Just after the list Paul writes describing the ways we have fallen short in our thoughts and our actions, he writes in Romans 2 about not judging others.
He points out that it was God’s kindness in our lives that led us to turn to him. In other words, when we understood God loves us in spite of our sins, we willingly repented. We asked him for forgiveness.
As followers of Jesus it should be our kindness towards others that leads towards their repentance to God.
One of the biggest challenges in the early church was the ethnic and cultural challenge of creating a new community made up of Jews and Gentiles.
Paul points out that through Jesus now all need a circumcision of the heart by the Spirit. In other words, knowing the law is not what makes us right with God, it’s obeying the law. We have all fallen short of that, but fortunately as J.I Packer wrote in Knowing God:
“Jesus lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died in our place, to reconcile us to God and to give us eternal life.”
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