Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
And even as they did not like ... - This was the true source of their crimes. They did not choose to acknowledge God. It was not because they could not, but because they were displeased with God, and chose to forsake him, and follow their own passions and lusts.
To retain God ... - To think of him, or to serve and adore him. This was the first step in their sin. It was not that God compelled them; or that he did not give them knowledge; nor even is it said that he arbitrarily abandoned them as the first step; but they forsook him, and as a consequence he gave them up to a reprobate mind.
To a reprobate mind - A mind destitute of judgment. In the Greek the same word is used here, which, in another form, occurs in the previous part of the verse, and which is translated "like." The apostle meant doubtless to retain a reference to that in this place. "As they did not approve, ̓ edokimasan , or choose to retain God, etc. he gave them up to a mind disapproved, rejected, reprobate," ̓ adokimon , and he means that the state of their minds was such that God could not approve it. It does not mean that they were reprobate by any arbitrary decree; but that as a consequence of their headstrong passions, their determination to forget him, he left them to a state of mind which was evil, and which he could not approve.
Which are not convenient - Which are not fit or proper; which are disgraceful and shameful; to wit, those things which he proceeds to state in the remainder of the chapter.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Romans 1:28:
Psalms 9:17
Psalms 14:4
Psalms 69:27
Isaiah 44:20
Hosea 2:8
Hosea 4:1
Micah 2:11
Micah 5:3
Micah 7:5-6
Micah 7:10
Matthew 9:13
Romans 3:9
2 Corinthians 13:5
Ephesians 5:4
Ephesians 5:12
Colossians 3:7
1 Thessalonians 4:5
2 Timothy 3:8
Titus 1:16
1 Peter 2:11
1 Peter 4:3
1 Peter 4:3
1 John 5:19
Revelation 14:4
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