Level Up – The Epistles
Summer 2024
Romans
◼ Introduction – NIV Study Bible
o Author – Paul (Romans 1:1)
▪ No voice from the early church argued for any other author.
▪ Historical references in Romans agree with known facts about Paul’s life.
▪ The doctrinal content is typical of Paul and his other letters.
o Date and Place of Writing
▪ Date – A.D. 57
▪ Place of Writing – Either Corinth or Cenchrea
o Recipients
▪ The people at the church in Rome. This is a church that Paul did not start, which explains his heart for explaining the gospel more fully since he has not taught them before.
▪ The church would have been predominantly Gentile. The Jews in Rome would have been expelled under the reign of Claudius (A.D. 41-54) but by this time would have been making their way back to Rome.
o Purpose – Why did Paul write this letter?
▪ To prepare the way for his coming visit to Rome and his proposed mission to Spain.
▪ To present the plan of salvation to a church that had not received the teachings of an apostle before. In Romans, Paul details his fullest explanation of the gospel in all his letters.
▪ To explain the difference between Jew and Gentile in God’s overall plan of redemption.
o Note as you read Romans: Paul often uses a form of rhetoric called a diatribe. It is an imagined debate using questions and answers. Romans 6:1-4 is an excellent example. Noting this helps you to understand the flow of Paul’s thinking.
◼ The Bible Project – highlights
o When the Jews returned five years after Roman Emperor Claudius expelled them, they found a church that had become very non-Jewish in custom and practice. This created tension and division about how to follow Jesus.
▪ Should they celebrate the Sabbath and holy days?
▪ Should they eat kosher?
▪ Should they be circumcised?
o Paul wanted this divided church to become unified and become a staging ground for his mission to go even further west all the way to Spain.
o Part 1 of the story (Romans 1-4) reveals God's righteousness and creates a new united humanity which fulfills God's promise to Israel.
▪ All humanity is hopelessly trapped in sin and needs to be rescued (Romans 3:23-24).
▪ That rescue however is not going to happen by people trying to obey the laws of the Torah (Romans 4:13).
▪ Rather God's righteous character has moved him to rescue the world through Jesus' death and resurrection (Romans 4:25).
▪ God would create a multi-ethnic family of Abraham based on faith as His own new covenant people. This new family is a part of something much bigger that showed a whole new way of life together (Romans 4:16).
o Part 2 of the story (Romans 5-8) shows how this reality should reshape every part of our existence.
▪ Paul contrasts Adam with Jesus (the new Adam). Jesus is the head of a new humanity (Romans 5:18-19).
▪ Their baptism was a sacred moment of that transition. Their old humanity died with Jesus and their new humanity was raised with Him from the dead (Romans 6:4).
▪ So if creating this new humanity was always God's purpose, what was the point of God giving Israel the Law? What was the purpose of all those commands? Paul says that the commands of the Torah were good, but Israel broke them all. God gave His people specific moral rules to obey, but that did not fix the problem of the sinful human heart (Romans 7:21-24).
▪ The solution has arrived in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Jesus paid for and dealt with sin through His death and His resurrection (Romans 8:1).
▪ And now Jesus has released His Spirit into His new family to transform our hearts so that they can truly fulfill the call of all the Torah's commands to love God and neighbor (Romans 8:5-6).
o Part 3 of the story (Romans 9-11) answer the question: If all of this was God's purpose, what is the current status of Paul's fellow Israelites who don't acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah? How does this story fulfill God's promises to them?
▪ Paul reflects on Israel from the Old Testament story, reminding us that simply being an ethnic Israelite, a physical descendant of
Abraham, never made one automatically a faithful member of the Covenant family (Romans 9:6-8).
▪ He reintroduces the idea of the remnant, a subset from Abraham's family who God chose to carry on the line of promise, now by those who follow Jesus (Romans 10:16-17).
▪ Paul turns his focus to Israel in the present; the reason many Israelites reject Jesus is because they're basing their covenant relationship with God on their performance of the commands in the Torah. They don't recognize what God has done through Jesus to create a new covenant family on the basis of faith (Romans 10:1-4).
▪ So what is Israel's future? Has God written off His people? No, he says. There are tons of Jewish people, including himself, who do recognize Jesus as their Messiah but there are also a lot who don't. But God has been able to use their rejection for His own purposes. It caused the gospel to spread even quicker and farther into the Gentile world making the family of Abraham even larger and more multi-ethnic (Romans 11:11-12).
▪ Paul describes God's covenant family as a big olive tree and the rejecters of Jesus have been broken off. Gentiles are like wild branches that have been grafted into the family tree that could also be broken off for unbelief (Romans 11:17-21).
▪ One day Jesus will be acknowledged by His own people. Paul simply trust God's promise that he won't give up on His covenant people (Romans 11:32).
o Part 4 of the story (Romans 12-16) reinforces the idea that because of their faith in Jesus, Jews and Gentiles are now together in Abraham's family that is being transformed by God's Spirit. Therefore the only reasonable response is for these Jews and non-Jewish Christians to be unified as the church.
▪ This unity will come from a commitment to love and forgive each other. Love will look like everybody using their diverse gifts and talents to serve one another in the church (Romans 12:3-5).
▪ This unity will also mean humility and forgiveness. When these different ethnic groups and cultures come together in Jesus, conflict is inevitable. And it can only be overcome through the hard work of forgiveness and reconciliation (Romans 12:18).
▪ Paul focuses specifically on the issues that are creating ethnic divisions in the Roman Church – disputes about Jewish food laws and the Sabbath. Paul reminds us that these practices don't define who is in or out of Jesus' family. They need to learn how to respect
each other's differences. And it's in this way that love will heal and unify Jesus' family (Romans 14:19).
▪ Romans 15:13 – May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
▪ Paul closes the letter by first commending Phoebe, who's a key leader in the church of Cenchrea. She had the honor of carrying and perhaps even reading this letter aloud to the Roman churches for the first time (Romans 16:1-2).
▪ Paul then concludes by greeting all the people that he hasn't seen for a long time.
◼ Key texts in Romans
o Romans 1:16 - For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.
o Romans 1:20 - For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
o Romans 3:23-24 – There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
o Romans 5:8 - But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
o Romans 6:4 – We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
o Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
o Romans 10:9-10 - If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
o Romans 12:1-2 – Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
(Romans 12:1-8)
◼ Grasping the text in their town. Read and observe.
o Is this text a story? A poem? A teaching? A prophecy? What is the author’s objective in writing this?
o What are words and phrases that catch your attention? Are there terms that warrant further study with a concordance or Bible dictionary?
o Write out what it means to the Biblical audience in one-two sentences.
What this text meant to the Biblical audience:
◼ Measuring the width of the river to cross. Determine differences between the Biblical audience and the modern reader.
o The notes above might help you.
o What is the context? What is happening right before and after this passage? How does these two verses fit into the overall theme of the book?
What are some differences between the Biblical audience and the reader?
◼ Crossing the principlizing bridge. Determine similarities between the situation of the biblical audience and our situation.
o This is where step 1 can really help. Knowing what the text meant to its original audience will go a long way to helping you to determine what we need to hear today.
o Important reminders:
▪ The principle must be congruent with the rest of Scripture.
▪ The principle must be reflected in the text.
▪ The principle must be timeless (relevant to the Biblical and current audience).
o Write out the principle in one-two sentences.
What is the theological principle of the text?
◼ Grasping the text in our town. How does this principle apply to real-life situations today?
o While there is typically only one (perhaps more) theological principles, there are multiple applications dependent on our current life situation and where we (or our audience) are with God.
How does this theological principle apply today?