Sunday Romans: 1:1-7 (Wk3: Dunn, Wright, Fitz, W3)

Today I glance at another set of commentaries. I'll do one more week after this one, since I have several more I haven't glanced at yet (like Stuhlmacher, Barth, Stott). With today's I hit what I consider some of the key original meaning commentaries. As such they may not contribute too much to the Arminian-Calvinist issue.

J. D. G. Dunn (Romans 1-8, Word Biblical)
Dunn has some interesting things to say about what it might mean to be called. The word in a weak form could mean to invite, such as to invite to dinner. A stronger meaning would be to summons, and certainly the call of God is much stronger than an invitation. Dunn goes further to suggest that "the called" in Paul's parlance are "those whose lives had been determined by God's summons" (8).

As to Paul being called as an apostle, Dunn says, "Within that [broader] calling, which is one of the features of all those belonging to Christ, Paul thinks of a calling to a specific task (1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1), though in both cases he takes care to ensure that the idea of a specific calling cannot be separated from the calling of all (1:6-7; 1 Cor. 1:2...)" (8-9).

Dunn has some very interesting thoughts on the phrase "called to be saints" also. He points out how striking it would have been to Jews to call uncircumcised Gentiles as "set apart as holy" in the way sacrificial items were set apart for God.

N. T. Wright (New Interpreter's Bible, Abingdon)
I found Wright's discussion of these verses excellent and relatively clear (which he isn't always). We will discuss some of his thoughts on what the gospel is tomorrow in our coverage of Piper.

Particularly interesting was his discussion of what "according to the flesh" might mean. Wright strongly disagrees that this might mean merely that Jesus was of the seed of David in terms of his humanity. Flesh, Wright argues, always has some negative connotation for Paul.


For our purposes, I am mainly interested in what he does with the language of calling in this section. For 1:2 he takes Paul's calling as a matter of his "conversion." " 'Call' in Paul's writings usually refers, not to the specific vocation of which a Christian may gradually become aware, but to the moment when the gospel message of Jesus first makes its saving impact on him or her" (415). "Here," Wright argues, "Paul's 'conversion' was also his 'vocation' to be the apostle to the nations." In other words, it refers not to some decree before creation but to something God did at a particular point of Paul's life.


In 1:7, Wright takes calling as "called to belong to Jesus Christ" (420). As before, Wright takes this calling in relation to the point in time when the audience was called: "the 'call' was God's powerful word, creating new life--creating, indeed, the response it sought, as a word of love is always capable of doing."


Joseph Fitzmyer (Romans, Anchor Bible)
Fitzmyer has some good thoughts on the name "Paul" in a Roman context, as well as other good thoughts on the "creed" of 1:2-3.

But for our purposes, his most significant thoughts are his understanding of "among whom you too were called to belong to Jesus Christ." Fitzmeyer takes this in terms of the fact that "their vocation is to belong to Christ along with Israel."

Witherington (Paul's Letter to the Romans) also notes that Paul "uses terms formerly used of Israel, namely 'beloved' and 'called,' even of his largely Gentile audience, because he believes that Jew and Gentile united in Christ and in his gospel are the eschatological people of God and stand in continuity with Abraham and OT Israel" (37).

I think Fitzmyer and Witherington are on to something here, namely, that when Paul says the Romans are "called as saints," the most striking thing is that he primarily has Gentiles in mind. These Gentiles are a part of God's holy people just as Jewish believers are. The point is not that they are called and others aren't, but that along with others God has summoned, they are too.