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Paul and the Romans
Outline
- Paul the Apostle
- The Roman Christians
Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to
- Understand why we have to situate Romans in its first-century context before we can read it rightly.
- Know the circumstances of Paul’s situation as he writes Romans.
- Know a bit about the Roman Christians as they received Romans.
Communication, by its very nature, is occasional and two-sided. When we communicate with someone, we always do it in a certain context, for a certain reason. That context might be very broad: a historian writing a description of Caesar’s campaigns; or it might be very narrow: a student writing home for more money. But a context always exists. And so, of course, do the two parties. The historian does not write into thin air. He or she has a certain audience in mind: fellow professors, or college students, or the general public. And, if the historian hopes to sell many books, he or she will write with the needs, interests, and abilities of that audience in mind. Similarly, the student asking for an infusion of cash undoubtedly will put the plea in the terms best calculated to elicit a sympathetic response from the parents.
The letter to the Romans was written on a specific occasion and is an act of communication between two parties: the apostle Paul and the Roman Christians. Learning more about both parties and their circumstances will aid our reading of Romans.
Paul the Apostle
Information on these points comes especially from the beginning and the end of the letter. Paul follows the convention of ancient letter writers by opening with a description of himself (1:1–6), a reference to his audience (1:7a), and a greeting (1:7b). He adds to these standard items a thanksgiving (found in many of his letters) combined with a brief rehearsal of his circumstances (1:8–15). The other bookend around the body of Romans is the epistolary conclusion, 15:14–16:27. Here again Paul touches on matters that are typical at the end of his letters: his travel plans (15:14–29), a request for prayer (15:30–32), a prayerful wish for peace (15:33), recognition of his ministry associates (16:1–2, 21–23), greetings (16:3–15, 16b), the “holy kiss” (16:16a), a concluding grace (16:20), and a concluding doxology (16:25–27). What makes Romans a bit different from the other letters of Paul is the amount of space that Paul devotes to many of these matters. There is good reason for this elaboration. Paul did not found the Roman church, nor has he ever visited there. He has gotten to know some of the Roman Christians during his travels (see 16:3–15), but many of them he has never met. And so Paul needs to spend a little more time than usual introducing himself and explaining why he writes to a church that some would claim he has no authority over.
He establishes his credentials immediately (1:1). As a “servant” of Christ Jesus, Paul implies that he has a status equal to that of those famous Old Testament servants such as Moses (see Josh. 14:7) and David. Moreover, he is an “apostle,” one of those chosen by the Lord himself to be the “foundation” of the church (Eph. 2:20). And his apostolic calling is particularly to the gentiles (1:5). Since the Roman Christians belong, as Paul implies in 1:6 (and see the next section), to the sphere of gentile churches, they fall under his apostolic jurisdiction. Paul makes a similar point in verses 13–15, although he broadens the scope of his ministry in those verses to include Jews as well as gentiles. And he returns to this same theme at the end of the letter. In 15:14–16, Paul claims that his rather bold words to the Roman Christians are quite justified because God bestowed grace on Paul to be “a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles.” Paul pursues his calling with fervor and hard work, seeking to offer gentile Christians to the Lord as a sacrifice pleasing to him. As he puts it in 1:5, he wants these believers to come to “the obedience of faith” (I discuss this phrase in chapter 3).
And so Paul explains to the Romans why he can be so bold as to write a letter of exhortation to them: they fall within the sphere of his divine calling to bring gentiles under the lordship of Jesus Christ. But why write the letter now? What led Paul to compose and send a letter to a church he had never even visited? Paul never tells us explicitly why he writes, and scholars have debated the question of the purpose of Romans for many years. But we begin to get some answers to this question when we probe the epistolary introduction and conclusion for more information about Paul’s own circumstances. Beyond an expression of regret that he has been hindered from coming to Rome in the past (1:10, 13; cf. 15:22), Paul says nothing about this matter in the introduction. But Paul’s sketch of his travel plans in 15:14–29 is much more illuminating.
Map of Paul’s third missionary journey, AD 53–57 (International Mapping)
First, Paul expresses a sense of closure with respect to a significant stage of his ministry: “So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ” (15:19). Illyricum was a Roman province that occupied approximately the territory now held by Albania and remnants of the old Yugoslavia. Luke never tells us in the book of Acts that Paul has been in this province, but the vague reference to “that area” around Macedonia in Acts 20:2 might include such a visit. At any rate, what Paul suggests in Romans 15:19 is that he has completed basic missionary work in the areas roughly covered by the three great missionary journeys of Paul recorded in Acts. Thriving churches have been planted in key centers throughout this area. Paul, the church planter, is now free to look for other, new fields “white for the harvest.” And his gaze has traveled all the way to the other end of the Mediterranean.
Ruins of the ancient city of Corinth, where Paul probably wrote the book of Romans
Second, then, Paul’s eventual plans are to engage in church planting work in Spain (15:24). Why Paul chose Spain we do not know, nor can we be sure that he ever got there. One church father claims that Paul preached in the “limits of the West,” which could refer to Spain.1 But the reference might be to Rome, and Paul’s ministry in the eastern Mediterranean, attested by the Pastoral Epistles, makes it unlikely that Paul ever reached Spain. But for our purposes the important point is that Paul was intending to evangelize in Spain as he wrote Romans.
Third, however, Paul cannot travel west immediately; he explains, “I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord’s people there” (15:25). As the following verses reveal, the service that Paul has in mind is the delivery to the Jerusalem Christians of the collection that he has been taking from his gentile churches. This enterprise was very important for Paul. He has mentioned it in every letter he wrote on his third missionary journey (see also 1 Cor. 16:1–4; 2 Cor. 8–9). Paul viewed the collection as more than a relief effort. He also saw in it a practical way of bringing Christian Jews and gentiles together. If he could get the gentile Christians to give money to the Jewish Christians, and get the Jewish Christians to accept it, then a very practical step would be taken toward the unification of the church. Hence come Paul’s deep concerns for the collection and his request for prayer about it (15:30–32).
Fourth, and finally, Paul plans to stop in Rome on his way from Jerusalem to Spain (15:28). So the complete itinerary is now before us: Jerusalem, to deliver the collection; Rome, as a stopover; Spain, for extended ministry.
These details enable us to pinpoint with some precision where Paul was when he wrote Romans and, therefore, when he wrote it. All the circumstances point to Paul’s stay in Corinth toward the end of his third missionary journey (see Acts 20:2–3), probably in AD 57. Paul’s commendation of Phoebe, who was from Cenchreae, right next door to Corinth, points in the same direction (Rom. 16:1–2). But if we know when and where, we still don’t know much about the why. Why was Paul going to stop in Rome, and why did he write a letter to them? The answer to the first question is hinted at in 15:24. Paul expresses his hope that the Roman Christians will “assist” him on his journey to Spain. The Greek word behind “assist” (propempō) is consistently used in the New Testament to refer to missionary support.2 So Paul apparently wants the Roman Christians to support him in his missionary efforts in Spain. His home church, Antioch, is far away from Spain, and Paul knows that he will need help from some Christians closer to the new mission field. So Paul is, in effect, asking if he can come to Rome, show his slides, and pass the offering plate for the new missionary endeavor.
But why, then, the letter? Why go into so much detail just to introduce himself to the Romans? We need to wait to look at some possible answers to this question until after we have glanced briefly at several other issues. In the rest of this chapter we will learn about the other party in the communication that we call Romans: the Roman Christians themselves.
The Roman Christians
If Paul tells us quite a lot about his own situation in the opening and closing parts of Romans, we learn a lot less about the Romans themselves. And that is not surprising. After all, the Romans know who they are! But three important facts about the Roman Christians do emerge from these verses.
First, Paul intends to address all the Christians in Rome: “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people” (1:7). Yet, at the same time, he does not address this letter, as he does so many of his others, to the “church” that is in Rome (cf., e.g., 1 Cor. 1:2; 1 Thess. 1:1). What this probably means is that there was more than one “local church” in the city of Rome. We know that the Jews who lived in Rome had established many synagogues. The Christians in Rome seem to have followed the same pattern, worshiping in many small congregations. Evidence from the greetings in Romans 16:3–16 bears out this conclusion. Paul sends greetings to the “church” that meets in the house of Priscilla and Aquila (v. 5). And references to the “brothers and sisters with them” in verse 14 and “all the Lord’s people who are with them” in verse 15 also probably refer to house churches. This scattering of the Christians in Rome into at least several small house churches might explain why divisions among “strong” and “weak” have grown up (see 14:1–15:13). We might infer that these separate congregations in Rome were taking quite different approaches to the issues that Paul deals with in these verses.
Second, Paul views the Christians in Rome as being within the sphere of his special mandate: the gentiles. Note 1:13: “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.” By referring to “other Gentiles,” Paul makes clear that he views the Roman Christians as gentile also. The same point emerges from the most likely interpretation of 1:5–6: “Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” Paul’s point is to remind the Roman Christians that they are included in that category of people—the gentiles—for whom God gave Paul a special calling.
Third, Paul makes clear that he is also writing to Jewish Christians. The clearest evidence comes from the greetings, where he names several Jewish Christians: Priscilla and Aquila (16:3), Andronicus and Junia (16:7), and Herodion (16:11). The presence of Jewish Christians in Paul’s audience is suggested also by 4:1, where Paul labels Abraham “our forefather,” and 7:1, where he addresses those who “know the law.” A similar conclusion emerges, paradoxically, from 11:13–32, where Paul addresses gentile Christians explicitly. The fact that he has to single out gentile Christians here suggests that his audience includes some Christians who are not gentile.
The points cited in the last two paragraphs seem at first sight to be contradictory: Paul addresses the church in Rome as gentile, yet he refers to Jewish Christians as well. Scholars have sometimes chosen to follow one line of this evidence and sometimes the other. It has been argued that the Roman Christian community that Paul addresses was entirely Jewish or entirely gentile.3 But doing justice to all the evidence requires a more nuanced approach. Perhaps the best way to reconcile these points is to conclude that gentiles had become a significant enough majority in the Christian community that it could be considered gentile, yet Jews still made up a solid minority. Recall the general situation that we have sketched above. Messianic Jews returning from Pentecost established Christian congregations in Rome. As these congregations grew, some gentiles, especially “God-fearers,” who were strongly attracted to Jewish beliefs, joined the community. When Jewish Christians were forced to leave Rome by the emperor Claudius, gentiles naturally took over. By Paul’s day, some Jewish Christians had filtered back into the community, but in the meantime it had taken on the complexion of a gentile church.