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Post by Admin on Jan 5, 2020 8:12:25 GMT -6
Study Begins: January 05, 2020
Discussion Begins: January 12, 2020
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Study and discussion of the background, historical and cultural context, and setting of the book of Romans. What was happening at the time this letter was written that can help us better discern its message as it was originally intended? |
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John R
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Post by John R on Jan 6, 2020 10:06:31 GMT -6
Digging into the internet, I found a consistent theme from the contributing authors references to various authors that seems credible. Beginning with a 4th Century writer known as Ambrosiaster"
"It is established that there were Jews living in Rome in the times of the Apostles, and that those Jews who had believed [in Christ] passed on to the Romans the tradition that they ought to profess Christ but keep the law [Torah] ... One ought not to condemn the Romans, but to praise their faith, because without seeing any signs or miracles and without seeing any of the apostles, they nevertheless accepted faith in Christ, although according to a Jewish rite."
Further, biblical commentator Adam Clarke adds, "The occasion of writing the epistle: ... Paul had made acquaintance with all circumstances of the Christians at Rome ... and finding that it was ... partly of heathens converted to Christianity, and partly of Jews, who had, with many remaining prejudices, believed in Jesus as the true Messiah, and that many contentions arose from the claims of the Gentiles to equal privileges with the Jews, and from absolute refusal of the Jews to admit these claims, unless the Gentile converts become circumcised; he wrote this epistle to adjust and settle these differences."
At the time of writing it was likely 54-57 AD Paul, according to scholarly consensus, wrote the Epistle to the fledgling body of believers in Rome. The Jews made up a substantial number there, and their synagogues, frequented by many, enabled the Gentiles to become acquainted with the story of Jesus of Nazareth. According to Irenaeus, a 2nd-century Church Father, the church at Rome was founded directly by the apostles Peter and Paul a claim for which, many modern scholars disagree. According to the last chapter we studied in Acts, many of the brethren went out to meet Paul on his approach to Rome suggesting that Christians were already in Rome in considerable numbers before Paul ever set foot in Italy.
According to historical accounts, "Jews were expelled from Rome because of disturbances between Jews and "Jewish Christians" around AD 49 by the edict of Emperor Claudius. Claudius died around the year AD 54, and his successor, Emperor Nero, allowed the Jews back into Rome, but then, after the Great Fire of Rome of 64, Christians were persecuted. Some scholars argue that with the return of the Jews to Rome in 54 conflict arose between the Gentile Christians and the Jewish Christians who had formerly been expelled. Some scholars believe "Gentile Christians may have developed a dislike of or looked down on Jews because they theologically rationalized that Jews were no longer God's people."
Paul was likely writing the Epistle to Rome at the time the two Christian factions were at odds and perhaps his motivations was to help calm the disagreements.
I am looking forward to this new study in one of my favorite books of the New Testament. Happy New Year Truthseekers.
Blessings! John |
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JB
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Post by JB on Jan 11, 2020 20:49:12 GMT -6
CONTENT OUTLINE OF ROMANS As I read through the letter to the Romans, I noticed a few themes, and these themes are interwoven throughout. So I've tentatively laid them out in the following table.
CHAPTERS
| 1-3 | Without Christ, Jews and Gentiles are equally damned
| | 4, 9 | Spiritual (rather than biological) descent from Abraham makes one a child of God’s promise to Abraham. The church is the true Israel of God.
| | 5 | Both Jews and Gentiles are descendants of sinful Adam.
| | 7, 10 | The Law justifies neither Gentile nor Jew. | | 6,8,11 | Israel as a nation has been cut off from God’s promises because they refused to believe. Gentiles may now be a part of Israel because they have been grafted in. They must be careful, then, not to develop an anti-Semitic (anti-Jew) attitude. Jews may be grafted back in and Gentiles may be cut off at any time on the basis of grace. | | 12, 13 | This grace must affect our daily lives by making us holy in our living. | | 14 | Gentiles must respect Jewish practices. | | 15 | Both Christ and Paul are set out to bring racial and ethnic reconciliation through desegregation. They both desire that the two groups become one. | | 16 | Unity of believers in Christ is of paramount importance.
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THE THEME OF PAUL’S LETTER TO THE ROMANS The theme of the letter is that without Christ everyone is equally condemned. Everyone stands before God the same way — guilty and deserving of damnation. Everyone is justified in the same way — by faith, through Christ. The only righteousness that will give us access to God is the righteousness that comes from God Himself.
TIMING - WHERE ROMANS FITS INTO BIBLICAL HISTORY We can learn a lot about the time in which Paul wrote this letter to the Romans by comparing statements in the letter with the history of Paul’s ministry recorded in the book of Acts.
Acts 18:2 tells us that Aquila and Priscilla had recently gone to Corinth from Rome because "Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome." Secular history confirms this statement and dates it in A.D. 49. (See Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, ).
This edict was relieved when Claudius died in A.D. 56. Roman Jews flocked back to their homeland in Rome – including to their churches. But things had changed while they were gone. For 7 years the Roman church only had Gentile Christians. Ways of practicing the Christian faith had been Gentile influenced.
Paul most likely wrote this letter to the Roman church just a year later, in A.D. 57, in order to encourage ethnic reconciliation between these two groups.
They were disuniting the body of Christ by their arguments and actions. The contents of this letter show that there was an attitude of superiority among both groups, but especially from the Jews toward the Gentiles.
This tension probably took place between different congregations, but back then there was far less allegiance to a specific congregation than there is today. The whole city's worth of Christians saw themselves as closely part of each other, even amid their disputes. All Christians in a region were accustomed to working together as a single church - different locations were really just for convenience of travel and space considerations of the home they met in.
Paul would have written this letter during his 3-month stay in Greece (Acts 20:3), probably from Corinth (cp. 2Cor 13:1, 10) - a period of time commonly referred to as Paul’s 3rd Missionary Journey.
Other indications that he was writing from in or near Corinth include:
- He mentions Phoebe, a woman from Cenchrea, in Rom 16:1-2 [Cenchrea was a neighboring city to Corinth.]
- He mentions Gaius both in Romans 16:23 and 1 Corinthians 1:14.PAUL’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CHURCH AT ROME Romans 15:20-33 tells us a lot about Paul's relationship with the church at Rome. He had never visited the Roman church. He had long wanted to visit them, but his priority was always to unbelievers. Since the church at Rome was already established, Paul's evangelistic opportunities took precedence over his desire to visit them. Take a look at Rom 15:20-22:
But now Paul felt that he had ministered to every area in the region. As he said in 15:19, "from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ." So it was finally time to visit his brethren in Rome. He was going to be visiting Spain, and he planned to stop by Rome on his way there. He planned to have them assist him on his travels to Spain after enjoying his visit with them...
Rom 15:23-24: “But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to see you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to visit you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.”
First, however, he was heading to Jerusalem with a collection from Christians of other congregations where he had ministered:
Rom 15:25-27: “Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the saints there. For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews' spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.”
In 2Cor 8ff, we learn that Jerusalem had experienced a severe drought and resulting famine. Paul collected offerings from various churches he visited to take to Jerusalem to help with their problems. The very poor Macedonian Christians had excitedly given to this fund, which Paul told the Corinthians was "even beyond their ability" (2Cor 8:3). Achaia did this as well. There's no record that the wealthy Corinthian church gave to this fund, even after Paul's strong appeals to them.
So after Paul delivers the offerings to Jerusalem, he plans to head for Spain and visit Rome along the way. The trip to Jerusalem would be a dangerous one for Paul, especially because unbelieving Jews would see him as a traitor:
Rom 15:28-33: “So after I have completed this task and have made sure that they have received this fruit, I will go to Spain and visit you on the way. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the full measure of the blessing of Christ. I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and together with you be refreshed. The God of peace be with you all. Amen.”
There is no record of Paul making it to Rome. Many scholars postulate that he died shortly after this visit to Jerusalem.
THE PURPOSE OF PAUL’S LETTER TO ROME
There seem to be 4 primary purposes for Paul writing this letter: 1. To unify the divided Roman church. Plagued by arguments between the Jewish and Gentile Christians, Paul wants to unify the church by clarifying and focusing them on the core message of the gospel. The tension was over “What do we do with the Law, and what do we expect Gentiles to do with the Law?”
Acts 14-15 provides an anecdote of Jew/Gentile Christian tension in the early church. There was a hot debate over whether the Greek Christians had to be circumcised and obey the Law of Moses. The elders declared that they didn't have to do either one of those, but as a concession they said the Gentiles would need to avoid meat sacrificed to idols, refrain from sexual immorality, abstain from the meat of strangled animals, and not eat blood (Acts 15:19-20).
[On a side note, this ethnic tension was part of why collecting money for Jerusalem from Gentile churches like Macedonia and Corinth was so important to Paul. If the Jews accepted the offering from the Gentile churches, it would serve to link them as one people worshiping and serving the same God.]
2. To prevent Judaizers from gaining a foothold in the Roman church.
Paul had recently battled Judaizers in both Galatia (note the entire book of Galatians) and in Corinth (see 2Cor 3; 10-13). These same struggles seem to have been on the verge of happening in Rome, and Paul wanted to thwart them.
3. To prepare for his visit to Rome by clearly laying out his positions on Jew/Gentile issues.
4. To gain support from the Roman Christians for his upcoming work in Spain.
He spells this out in Rom 15:23-24:
“But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to see you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to visit you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.” |
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JB
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Post by JB on Jan 12, 2020 13:50:25 GMT -6
... At the time of writing it was likely 54-57 AD Paul, according to scholarly consensus, wrote the Epistle to the fledgling body of believers in Rome. The Jews made up a substantial number there, and their synagogues, frequented by many, enabled the Gentiles to become acquainted with the story of Jesus of Nazareth. According to Irenaeus, a 2nd-century Church Father, the church at Rome was founded directly by the apostles Peter and Paul a claim for which, many modern scholars disagree. According to the last chapter we studied in Acts, many of the brethren went out to meet Paul on his approach to Rome suggesting that Christians were already in Rome in considerable numbers before Paul ever set foot in Italy.
John, Great research and description of the background of Paul's letter to the Romans!
Regarding the origin of this church, I agree that Irenaeus is unlikely to be correct. The text of the epistle strongly suggests that Paul had never yet been to Rome. For example,
- Romans 1:11
"I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong."
- Romans 15:20-22
"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. Rather, as it is written: ‘Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.’ 22 This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.
Priscilla and Aquila seem the most likely disciples to have evangelized Rome and to have started a congregation there.
We know that this husband/wife team were Christians at the time that Claudius expelled Christians from Rome:
"[Paul] found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them" (Acts 18:2), and that they were strong disciples and close friends of Paul.
Additionally, in Romans 16:3 Paul asked the church to greet Aquila, "my fellow workers in Christ," which has the added benefit of letting us know that Priscilla and Aquila were in Rome when the letter was written.
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