WHY?
John Calvin said, “When one gains a knowledge of this Epistle, he has an entrance opened
to him to all the most hidden treasures of Scripture.” Through Romans we
have the “Romans Road” (the most commonly used means of evangelism.) Romans
also contains important doctrines of the church; faith alone, grace alone,
salvation for all, unity within the body of Christ, and many more.
CONTEXT:
The
context of Romans has eluded me for years, but now I truly grasp it. Until
A.D. 49 most if not all churches were lead by Jewish believers. In A.D. 49 the
Roman Emperor Claudius kicked the Jews out of Rome. (THE EDICT OF CLAUDIUS) Jewish Christians, of course, would have
been expelled along with the rest of the Jews. During the five years between
Claudius’s edict (A.D. 49) and his death (A.D. 54) the house churches in Rome would have shifted to gentile leadership.
Paul’s letter to the Romans would have gone into Rome somewhere around A.D. 57,
during the period when Jews were still trickling back into Rome.
PURPOSE:
Like most of Paul’s letters
the purpose of writing was to resolve division within the church. Now understanding the
context, one can make the leap to grasp what the division was. The Greeks did
not want to let the Jews back into the church, let alone into leadership. Paul also had a second purpose for
writing the letter: to gain support for his missionary journey to “Spain.” I
would like to focus on the primary purpose of the letter and rethink how I
understand the Doctrines that come from these chapters.
Over the Following few day’s
I’ll begin walking through chapters and asking the questions that I’ve been
thinking:
Why did paul say
________________
How did both parties under
stand it?
How does this contribute to
re-unification of the Roman church?
