Who Received the Book of Romans, Part 3
I have submitted that it can be verified internally that Paul wrote the book of Romans to both the Jews and Gentiles within that city. The content indicates that it was a circular letter that was meant to be read both in the Jewish synagogues as well as within the Christian church or churches. As I demonstrated previously, the book neatly divides into sections that shade into each other. First it discusses the plight of all humanity, and then it discusses the plight of God’s people within that greater humanity; Jew first and then Gentile.
Therefore, the emphasis of the letter is on the relationship between the Jews and the Gentiles. Paul spends the majority of the letter discussing “the Gentile situation” with the Jews and “the Jewish situation” with the Gentiles. Therefore, Paul’s basic concern is the make certain that the two groups do not remain two groups. His desire is to build one new combined community of Jew and Gentile. This was his focus in Ephesians (esp. 2:11-22); is most likely his focus in Romans as well. Any other doctrines or teachings are made within the letter subject to this major focus.
Such would seem obvious in reading the entire letter as a whole. Yet for centuries, following Augustine, it was not. It took the bombshell of Krister Stendahl’s Paul Among the Jews and Gentiles to even open the door to this possibility. (Like my finding of William Stringfellow’s A Private and Public Faith, I found the book at a library remnant sale. Both are extremely thin volumes, but they have altered the way I read and live Scripture. I literally have never been the same since.) As Stendahl notes:
[W]hile Paul addresses himself to the relation of Jews to Gentiles, we tend to read him as if his question was: On what grounds, on what terms are we to be saved? We think that Paul spoke about justification by faith, using the Jewish-Gentile situation as an instance, as an example. But Paul was chiefly concerned about the relation between Jews and Gentiles—and in the development of this concern he used as one of his arguments the idea of justification by faith…The lost centrality of “Jews and Gentiles” is most clearly to be felt in a study of Romans. (Page 3, emphasis in original)
So Paul’s central concern was to reconcile the Jews and Gentiles together into a new community with Christ as the chief cornerstone. Also apparently, because the letter was required, the situation was not this ideal. The long sections of the letter that address the Jews separately from the Gentiles indicate that the communities were segregated along these ethnic lines. Also, from the way the Jews and Jewish Christians are addressed together, and intermixed within that presentation, it indicates that the Jewish Christians remained within the synagogue and continued to be separated from the Gentile Christians.
As I also previously discussed, Romans 2:17-11:12 is addressed to the Jews within Rome. Within the context of this passage, Paul’s use of pronouns becomes significant. Within the context, “You” refers to the Jews and primarily the Jews who reside in Rome. When Paul refers to “we” he expands his focus to the Jews as a race; a race that includes himself. Then in Chapter 8, the “you” switches from the Jews in general to the Christian Jews in particular (see 8:10). Chapter 9 then switches to discussing the Jews (”they”) who are outside of Christ.
Paul keeps this focus on the Jews until he moves his attention to the Gentiles, as he announces in verse 11:13. The epistle does not become more generalized until Paul gets to 12:3. Therefore, over 60 percent of the Epistle has to do with the Jew/Gentile situation. Even then, the letter then concerns itself in ways for the two groups to get together; urging those strong in their faith to tolerate those (probably the Jews who still practice the “ceremonial” laws) who were weak. Therefore, even the general section appears to apply to the Jewish/Gentile situation.
Which prompts the question, how did Paul know so much detail about the Roman situation? Even more pointed, if this was a general epistle meant to foster a base of support for Paul’s subsequent visit to Spain—which most scholars claim—why so concentration on these particular circumstances? Even more pointed, why did Paul risk “speaking boldly” (15:15) and jeopardizing Roman funding and support. The answers are obvious. This was not a “general” epistle at all. Instead, it was a pastoral letter, as much as the letters to the Galatians, Corinthians, or even the Colossians. As such, it addressed particular problems existent in the Roman Church.
However, this was a church that Paul himself did not found (15:20-22). Instead, it was founded by others—most likely those who were driven out of Jerusalem by Paul himself when he was a persecutor of the Church (Acts 2:10; cf. 8:1-4). As such, Paul had to rely on argumentation and persuasion rather than on a position of authority as the founder of the community. Therefore, the letter is longer than all of the other letters we have in our possession.
Finally, how unreasonable is it to assume that Paul had no personal knowledge of the situation? Though Paul had not founded the community in Rome and had never been there, Paul lists many individuals he knows who live in Rome in verses 16:3-16). This covers at least 20 individuals, not counting the churches who meet within those households. Obviously Paul had personal contacts within the city, even if he had never been there.
Even more likely, one or more of these individuals prompted the writing of the letter in the first place by so informing Paul of the segregated situation in Rome. Like the letter to the Colossians (another letter to a church not personally founded by Paul), Paul was requested to help or rectify a problem situation with either a letter or a personal visit. The epistle to the Romans was Paul’s letter. His promised visit on his way to Rome was his promise of personal involvement. The Romans has until then to get their act literally together.
To be continued
YES! YES! YES! - Paul was MAINLY writing to ensure the Jewish & gentile saints at Rome realised their MUTUAL and INDIVISIBLE identity in the Spirit by their common ‘faith of Jesus Christ’, and HOW that this oneness come about by their several & mutual Justification by Faith.
(This of course depatches Dispensationalism, as do almost all Paul’s epistles!)
AFJ
—Allan