Really Useful Guides: Romans

Ernest Clark

• Publisher: BRF
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781800390836
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Each Useful Guide will focus on a specific biblical book, making it come to life for the contemporary reader, enabling them to understand the message and to apply its truth to today's circumstances. Though not a commentary, it will give valuable insight into the book's message. Though not an introduction, it will summarise the important aspects of the book to aid reading and application.This Really Useful Guide to Romans will transform understanding of the biblical text, and will help you to engage with the message in new ways today, giving confidence in the Bible and increasing faith in God.

The Bible Reading Fellowship

15 The Chambers, Vineyard

Abingdon OX14 3FE

brf.org.uk

The Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF) is a Registered Charity (233280)

ISBN (ePub) 978 1 80039 083 6

ISBN (mobi) 978 0 85746 822 2

First published 2021

All rights reserved

Text © Ernest Clark 2021

This edition © The Bible Reading Fellowship 2021

Cover image by Rebecca J Hall

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Acknowledgements

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version (Anglicised edition) copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, a Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.

Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright owners for material used in this resource. We apologise for any inadvertent omissions or errors, and would ask those concerned to contact us so that full acknowledgement can be made in the future.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

1 Why read Romans? A personal reflection

2 Start here

Paul’s brothers and sisters in Rome

The church in Rome

Paul’s main concerns

Paul’s desire to share a gift with his friends

Romans’ message: God’s good news about his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord

Disclosing the ancient mystery

A few words about words

3 Guide to the contents

Two outlines: the path and the steps

Paul greets his friends with God’s good news, 1:1–17

The faithful and righteous God condemns sin but sets believers right, 1:18—4:25

The Son and the Spirit enable believers to live right, 5:1—8:39

God has been and will be faithful to Israel, 9:1—11:36

Paul calls believers to holiness and love, 12:1—15:13

Paul plans an apostolic visit to Rome, 15:14–33

Paul blesses his friends, 16:1–27

4 Romans among the other New Testament writings

Writing the next chapters in the same story

Romans and Galatians

Romans and James

Romans and Matthew’s gospel

Romans and Hebrews

5 The continuing message of Romans

God’s freedom, righteousness and love

The human person and behaviour

Sexual orientation

The Spirit’s life and leading

Faith and love

Faith and civil authorities

Faith and creation

Faith and Israel’s future

Nurturing diversity within the church

Accepting each other as God accepts us

6 Questions for reflection and discussion

Further reading

About the author

To the saints at St Andrew’s Church, St Andrews, brothers, sisters, fellow workers and patrons.

Each Really Useful Guide focuses on a specific biblical book, making it come to life for the reader, enabling them to understand the message and to apply its truth to today’s circumstances. Though not a commentary, it gives valuable insight into the book’s message. Though not an introduction, it summarises the important aspects of the book to aid reading and application.

This Really Useful Guide to Romans will transform your understanding of the biblical text, and will help you to engage with the message in new ways today, giving confidence in the Bible and increasing faith in God.

1

Why read Romans? A personal reflection

I first encountered Romans in bits. Memorising verses like 3:23 (‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’) and 6:23 (‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’) laid the foundation stones of my childhood theology: my sin and God’s grace.

Over the next 30 years, Romans continued its role as my school master. In my first year of university, tutored by the ancient African theologian Augustine, Romans pushed me to acknowledge the corruption of the whole human person and God’s radical freedom. And it expanded my gratitude for God’s mercy toward me to a whole new dimension.

Twelve years later, as a postgraduate student, Romans schooled me again. It straightened up and tightened down some of my theological ideas that were coming loose. And, pointing me back to an earlier round of lessons, it showed me again the extraordinary power of the Spirit’s gracious action in my life, how he enables me to live faithfully and love truly.

But studying to write this book, I have encountered Romans as a wise friend.

I have tried to honour Paul by letting his letter set its own agenda in its own terms. I’ve restrained some of my theologian’s instincts to pester Paul about one pet topic or another and instead just let him say what he wanted to say.

And our conversation has been quite different. I have heard in Paul’s letter his love for his dear friends, and, through Paul’s loving words, I have encountered God’s love.

In this reading, grace has grown bigger, judgement is more real, yet mercy is warmer. God’s freedom is grander, my hope is firmer and God’s peace is fuller.

My prayer each day as I wrote this guide was that it really would be useful.

Chapter 2 lays out the things that are useful to know before you start reading Romans. It includes a summary of the ‘ancient mystery’ in the Hebrew scriptures that Paul keeps referring back to. Don’t skip that bit. It really is useful for understanding where Paul is coming from and what he’s trying to get at.

Chapter 3 charts a path through Romans and then walks with you stage by stage. It should be useful in helping you think about what Paul was thinking about. His thoughts are grand and glorious – they could not be otherwise; he’s been tasked with writing about God’s grace and righteousness – but the guide should help explain what Paul means. Along the way, I also keep connecting each part of Romans with others. There really is a flow to Paul’s argument in this letter, and those connections are useful in helping us sense that.

Chapter 4 compares Romans with others of the earliest Jewish-Christian writings collected in the New Testament. Some of you may be interested in sorting out the tension between Paul and James on faith and justification. You can find their discussion there.

Finally, chapter 5 reflects on ways that Paul’s message in Romans continues to speak to us today. ‘Us’, of course, depends on who you are. I hope my comments connect usefully with you where you are. If they don’t, do listen to the Spirit as you read and pray and also talk with others. He knows you best of all.

With God’s help, this really will be a useful guide to Romans. May you find it so. And may it lead you, with Paul, through his grand letter right up to its majestic conclusion.

To the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.

Romans 16:27

Ernest

Bengaluru, India

2

Start here

Sometime around AD57, a Jew named Paul wrote a letter in Greek and sent it from Corinth, in southern Greece, to a group of his close friends and their associates in Rome. The letter was carried by Phoebe, a deacon from the church at nearby Cenchreae, whom Paul called ‘sister’ and who had also been his patron. The letter crossed a sea and journeyed up a peninsula, and it was read, we may suppose, with the warmth and interest recipients would show who knew its sender variously as beloved and son, co-worker and teacher.

A letter was delivered, but a legacy had begun. Over other seas, through other lands, across 2,000 years and in even more languages, it continued to speak and to speak meaningfully. It has confounded and converted, instructed and encouraged with the same enduring significance that led its early readers to recognise it, in 2 Peter’s words, as ‘scripture’, a prophecy spoken from God as the Holy Spirit carried the person along (2 Peter 1:20–21; 3:15–16). Here, in Paul’s words to his ‘brothers and sisters’ in Rome, readers have found God’s words to his beloved ones in every age and place.

Paul’s brothers and sisters in Rome

To read Romans well, then, it is useful to start with knowing who Paul’s brothers and sisters in Rome were.

1 They were Paul’s friends. Though Paul had not yet visited them in Rome, he knew many of them from elsewhere. Epenetus, Ampliatus, Stachys and Persis were beloved ‘dear friends’ of his. Rufus’ mother was a mother to Paul as well (16:5–13).

Paul’s relationship with the people to whom he wrote set the tone for the letter. From the opening words to the closing, Paul, though bold, is neither alarmed nor angry. Instead, he is filled with love for his dear friends (1:7; 15:14; 16:20).

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you… The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

Romans 1:7; 16:20

2 They were maturing believers, people whose trust in God directed their attitudes and actions in everyday life. Through this faith, God had made them replete with goodness and ‘filled with know­ledge’ (15:14). Some of them had used this know­ledge to teach others: Priscilla (also called Prisca), Aquila and Urbanus had been Paul’s ‘fellow workers in Christ’. And Andronicus and Junia were apostles (16:3, 7, 9).

In light of their faithful character, Paul assumed at least two things when he wrote to them. First, he assumed that they were oriented on God, that they wanted to love God and do good (15:14). Second, Paul assumed that they knew Israel’s scriptures, especially Moses’ law (7:1). (The section below on ‘Disclosing the ancient mystery’ on page 21 below outlines some of the things Paul and his friends knew from the scriptures.)

3 They were people God loved. This is the starting point of Paul’s correspondence, how he addresses them in the opening of the letter. And it is the foundation of Paul’s argument: God knew them and loved them first. God is their father; they are his beloved children and each other’s beloved brothers and sisters. For Paul, this love of God for his children is the source of the grace, righteousness, mercy and holiness that he will discuss throughout the letter (5:1–11; 8:28–39). And it is this same love that draws us across two millennia into reading Paul’s letter to his beloved brothers and sisters as God’s letter to us, his beloved children (see 4:23–24; 15:4–6).

4 They were called to be holy. This is the ending point of Paul’s correspondence. Beginning with the identity his dear friends already have as God’s loved ones, Paul wrote the letter to urge them to live as God’s holy ones. They are called to be holy, to belong in a special way to God rather than to their age. And they are called to serve God in a special way, much as Moses’ law instructed priests and temple servants to serve God (12:1; 15:16–21).

Next, to appreciate Paul’s friends’ life as a group, a short history of the church in Rome is useful.

The church in Rome

From the very first day – when the Holy Spirit came down like fire and wind from heaven – the new Jesus movement included residents from Rome. Roman ‘Jews and converts to Judaism’ had gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the annual festival of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–11). There, just a few days after Jesus was taken into heaven, they heard his follower Peter testify that God had raised Jesus up and exalted him to his right hand. This was evidence, Peter concluded confidently, that God had made Jesus ‘both Lord and Messiah’ (Acts 1:6–11; 2:22–36).

We may assume that some of these visitors from Rome were among the 3,000 that day who accepted Peter’s message and were baptised (Acts 2:37–42). They would have returned eventually to Rome and continued attending synagogue on sabbath. There they would have heard Moses’ law read and taught (Acts 15:21).

It is likely that they also began to gather as people who followed Jesus. In time, other believers would have joined them, both Jews and non-Jews. At some point, Paul’s relatives Andronicus and Junia, two distinguished apostles (sent either by Jesus after his resurrection or by a church as their messengers), arrived (Romans 16:7). By the time Paul wrote them in 57, the brothers and sisters in Rome were assembling in Priscilla and Aquila’s house and probably also in Aristobulus’ and Narcissus’ homes (16:5, 10, 11).

But the church’s story was not one of undisturbed growth. Eight years earlier, in 49, Emperor Claudius had expelled Jews from the city of Rome. They were, according to the historian Suetonius, constantly agitated about someone named Chrestus (Claudius 25; see Acts 18:2).

While Jews, like Aquila and Priscilla, were absent, the gathering of believers would, naturally, have become less Jewish in character. And when the Jewish believers returned, as Priscilla and Aquila did, the difference was evident and tension mounted. Some ate only meat that Moses’ law prescribed as clean; others ate only vegetables, perhaps because meat was often dedicated to an idol before it was sold in the market; and others ate any food. Some observed one day as special; others treated all days the same (14:1–23). Some boasted about having Moses’ law; others were inclined to ignore it (2:17–24; 6:15—7:6). To these dear brothers and sisters in this situati...

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