and in the same way the males have abandoned the natural use of women and flamed out in lust for one another, men perpetrating shameless acts with their own sex and getting in their own persons the due recompense of their perversity.

Circumcision is certainly of use, provided you keep the Law; but if you are a breaker of the Law, then your circumcision is turned into uncircumcision.

(I use this human analogy to bring the truth home to your weak nature.) As you once dedicated your members to the service of vice and lawlessness, so now dedicate them to the service of righteousness that means consecration.

The command gave an impulse to sin, sin beguiled me and used the command to kill me.

Then did what was meant for my good prove fatal to me? Never! It was sin; sin resulted in death for me by making use of this good thing. This was how sin was to be revealed in its true nature; it was to use the command to become sinful in the extreme.