"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless" (Romans 1:28-31)

It’s interesting that out of the laundry list of transgressions, most of these wouldn’t make our top 10 list of what we consider to be a grievous sin. Some of these, such as arrogance or being boastful, seem very minor compared to murder. Worst of all, we probably remember the last time we participated in a few of these things such as gossip.

But Paul starts to wrap up his accusation against the whole of humanity by saying that “they have become filled with every kind of wickedness,” the Amplified Bible says we are permeated and saturated with every kind of unrighteousness. The fruit of this lifestyle is listed: envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice…and the list goes on and on.

When you boil it down, all of this unrighteousness comes back to Paul’s main accusation that we did not recognize God as God, we didn’t glorify Him and we were not thankful of Him (Rom. 1:21). This is the root issue throughout this charge in Romans 1, as it’s an issue of the heart.

“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion” (Romans 1:26-27)

Do you ever wonder why sin is so prevalent in today's society? Every year, sin becomes more acceptable and blatant than before. None of this is new as the same sins still exist; however, our society has normalized and incorporated it into everyday life. Paul says this has been the case from the beginning. Humanity exchanged the truth of God for a lie, so God gave us over to the desires of our hearts (Rom 1:24-25).

From the beginning, God created male and female and instituted marriage before the fall of mankind. Eve was joined to Adam in the garden (Gen. 1:27-28; 2:22-24). God gave us the incredible gift of marriage to bless us and provide the platform with which to procreate.