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Introduction
What is your experience with Romans?
What is Romans about?
Romans is unique for its size, for its style, more like a treatise than any other, and because it is written to a church Paul had never visited, and had not founded. The standard understanding of Romans is that it is the complement of James, the king of the epistles, a careful treatise laying out the gospel of grace and demolishing works righteousness. Romans also includes several chapters on the fate of Israel, as well as some practical advice about tender consciences, but the main thrust is grace.
None of these quite explains the context of Romans:
• Most probably founded by Roman Jews who were in Jerusalem for Pentecost and brought back to the synagogues in Rome faith in Jesus as the Messiah.
• “An important event in the history of the Jews in Rome is mentioned by the Roman historian Suetonius. In his Life of Claudius, he says that Claudius ‘expelled the Jews from Rome because they were constantly rioting at the instigation of Chrestus’ (25:2). Most scholars agree that ‘Chrestus’ is a corruption of the Greek Christos and that the reference is probably to disputes within the Jewish community over the claims of Jesus to be the Christos, the Messiah.” (Moo, 4-5)
• Probably the Jews were able to return a few years later at Claudius’ death in 54.
• This period of time during which the church had no Jews or Jewish Christians undoubtedly changed its direction and thinking.
With this context in mind, a main goal of Paul as he rests for a few months in Corinth (where things have finally calmed down) is to use the gospel to reconcile the Jews and the Gentiles in the Roman church. He does this by appealing to the sinfulness of all people, and the example of Abraham as someone who was justified by faith. Given this context, the excursion on the fate of the Jews is not at all strange, nor the material near the end about obeying authorities or showing flexibility when dealing with believers whose consciences are more tender.
One theme which is often also seen as peripheral is the relationship between the gospel (really, the covenant) and creation. We read about the creation groaning in birth pangs and figure that Paul is just referring to anticipation of the end times. In fact, it’s God’s faithfulness to the covenant which means that humans are made new, and through humans, creation is also renewed. And we see from Ephesians that the chief sign in Paul’s day is the creation of a new race—a “new humanity” (Eph 2:15)—which is neither Jew nor Gentile but Christian.
As we begin Romans, then, we dive into the start of Paul’s argument, which centers around the unity of all people in their sinfulness…