Teaching Romans Backwards

A Study Guide to "Reading Romans Backwards" by Scot McKnight

Becky Castle Miller

• Publisher: 1845 Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781481312318, 9781481315128
• eBook ISBN: 9781481312394
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Teaching Romans Backwards is a study guide to Scot McKnight's  Reading Romans Backwards that helps teachers and students work through the McKnight's text in an engaging and interactive way. Becky Castle Miller has carefully created and designed a range of learning activities, from simple to complex, for all levels of students and all learning styles.
 
Originally designed for a fifteen-week course, the guide can be easily condensed or expanded. Each lesson includes tasks and readings for the students to complete before class, in class instructions and lesson plans, and a peek into the lesson for the following week. The appendices contain additional materials, including quiz and essay questions, that help instructors turn their exploration of  Reading Romans Backwards from a discussion to a more standard course. 
 
Available for order in paperback and free download on the Baylor University Press website, this guide allows readers to experience Romans in a whole new light.  Teaching Romans Backwards seeks to bring Romans to life in all contexts and for all people.

LESSON ONE

PREFACE, INTRODUCTION, CHAPTER 1

BEFORE CLASS

• ☐ Read the Table of Contents
• ☐ Read the Preface (3 pages)
• ☐ Read the Introduction (3 pages)
• ☐ Read Romans 16:1-16
• ☐ Read Chapter 1 (3 pages)
• ☐ Answer the Personal Study Questions

MAIN TAKEAWAY

Romans is a letter written to the small group of Jesus-followers in Rome, their number made up of Jews and Gentiles, poor and rich, slaves and free, women and men.

The context for all the theology in the early parts of the letter is given at the end of the letter, so we read Romans backwards to situate the theology better in its multiethnic Roman house church context.

Power and Privilege were at play in the Roman culture, causing tension between the Strong and the Weak in the churches. Paul wanted the followers of Jesus in Rome to turn from the dominant cultural forces and instead embrace Peace and each other.

TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Introduction

Privilege In general, Privilege is the collection of benefits a culture gives a person or people group that helps them succeed more easily. Privilege isn’t earned; it is simply possessed, and it comes from a person’s innate attributes and the value the culture places on those attributes. Cultural power is usually given to the privileged. For the Strong in Romans, their Privilege is their status as the majority, as Romans and as non-Jews. For the Weak, their Privilege is their consciousness of being God’s elect and their sense of moral superiority for keeping the Torah.

Power Power is the strength held by those at the top of a hierarchy and is wielded over and against the people further down the hierarchy. Power gives access to instruments of coercion. Power itself is neutral but leans toward being misused to abuse the ones without power.

Peace For Christians, Peace is created in Christ. It is a countercultural steadiness that opposes the ethnocentrism of Roman elites and their Privilege. It is the unity in relationships between people who are different, and that unity comes through the Spirit, not through human force. In Romans, the Peace needs to come into the relationships between the Weak and the Strong. Peace tempers Power in the direction of goodness and Christlikeness.

Pax Romana Latin for “Roman Peace.” It refers to a stable period in the Roman Empire between approximately 27 BCE and 180 CE. During the Pax Romana, life was good for those with Privilege and Power but not so good for those without status. Paul’s idea of Peace, in contrast, is good news for everyone.

Via vitae Latin for “way of life.” Here it is used to talk about a way to live out theology in the life of the church body.

Chapter 1

Cursus honorum Latin for “course of honor” or “path toward honor.” Here it is used to explain the cultural norm in Roman society to advance, on the basis of one’s social status and Privilege, in pursuing public honor, glory, and fame.

CHAPTER SUMMARIES

Preface

• • We can understand chapters 1 through 11 of Romans better by looking first at chapters 12 through 16. This is what McKnight calls “reading Romans backwards: first, Romans 12–16, then 9–11, then 1–8” (ix).
• • Many approaches to interpreting Romans see it as a theological treatise rather than a contextualized letter to house churches in Rome. The context is first-century Rome under Emperor Nero, and the timing is when Paul was planning to carry the good news of Jesus on a further missionary journey to Spain.
• • Two main ways of reading Romans emerge in the scholarship. One sees Romans as talking about individual salvation. The other sees Romans as talking about the church and how those in the church can be reconciled into a fellowship of different siblings. McKnight’s approach is the second, focusing on intra-church relationships.
• • In looking at the themes of Privilege, Power, and Peace, this approach focuses on hearing Romans through “the (imagined) ears of the Weak and Strong” (x).

Introduction

• • Church people today still grapple with the same issues Paul tackles in Romans: “the inability of the Privileged and the Powerful to embody the gospel’s inclusive demand and include the Disprivileged and the Disempowered. The mirror of this issue is the Disempowered claiming their own kind of Privilege and Power” (xiii).
• • Power and Privilege lead to injustice, while the gospel of Peace deconstructs and denies both to bring God’s justice.
• • The practical advice for living out theology in the day-to-day life of the house churches that we find in Romans 12–16 is not an inconsequential add-on to the letter. Rather, it is the point of the letter. Romans 1–11 is the theological explanation that undergirds the pastoral advice of Romans 12–16.

Chapter 1: Phoebe—The Face of Romans (16:1-2)

• • “Letters in Paul’s world were the embodied, inscripted presence of the letter writer, in this case Paul. He chooses a woman to embody his letter, which means the face of Paul is experienced as the face of Phoebe” (3).
• • Paul calls Phoebe “sister.” This is an example of the way Paul’s frequent sibling language creates a new social order. The Roman world assigned people status based on their biological family, their wealth, or their success. By calling other Christians in the church “siblings,” Paul makes them family and reorients people’s basis for status on their being “in Christ”—and in Christ, they all have equal status. This disrupts the Roman ideas about Privilege and Power.
• • Phoebe is a deacon, which can mean “servant,” yet in the churches, it could mean an officially recognized ministry or office. Because Paul connects Phoebe with the church in Cenchreae, it seems she held a ministry leadership position there. It’s possible she is the host, the patron (the one who funds), and the leader of that church.
• • Phoebe is a benefactor—a wealthy person who financially provides for people—for Paul and many others.
• • Paul commends Phoebe to the Romans in a way that indicates she both carried and performed the letter.
• • “. . . reading as performance included gestures at the right time and to the right segment of the audience (when Phoebe read “Strong” or “Weak,” she looked them in the eye, or, if she thought they needed it, the opposing group in the eye!); inflection of the voice (here pastoral, there admonishing, here softening, and there exhorting) . . . We start here, then, with our reading of Romans: with the face of Phoebe, in our presence, performing the letter in such a way that each person in the churches senses Paul’s presence” (5).

GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Turn back to the Pre-Reading Questions you answered at the beginning of this study guide. Discuss them together (unless yo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• How to Use This Study Guide
• Pre-Reading Questions
• Lesson Zero: Welcome to Romans
• Lesson One: Preface, Introduction, and Chapter 1
• Lesson Two: Chapter 2
• Lesson Three: Chapter 3, Chapter 4
• Lesson Four: Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7A
• Lesson Five: Chapter 7B, Chapter 8
• Lesson Six: Chapter 9, Chapter 10
• Lesson Seven: Chapter 11
• Lesson Eight: Chapter 12
• Lesson Nine: Chapter 13, Chapter 14
• Lesson Ten: Chapter 15, Chapter 16
• Lesson Eleven: Chapter 17, Chapter 18
• Lesson Twelve: Chapter 19
• Lesson Thirteen: Chapter 20
• Lesson Fourteen: Chapter 21 and Conclusion
• Lesson Fifteen: Exam and Romans Performance
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix A: Content Plan for 8 Weeks of Classes
• Appendix B: Quiz Answers
• Appendix C: Essay Topics
• Appendix D: Further Reading
• Appendix E: “Our Sister Phoebe”