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Rom. 1:12 ...that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine.
Rom. 1:17 ...in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
I have begun to see a connection between these verses that adds meaning to the phrase “faith to faith”. The first verse seems to be describing faith and encouragement being generated at the human level interactively. Paul says that he longs to be with them, to see them. That is a description of the experience of joy – being glad to be together. The second verse is a step up from that in experience describing how we can have faith generated interactively with God by seeing His faith. The intervening verses talk about possible causes of anti-faith – reasons to doubt – toward Paul.
It appears that maybe they had reason to doubt his words due to repeated promises to come to see them without results. Paul is trying to explain the reasons behind these apparent discrepancies and restore their faith in his good intentions and his good will toward them. This came to my mind because of the experience of my daughter who has experienced something similar recently. Her husband is on the road training as a truck driver and had promised several times that he might be able to come home but was prevented each time. After awhile she became very cautious, even disbelieving about his promises because of the pain of disappointment and so became very skeptical about any time he said he would come. This is very understandable and was similar to how these Romans must have felt toward Paul.
It is interesting that he then addresses the issue of shame implying that this is an element, an issue that has become a problem in their relationship, or at least an issue in their thinking associated with him. There must have been some presumption of shame associated with his reputation because he is emphatically debunking any idea that he is influenced by shame. The original words in Greek are much stronger than the English translation. They actually say, “Ashamed?! You think I feel ashamed? Absolutely, positively NOT in the least!!! I am not ashamed at all of the gospel...”
Paul appears to be trying to lift their field of vision above the earthly context of the shame attached to the presentation of the gospel by its opposers, to the reality in which Paul lives and operates from the view of heaven and eternity and true reality. He is leading them through a transition, moving them from increasing their faith in him interactively to increasing their faith in God interactively.
There is nothing so effective to produce faith as faith. We have sometimes heard amazing stories of what can happen when a “loser” is transformed by someone who sees something in them that they cannot see themselves and really believes in them with passion. Something happens in their heart and the faith placed in them inspires faith within them and they begin to be able to do things and think bigger than they ever dreamed possible. Faith inspires faith. We are wired that way but seldom treat people that way because this involves seeing with the heart instead of the externals and most people are not doing that. That is what Paul is doing here. He is expressing faith in the Romans and inviting them to be inspired with more faith in him. In so doing he wants to lead them to enter into the same, yet more powerful, relationship with God. As the gospel, the good news about God's faith in them, becomes more clear to them, faith will spring up spontaneously within them and they will become fired with the same passion that motivates Paul. As they learn to trust Paul more they will also learn they can trust God even more. “The just shall live by His faith.”
