile of a hundred bills, a person forgets which one is real. “They are all just pieces of paper, right? They each have a little something different, but they are all worth the same,” they tragically proclaim.
Paul continues: “(I want you to be) innocent as to what is evil.” Barclay writes that the word translated “innocent” is “used of a metal which has no suspicion of alloy, of wine and of milk which are not adulterated with water. It describes something which is absolutely pure of any corruption.” The apostle desires for these Christians, in the midst of the looming threat of bad influences, to never experience those horribly evil things – to stay as far away from them as possible.
As it turns out, the deceiver says the opposite. The devil says, “You really need to know the nature of bad stuff so that you will learn how bad it is, and, as a result, you will want to stay away from it.” In other words, he lies and says, “The key is to study the FAKE money!” In contrast, Paul expresses his earnest plea that these Christians never know the depths and depravity of evil things: that they never know the guilt that comes from having sex outside of marriage, that they never know the shame the morning after a night of drunkenness, or that they never know the worthlessness which comes from blowing the family’s money on some addiction.
The apostle Paul then concludes with this promise and blessing for all who strive to resist what is evil and persist in what is good: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” (Rom. 16:20).