And by justifying, understand no other thing than to be reconciled to God, and to be restored unto his favour, and to have thy sins forgiven thee. And when I say, Christ justifieth us, understand thereby, that Christ only hath redeemed us, bought, and delivered us out of the wrath of God and damnation, and hath with his works only purchased us the mercy, the favour, and grace of God, and the forgiveness of our sins.
Neither drizzle nor dull skies dampened the celebrations on 8 May The First Letter of Peter, addressed to persecuted Christians living in five regions of Asia Minor, exhorts the readers to emulate the suffering Christ in their distress, remembering that after his Passion and death Jesus rose from the dead and is now in glory. They provide an insight into the beliefs and controversies of early Christianity. As part of the canon of the New Testament, they are foundational texts for both Christian theology and ethics.
Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by Paul the Apostle to explain that salvation is offered through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The prominent Greek city was also a hotbed of sexual immorality and idol worship. It was played out before his eyes every day. The letter to the Romans stands as the clearest and most systematic presentation of Christian doctrine in all the Scriptures. Paul began by discussing that which is most easily observable in the world—the sinfulness of all humanity.
All people have been condemned due to our rebellion against God. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. The structure of Romans provides a hint into the importance of the book in our everyday lives.
There are many theories as to why this book may have been written but there is no evidence as to why it was specifically written. I believe that Paul reaches a lot of different ideas in Romans and that he may have written this letter due to the shift in his evangelism ideas. Blog Post 6 Why did Paul write this letter to the Romans? This is kind of a hard question to tackle because there is no exact answer due to the fact there are so many possibilities.
These are good reasons as to why Paul wrote this letter to Christians in Rome however, some suggest that these are not the MAIN reasons why Paul wrote these letters; because there is no proof that Gentiles rejected Jewish Christians nor is there proof that Gentiles rejected the Jewish Mosaic law, respectfully. Therefore, the main reason I think Paul wrote the book of Romans was simply to get the ball rolling in his favor.
Paul sends this letter to Rome so that he can get the support of the Romans whether that be as simple as encouragement, financial support or even prayer he ultimately wants the support prior to his arrival. To me it makes sense that wrote the letter to the Romans to ask for aid, and to establish a connection with them since he has never met them before. It was common for Paul to promote a collection of the Gentile Christian communities to donate it towards their Jewish Christian counterparts.
Paul similarly asks them to do the same. He wants it ready for when he gets there. The point is, Paul sent someone to oversee the collection until he arrived. For the Romans, Paul sent Phoebe, well trained in reading and interpreting this letter, to collect money for his journey to Spain, Rom.
Secondly, I think Paul also wanted to establish a relationship with the churches in Rome. Partly so that he can affirm that the Romans believe and understand the same Gospel he believes, as well as give them time to understand it and develop questions for his arrival so that he may assist in their growth.
It is very interesting how I can read through different books of the Bible that Paul wrote as letters to different cities or churches and recognize pretty quickly who and why he wrote the letters. For example, you can open 1 Corinthians and see that Paul addresses the church of Corinth and as you skim through the first bit of chapter 1 alone, you can see the different issues he is highlighting relating to the church of Corinth.
Chapter 1 of Romans is not laid out as clearly as that. Paul begins his letter to the Roman Christians as he talks about wanting to visit Rome and preach the Gospel there. He then goes on to address some very broad theological topics such as the wrath of God to a sinful humanity, something that does not necessarily seem to be just directed at the Christians living in Rome.
I have some personal thoughts that tie in with some of your suggested reasons as to why Paul wrote Romans. The way I might approach writing an email to my church and the motives may be pretty different than if I was writing a message to a public school board. I know these are very different examples, but the point is that it was a different group of people and so Paul wrote them differently. This manner of addressing the Christians of Rome suggests that they may not be in as much of an established church as the other places Paul writes to.
In this Blog I think it is clear that Paul had written this Book because of the context in the book. Paul was always set out on an assignment to go and spread the gospel to many people. God would lead him to a specific type of group that are miss using the gospel of are idol worshiping and God would send Paul with instructions on how they need to change there lives around for the better. Paul Asked the Romans if he could visit abut he needed somewhere to stay, they let him come and he began to speak and teach the gospel , he Gave them a list or an order to follow.
He starts out with the problem of sin then salvation by grace, the purpose of the law, the work of sanctification, and lastly the practice of the Christian life. God was working through Paul when he went into Rome because it was almost as if he went in there blindly by himself speaking bold about a true God that these Romans didnt know of.
Longenecker argues that Paul wrote to the Romans in order to have some rapport with them before asking them for support in the future Longenecker, Since Paul was planning to go to Spain, he knew he would need their help on that journey, and since he had no connection to this church of believers, he was attempting to establish a relationship with them so they would more readily aid him.
Paul would have wanted to give the believers a strong theological foundation and to help them adjust to the new realities that they were living in.
Previously, I had never spent much time wondering why Paul had written Romans. However, after reading this blog post and the chapter on Romans, it is interesting to think about why Paul wrote Romans. There just appear to be many unclear reasons compared to his other literature as to why the Roman church were needing to be written to. This is a great way to highlight important aspects of the gospel. While this is true, I see that it is also important to understand that Romans by itself does not encompass all aspects of the gospel in detail and therefore should be considered along with the rest of Scripture.
In addition, it does cause me to wonder when I think that Paul was writing to the Roman church without ever having been there or having evangelized to them. And of course, the combining of Jewish Christians with Gentile believers and their differing cultures must not have been an easy transition. How did it feel being a Gentile now believing in a God who has been long worshipped by a different people group and adjusting to their cultural norms?
Like this: Like Loading Gillian Loading A disciple's study. To that we are grateful that the book was written. Pingback: Why does Paul ask so many questions in the book of Romans?
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