Romans 16 -- Paul's letter to Ephesus
Romans 15:14-33 -- situation of Romans
Romans 1:16-17 -- the point of the letter
Romans 1:1-15 -- the letter opening
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1. "So how do you see this letter unfolding?" Tertius asked. "What will your main points be?"
"I see there being two big sections," Paul answered. "In the first part, I want them to hear what I really teach the Gentile churches -- not what the bad rumors about me say I teach."
"What are they saying you teach?" Tertius responded.
"They think I'm telling Jews to stop keeping the Torah. They think I've betrayed God and Scripture."
"But I've heard you say that we're not under law," Tertius said.
"That's the needle we need to thread in this letter," Paul answered. "We are not judged by the Law, but because of the Spirit we keep the Law. Gentiles don't have to keep the specifically Jewish parts of the Law but the Spirit will lead them to keep the heart of the Law through his power."
"You're making my head hurt," Tertius finally said.
"The Lord will help us make it clear. The key point of the first half is that a right standing with God has always been on the basis of faith, not Law. We'll take it all the way back to Abraham to prove it. Even when I was a Pharisee, I was taught this. It is only by God's grace that any of us can be accepted by God. We keep the Law in thankfulness for his gracious forgiveness for our sins."
"So how will that argument unfold," Tertius asked.
Paul thought for a moment. "I'm thinking a three part argument. In the first part, we'll show that no one is accepted by God because of their keeping of the Law. All have sinned. Only God's grace makes acceptance by him possible. And God has administered this grace through the faithful death of Jesus -- even the Jerusalem church is fully on board with these principles."
"Then in the second part we'll directly attack the idea that I am endorsing sin. We'll show that it is only through the Holy Spirit that anyone can keep the Law. And we'll show that it is through Christ that the Spirit gives us this power. We will get back to some of the fundamentals I learned when I was first setting out to be a Pharisee -- the person who loves God and his neighbor has kept the whole Law."
"So what will your third argument be?" Tertius asked.
"In the third part of this first teaching section, I want to address directly the place of Israel in God's plan. This gets to the heart of the tension over my gospel. While Israel has a central place of honor in God's plan, they are still accepted or rejected on the basis of their faith in Christ -- not their keeping of the Law. God's plan is to bring non-Jews into the people of God, and God's in charge. They have no right to reject his plan.
I'm convinced they will eventually come around to Jesus. But for the moment, their resistance is opening up a space for Gentiles to be saved."
"Wow, that sounds like a lot of pages, way more than a typical letter," Tertius said.
"And that's only the first half, the teaching section."
"So, what will the second half be," Tertius asked.
"The application," Paul answered. "Given that we are right with God by faith and then empowered by the Spirit to keep the heart of the Law, what does that look like?"
"And what will you say there?" Tertius followed up.
"The Spirit transforms our whole way of looking at the world," Paul said. "We love our neighbor. We honor others over ourselves. We operate in our communities like the parts of a body working together. We don't rub our freedom in other people's faces, but we act in a way that builds up others."
"Sounds like some lessons the churches here at Corinth could stand to learn," Tertius said.
"Well, yes," Paul said. "I fully plan to read the letter to them too while I'm here."
"You're sly," Tertius said with a grin.
"I also want to put a brief statement in there about submitting to the empire," Paul added.
"Really?" Tertius answered in surprise. "But the Romans are horrible to us. They kicked Priscilla and Aquila out of the city simply for proclaiming the truth."
"I know," Paul answered. "But we want to stay on their good side. We want anyone who is well connected to be able to honestly say that Christians are good, law-abiding citizens. And, if any Roman should read the letter, it will be a reminder of what authorities at least are supposed to do."
"Again," Tertius said, "you are a sly one."
Then he continued. "This is going to be an exciting letter. The message is inspiring, and we haven't hardly even started."
"Shall we begin?" Paul said.
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