Romans

A Structural, Thematic, and Exegetical Commentary

Aaron Sherwood

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781683594024
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Commentaire biblique

Paul's majestic letter to the Romans has impacted generations of readers. Christians regularly turn to it as a foundation for doctrine, evangelism, and Christian living. However, individual verses are often pulled from their context or later doctrinal formulations are imported into the text. Are we truly following Paul's meaning? What if we reread Romans on its own terms, with sensitivity to its flow and structure?Aaron Sherwood's Romans commentary keeps Paul's argument central. As we encounter the letter's message and theology, the forest is never lost for the trees. Reading Romans with rhetorical perception results in illuminating and sometimes surprising conclusions.Encounter afresh this majestic letter with Sherwood's insightful commentary.

INTRODUCTION

I. THE SETTING AND PURPOSE OF THIS VOLUME

This commentary focuses more upon the overall shape and message of Romans and less on smaller details beyond what they say of the larger message. The investigation especially looks at how Paul uses the letter structure to help convey his message. This approach allows Paul to set the theological priorities of Romans, ensuring that modern readers take Paul’s own meaning and theology from his discussion.

St. Paul’s Epistle to the church at Rome is one of the most analyzed documents of the last two millennia. So why yet another commentary on Romans?

This volume aspires to be a commentary that notes the trees but focuses mostly on the forest; the trees are recognized for where they stand in the wider landscape. That is, there are at least two key areas where this commentary tries to overcome the tendencies of its genre. First, it examines the text in a way that more strongly accents Paul’s overall message, relative to the blocks out of which he constructs it. Second, and related, it reflects the relative emphasis that Paul himself places on various motifs or portions of his discussion.

Some modern commentaries take a markedly atomistic approach, which frees up this volume to focus comparatively little on many of the details already proficiently covered. As well, that granular attention issues an invitation to reassemble what all those words, clauses, and sentences say about Paul’s overall message—and reciprocally, how that larger message influences the meaning of those smaller parts. This volume aims at supplementing the efforts of such other commentary interpretations. The examination here gets to emphasize how Paul’s message in relatively self-contained parts of Romans and his overall message in Romans inform one another. Thus, this commentary has the opportunity and luxury of directing much of its energy into articulating what is best referred to as Paul’s “communicative strategy.”

By “communicative strategy” we mean how Paul wrote and shaped Romans in order to tailor both its meaning and the reception of that meaning by his original audience.1 We presume that Paul’s composition is purposeful, competently written (i.e., comprehensible to his original audience), and coherent. We know, then, that Paul crafted each thought unit (or pericope) in Romans and placed it where he did so that it would communicate a certain point, thereby fulfilling its function of contributing to and carrying forward Paul’s overall agenda. Accordingly, this commentary aims at reading Romans with a particular emphasis on how Paul makes his language and all the bits of his letter work together.

The goal here is a commentary where the text of Romans directs the exegetical decisions of the reading. Watching Paul design his message lets the message presented be the one he intends for his original audience to hear. As a consequence, it must be fully conceded that the reading offered here is non-exhaustive. But happily, the approach here should provide a baseline of what is Paul’s message in Romans. Then that baseline can serve as a fixed reference point, which can help to orient the innumerable valuable insights already produced by other (more exhaustive) interpretations and commentaries.2

II. THE ORIENTATION OF THE COMMENTARY

Many commentaries already do an outstanding job at analyzing even the minute details of the text of Romans. So this volume is free to look at the text just enough to piece back together—to analytically interpret—Romans. This leads to a more holistic understanding—an exegetical synthesis—of the meaning of Paul’s message in the letter as a whole, within its original setting. This leads to some surprising discoveries about what Paul does and does not emphasize, particularly given the extensive history of interpretation of Romans.

One priority for this volume is accessibility. This section describes how the chosen layout starts with displaying the big picture and then moves outward in concentric layers toward increasingly detailed evidence supporting that picture. Finally, this section also overviews the shape of Romans, providing context for the rest of the information presented in the introduction.

As mentioned above, modern commentaries have collectively done a perfectly adequate job of communicating Paul’s message in Romans. Various strengths and areas for improvement aside, all are generally successful at giving at least a passable description of the shape and flow of Paul’s message. Likewise, the variety of layouts used show that no single way of presenting analysis of the text is the only correct way of doing so. With sound analysis, nearly any format can work; and rarely if ever is an analysis ruined by format.

As just stated, this commentary emphasizes what the overall structure reveals about the message of Romans. In that sense, the orientation of this commentary pivots on the differing goals of analysis versus synthesis. Most modern commentaries serve students by breaking down what Paul says in Romans into small, comprehensively understood pieces. Generally, such commentaries successfully yield sound presentations of Paul’s meaning in the letter. When the pieces are understood, then in a way, so is the whole that comprises those pieces.

In many ways, interpreters like Dunn, Fitzmyer, Schreiner, Jewett, and many others have already said all that needs saying about many aspects of Paul’s letter. Consequently, the examination in this volume is intentionally selective and non-comprehensive. The focus here tends toward how a given thought unit holds together, on the whole. Some time is given over to the smaller pieces, like a point of syntax or the deep background of a word. But effort is made only to spend time on the minutiae when needed for understanding the structure and meaning of a pericope (and hence Romans as a whole). Select trees will be studied, but just as much as necessary to provide an accurate view of the forest.

As a result, the reading offered in this commentary is admittedly unconventional in certain respects. In many places, the findings coincide with those of more conventional commentaries. Not infrequently, though, those typical “right” answers are here intentionally reached by way of a distinct reasoning process. As well, readers will quickly notice that in this volume, some accounts of Paul’s agenda(s) (and even doctrines) differ from typical interpretive trends.

A. HOW TO USE THIS VOLUME

The organization of this commentary seeks to make the conclusion to each section highly accessible. The first place to look for the findings is this introduction. Then, for a given paragraph or set of paragraphs within the letter, the meat of Paul’s message is summarized first in the introduction to the pertinent literary unit, and then again to start the examination of each of the pertinent paragraphs.

The United States Armed Forces use a memorable phrase when it comes to communications: bottom line up front. The intention in this volume is to use this principle at every step of organization. Briefly put, the best way to access the substance of the reading advanced in this volume is to consult (in this order):

1.This introduction

2.Introductions to the major literary units

3.Introductions to literary sub-units

4.Within the examination of each pericope in the letter, first the “Main idea” sections at the start

5.The “Summary and theological reflection” sections at the end

6.The “Structure” sections (just after discussion of the main idea)

7.The actual commentary on the text, i.e., the investigation and evaluation of the data housed in the “Analysis and interpretation” section of the examination of each pericope in Romans

In general terms, the organization of this volume is typical of commentaries. It begins here with this introduction, and then examines Romans one thought unit at a time.3 In this particular case, though, both this introduction and all of the analysis sections are organized around an interest in most clearly presenting Paul’s overall meaning in the letter. This is only indirectly in view during the examination of individual pericopae. But even then, the analysis still makes the concerted effort in pointing out how that part of Paul’s discourse relates to his message as a whole.

It will do to give here a brief, annotated description of all the stages of examination listed in the above catalogue. First is this introduction. This is the most important section to consult if a reader only has time for a passing glance.

This section takes all the findings of the upcoming commentary and draws them all together into a summary. Effectively, this introduction is a synthesis of the reasoned evaluation of the data to come. It gives an overall explanation of how Paul communicates his message in the letter.4

The next layer consists of the introductions to the letter’s literary units and sub-units. Farther down, this introduction articulates a structural analysis of Romans as a whole (again, synthesized from data examined in the upcoming analysis sections; see “The Structure of Romans,” page 28). Accordingly, the examination of Romans in this volume is parsed into the sections that Paul himself uses in structuring Romans. For instance, Romans 12:1–15:13 is considered its own major literary unit. In the upcoming examination, major units like 12:1–15:13 are first led off by their own introduction and summary (pp. 640–41). And on this example, the major unit comprises the literary sub-units of Romans 12; 13; 14:1–15:6; and 15:7–13. In the below commentary, each of these also has its own summarizing introduction (pp. 641–42, 668–69, 694–95, and 729). So, after this introduction, the next place for a reader to look is the introduction and overview to all the literary units and sub-units in the letter. These summarizing introduc...