ROMANS: Blended Family

The next epistle we’ll turn our attention to is Paul’s letter to the Romans. As usual, I’d like to start with some context. As we mentioned before, the debate about when to date all of these books is always a lively one, so I’ll try to keep my historical ties relatively loose. As referenced in Acts 18, the emperor Claudius has issued an edict (somewhere around AD 51) that expelled all the Jews from Rome. What seems clear by the writing of the New Testament is that there was a significant and substantial community of believers in Rome from a very early date (likely following the story of Pentecost).

As we have seen throughout our study in Acts and Galatians, the safe assumption is to say this is primarily a Jewish community with Gentile believers included in the family. The edict of Claudius changes the physical demographic of the church in Rome. The church goes from being a large, vibrant Jewish community to being a community of new Gentile believers. Not only would the demographic makeup of the church change severely, but the leadership and spiritual direction of this body would have struggled, as well. Having lost the Text (the role of the Jewish believers) and their teaching of the narrative of God, these Gentile believers would have struggled.

Struggle as they might, they would have also survived. Later, however, when the political climate changes and this Jewish population returns home, we have an interesting situation within the church in Rome. Who is in charge? How do we reestablish a relational understanding of spiritual direction and mentorship? After years of figuring out how to “make it on their own,” I’m sure the Gentile believers are far from excited about simply letting everyone back in and submitting to the leadership of the Jewish believers.

With this is mind, we are ready to turn our sights to the letter of Romans. Paul is writing to a church that finds itself splintered and fractured between two dominant groups (Jew and Gentile). For the Jewish believers, they have already had to struggle through a new theological understanding of “sonship” regarding who are children in God’s family. This new tension in Rome is not going to help that learning curve, but challenge it. The Gentiles have found a new sense of confidence and an identity on their own, outside of the narrative of the Jewish people. Both of these things will present the challenges Paul attempts to address. 

But before Paul gets down to business, he has to address a church he is deeply in love with. Paul has always had a fascination with Rome.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Paul has longed to spend time with the Romans and laments writing a letter without having met so many of them. He talks about his time spent with the Gentiles and his calling to the people of Asia and Asia Minor (to the Greeks and to the “barbarians” — those tribal people in regions like Galatia).

Paul then turns his attention to the climate to which he writes and begins to hint at the things to come in his letter:

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. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Paul is anxious to put the power of the gospel to work in the setting of the conflict in the Roman church — to unite “everyone who believes.” This “everyone who believes” business would certainly be a reminder to those Jews listening about God’s plan to be a blessing to all nations and give them full membership in God’s household. However, to those overly-confident Gentiles he also reminds them whose story it is, as this gospel and its power is “first to the Jew and also to the Greek.”

Paul reminds us it is only when this diverse body is held together that we see the righteousness and goodness and graciousness of God revealed. It is by faith in these promises that such a reality is realized; it is by seeing this faith that others are inspired to their own faith and faithfulness.

Because to every age and every situation — to every point in history — there is a challenge and an invitation to trust the story.