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Romans

The key to understanding "Romans"


The book I have chosen is "Romans" from the New Testament. Basically this book is about an apostle chosen by God to come to Rome and tell all the Gentiles about Jesus the Christ and morals of Christians. It is said that once God was known by the people of Rome but they didn't glorify and worship to Him so He punished them with sexual impurity and every kind of wickedness: evil, greed, depravity etc.

The book is written by Paul who himself was teaching Gentiles to live in a right way. He wanted to persuade them that they can achieve happiness and joy only through righteousness. Jesus sacrificed himself for us to set us free from sin after what we've became God's slaves. But the gift for our mortal life for God should be eternal life in Christ Jesus, what makes us think: How is it better to live? A short enjoyable life for fun or a little bit of sufferings and abstention and then eternal life with God and full of joy?

The apostle's heart desire and prayer to God is for people to be saved. He wants them to be righteous and say: "Jesus is Lord". No matter whether they are Jews or Gentiles – same Lord is Lord for all who calls on Him. Paul said that he wanted to come earlier to Rome and to make people know about Lord.

While I was reading this book I realized that it was not so easy for all the apostles and prophets to make people not even believe in God but just listen about this "new" religion. So they probably were motivated by something higher than some man's wish or anything like it.

There was another thing in this book that doesn't really seem right to me:
Paul says that God's wish is that people should listen to all the authorities because rebelling against authorities is equal to rebelling against God. But what if the so-called authority is not leading to the right direction? Should all the people just follow him instead of following some other person that leads them to God?

Finally the speech is finished by Paul saying that he has proclaimed the gospel of Christ all the way from Jerusalem to Illynicum. Now he is ready to go to Jerusalem and promises to come back to these people on his way to Spain and see how they glorify God.

There are a couple versions about the authorship of the letter. The most common one is that the body of the letter was written from apostle's dictation by Tertius. But we may infer, from the abruptness of the final doxology, that it was added by Paul himself. It was also obviously written when apostle was about to "go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints"(Romans 15:25-31) approximately early in A.D. 58. The place of writing was either Corinth or Cenchrea because of references to Phoebe of Cenchrea and to Gaius of Corinth.

The other source says that "it is certain that the canonical epistle is not by Paul. A writing that is so called, but on closer examination is seen to be no epistle but rather a compilation, in which, moreover, are embedded pieces that plainly show their origin in a later time, cannot possibly be attributed to the apostle of the Gentiles. As for origin, he was probably a Greek. He thinks in Greek, speaks Greek, and seems to have used no other books than those which he could have consulted in Greek" (Van Manen 124). So we can still argue about the origin of the epistle but we'll probably never know for sure by whom was it written.

Epistle to the Romans is not what it seems to be, not a letter written by the apostle and sent to a definite church; it is a tractate, a book, designed to be read aloud at Christian meetings, a piece to be read in Church , or homily. It is a book written in the form of a letter, not written after the kind of preparation with which we write our books, but compiled rather in a very peculiar manner by use of existing written materials.

Godspeed concluded:
The object of the apostle in writing to church was to explain to them the great doctrines of the gospel. His epistle was a "word in season." Himself deeply impressed with a sense of the value of the doctrines of salvation, he opens up in a clear and connected form the whole system of the gospel in its relation both to Jew and Gentile.(174-76)

It is not the easiest thing in the world to read and understand Bible. I'm sure that a lot of people in the world are having hard times reading it and trying to understand God’s words.

In order to understand "Romans" the reader should realize some things before reading it. First of all he needs to have at least a basic understanding of what is Bible and what is it about. This book is one of the epistles and reader should try to understand the purpose of this letter. To do this he will most likely have to find out who is the author of the book and to whom is it addressed. While reading it seems that the book is definitely written by Paul, but according to secondary sources it is not proven and the author might be somebody else. The book is addressed to Church but if we look at this letter from the other side we can see that it doesn't have much sense as an epistle and it is more likely that the purpose of this book is to be read and studied by Christians in Churches, homes or any other places.

This book differs from most of the other books because it doesn't have much of a story, it's a lot more like a theological essay, where Paul explains the basic gospel, God's plan of salvation and righteousness for all humankind.

In my opinion the basic understanding of the actual gospels stays pretty much the same before and after consulting secondary sources. So the difference in understanding is mostly about the story of how Paul came to talk with Romans, how he left and what he left for people and off course about actual epistle.

In conclusion I should say that there is definitely a difference in understanding a book from Bible before and after consulting secondary sources. And it helps a lot because after reading some critics, dictionaries, and commentaries you find out a lot of new aspects of "Romans" that you just don't notice while you read it.



Works Cited

Easton M.A., Easton's Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, published by Thomas Nelson, 1897
<http://www.bible.org/ebd.asp?id=3153>
Goodspeed, Edgar J. "The Letter to the Romans" Sept. 1937
<http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/goodspeed/ch06.html>
Kenneth Barker NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2002.
Smith, William, Smith's Bible Dictionary, Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal
Library, 1884<http://www.bible.org/smith.asp?id=3673>
Van Manen W.C. "Epistle to the Romans", 1928<http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/
vanrom.htm>

Posted by: Natalie Saturday

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