Delve Into Luke-Acts & Paul's LettersExemplo

DAY 12 – ROMANS

The book of Acts reports how “all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord” during the two years Paul spent in Ephesus, the capital and most influential city in that province. Since Paul and others had previously brought the good news about Jesus to the surrounding regions, it had been proclaimed throughout the entire eastern part of the Roman Empire. Paul understood that his primary mission was to bring the message about Jesus to places where it had never been heard before. So he began to make plans to travel to the western part of the empire, as soon as he’d delivered the collection that the believers in Macedonia and Achaia had taken for the poor in Judea.

Paul knew there was already a strong community of Jesus’ followers in Rome that could provide a base of operations for his western trip. While he was in Corinth arranging for the delivery of the collection (around AD 57 or 58), he wrote to them, explaining: 

From Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. . . . Now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

But Paul had to do more than just ask for assistance, because the Roman church wasn’t necessarily willing to help him. Even though it was made up of both Jews and Gentiles, its particular focus was on bringing the good news about Jesus to Jews. But Paul was well known as an apostle to the Gentiles. And so he had to make the case for why this church should support him in his mission. In addition, the believers in Rome seem to have been getting inaccurate reports about Paul’s message. According to one report, he taught that people should go out and do wrong things, because this would produce more forgiveness from God. Knowing that the Romans wouldn’t work with him if they believed these reports were true, Paul protested that “some slanderously claim that we say, ‘Let us do evil that good may result.’” And so in his letter he had to correct these false reports about his teaching and convince the believers in Rome that they should support a mission to Gentiles as well as Jews. A woman named Phoebe, a leader in the church of Cenchreae (a small city near Corinth), was planning to travel to Rome, and this gave Paul the opportunity to send a letter with her asking the Romans to support his western journey.

Romans is the longest and most complex of Paul’s letters, but it follows the same general pattern as the others. It has an opening section where Paul introduces himself and his main ideas, and a closing section where he explains his travel plans and sends greetings. In between, the main body of the letter has two basic parts. Like many of Paul’s other letters, it begins with a teaching section and ends with a practical section that describes how this teaching should be followed in everyday life. A short song of praise to God comes in between these two parts and marks the division between them. The teaching section itself is divided up loosely by the way Paul alternates between two approaches. After he’s first developed his argument for a while, he then takes a step back from it to raise questions and objections that he suspects the Romans will have by then. He always answers these emphatically: “Not at all!” “By no means!” “Certainly not!” But in these parts of his letter, Paul isn’t just looking back on what he’s said and defending it. Instead, he uses these questions and answers to advance his argument.

PRAYER: Thank You for the power of the gospel, the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.