Reasons for Paul's Writing of the Epistle to the Romans

Introduction

Before I touch the given text, it is needed to mention generally first the importance of letter to Romans and its introduction. Many Christian thinkers have found that Romans is the key to understand the rest of the Bible. John Calvin called it “an open door to understanding all the treasurers of scripture.” William Tyndale said that it shone “light onto the whole Bible.” J. B. Phillips, in his translation of the New Testament, called it “the Gospel according to Paul.” M. Luther, after seeing the meaning of Rom 1:7, wrote: “The whole of scripture took on a new meaning!” He called it “the chief book of the New Testament and the clearest Gospel, so valuable that a Christian should not only know every word of it by heart, but should take it about with him everyday as the daily bread of his soul.” Scholars have suggested many different answers to the reasons of Paul’s writing to the Romans. For example:
1) Paul hoped that the Roman Christians would help him in the new work which he was planning to do in Spain (Rom 15:24). So he wrote to tell them the Gospel which he preached, in the hope that they would approve and give him the help he needed.
2) Until that time, the center of the Church’s mission had been Antioch, in Syria. Now it was time to extend the Church’s mission to the West, so a new center was needed in the west. Perhaps Paul hoped that Rome might be that center. If so, the Christians there would need to have a good understanding of the Gospel.
3) In those days Rome was the world’s greatest city. If Christians there held the faith strongly, and that same faith was likely to spread throughout the world.
4) Paul wanted to preserve in writing a clear statement of Christian doctrine for the benefit of all Christians. So this is a “handbook of Christian beliefs,” sent to the chief city in the world. (Some scholars think that Paul sent another copy of the same letter to Ephesus, another great city).
5) One of the most likely answers, and one which is particularly helpful when we try to understand Romans 9-16, is Paul wanted to remind the Roman Christians about their unity with one another and with the whole Church of Christ. Perhaps some disagreements had arisen between Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome. Romans 14:10 and 1`6:17 may indicate such disagreement. For this reason Paul showed in this letter:
i. that everyone has the same real need (3:22, 23); ii. that God’s good news is meant for everyone (10:12); iii. that Gentiles and Jews are indebted to one another (11:30, 31); iv. that all Christians need one another’s help (12:2-8);
v. that Christians ought to care for one another in practical ways (13:8-10).
We know very little about the Christians at Rome, and this epistle does not give us much certain information. To know them (Roman Christians) help us to understand the reasons why Paul wrote to the Romans? Scholars have made many different suggestions about the church at Rome. Suggestions are:
a) The first Romans to become Christians were probably Jews who were bap-tized on the Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem (Acts 2:10). When they returned home, they spread the gospel to their Jewish friends.
b) Rome, like Nairobi or Hong Kong today, was visited by many travelers. Some of these were Christians, who brought their new faith with them. This faith quickly spread among the inhabitants of Rome, many of whom were longing for a better way of life.
c) The new faith was the subject of a lot of argument, especially in the Jewish synagogues. Sometimes these arguments became violent. They even led to rioting, so that the emperor Claudius ordered all Jews to leave the city (Acts 18:2). A Roman historian named Suetonius wrote: “Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome because they were causing disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus.” Suetonius know little about the Jews, and even less about Christ, whose name he may just have heard mentioned. He probably wrote “Chrestus” my mistake for “Christus” (which is Latin for Christ).
d) Probably, for some years after that, the only Christians in Rome were Gentiles, i.e., not Jews, but people of other nations. The history and teaching of the Jewish scriptures would have been strange to them, so they developed customs and teachings which were different from those of which Jewish Christians would have approved. For example, they might forget the Jewish background of Jewish life, and the importance of what we now call the Old Testament for the first Christians. They might reject the Jewish Christians’ habit of observing certain rules about their food and about certain days of the year. This did not matter while the Jewish Christians were away from Rome; but after a few years they came back—and then perhaps disagreements and misunderstandings arose between the Gentile Christians and the Jewish minority in the Church. This may have been one of the reasons why Paul wrote this letter.
e) By the time that Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, the Church there was strong. Everybody was talking about how Christianity has spread in the capital city. Another Roman historian, Tacitus, wrote that by the year AD 64 there was a “very great multitude” of Christians in the city. Therefore, Paul may have been eager to introduce himself with this body of Christians.
According to Dr. Alexander Wederburn there are three pairs of factors which are needed to be borne in mind concerning the reasons for writing Romans.
1) Both the epistolary framework of Romans (its beginning and end)
2) Its theological substance in the middle, both Paul’s situation and the Roman Church’s, both the Jewish and the Gentile sections of the Church,
3) Their particular problems.
Regarding Paul’s own circumstances three destinations are obvious purposes and reasons.
He is probably writing from Corinth during those three months which he spent in Greece, just before sailing east. He mentions three places which he is intending to visit. The first is Jerusalem, taking with him the money which the Greek churches have contributed for the poverty-stricken Christians in Judea (15:25ff.). The second is Rome itself. Having been frustrated in his previous attempts to visit the Christians in Rome, he is confident that this time he will be successful. Paul was evidently apprehensive about his forthcoming visit to Jerusalem. So he urged the Roman Christians to join him in his prayer-struggle (15:30), not only for his personal safety, that he might be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, but especially for the success of his mission, that his service might be acceptable to the saints there. Many Jewish Christians regarded him with deep suspicion. Some condemned him for disloyalty to his Jewish heritage, since in his evangelization of Gentiles he championed their freedom from the necessity of circumcision and law-observance. For such Jewish Christians, to accept the offering which Paul was taking to Jerusalem would be tantamount to endorsing his liberal policy. The apostle felt the need of support from Rome’s mixed Jewish-Gentile Christian community; he wrote to them to solicit their prayers. Paul’s immediate destination was Jerusalem, his ultimate destination was Spain. The fact was that his evangelization of the four provinces of Galatia, Asia, Macedonia and Achaia was now completed. But his ambition, which indeed had become his fixed policy, was to evangelize only where Christ was not known. Now, therefore, he put these two things together (the fact and the policy) and concluded that there was no more place for him to work in these regions (15:23). So his sights were set on Spain, to which, so far as he knew, the gospel had not yet penetrated. Surely, he felt the need of fellowship with Roman Christians. Rome was about two thirds of the way from Jerusalem to Spain. He asked therefore if they would assist him on his journey there (15:24), presumably with their encouragement, financial support and prayers. Paul had not visited Rome before, and because most of the Church mem-bers there were not known to him, he saw again the need to establish his apostolic credentials by giving a full account of his gospel. Paul’s writings to Romans not only deal with his personal situation but also with theological convictions. Rome was a mixed community consisting of both Jews and Gentiles, with Gentiles in the majority (1:5f; 13; 11:13), and that there was considerable conflict between these groups. This conflict is not ethnic, but theological (different convictions about the status of God’s covenant and law, and so about salvation). As already mentioned, there are two kinds of Christians in Rome. One group is Jewish Christians as representatives of Judaizing Christianity. Since they regarded Christianity as simply part of Judaism and required to observe the Jewish law. On the one side are Gentile Christians (Dr. Wedderburn refers to them as “supporters of a law-free gospel). The “weak in faith” (Jewish Christians) condemned Paul for not doing (observe) the law. Gentile Christians (the strong in faith) on the other hand, were champions of a law-free gospel—and then there were misunderstandings among them. The Jewish Christians were proud of their favoured status, and the Gentile Christians of their freedom, so that Paul saw the need to humble them both. Out of the above opposite two conceptions Paul wants to give them the real doctrine of Christianity in two paramount themes:
1) The Justification of guilty sinners by God’s grace alone through faith alone, irrespective of either status or works.
2) The people of God are no longer according to descent, circumcision or cul-ture, but according to faith in Jesus, so that all believers are the true children of Abraham. Indeed, the single most important theme of Romans is the equality of Jews and Gentiles.
Perhaps the most important theme which Paul write and why Paul write to the Romans is mentioned in almost every chapter: that the gospel is for all people, and that it abolishes the distinctions between people. It does so because it is not a Jewish idea, but the message of God himself for all nations (1:1, 5; 16:26). All people need this message because all have sinned (3:23) and can be set right with God only by His grace through (3:23) and can be set right with God only by His grace through faith (3:24; 11:32; 3:22). Human beings usually tend to think of themselves as belonging to a special group—a race, a nation, etc. But Paul thought of mankind as a unity (5:12-21). Through His work of reconciliation, Christ restored to mankind unity with God and with one another in God’s new family (5:10, 18; 12:5). Christians have a responsibility to live as members of this family who love and care for each other (12:9-16; 13:8-10; 14:13-21). Therefore Paul made it clear that he was writ-ing to all Christians in Rome (1:7; 16:3-16). Besides the previous reasons, a brief overview of the letter and its argument will shape further light on the intertwining of the related reasons and themes. In 1:1-5 Paul focuses on the person of Jesus Christ, David’s son by descent and powerfully declared God’s Son by the resurrection. In 1:16 he focuses on his work, since the gospel is God’s power for the salvation of everyone who believes, “first for the Jews, then for the Gentiles.” Between these succinct statements of the gospel, Paul seeks to establish a personal relationship with his readers. He is writing to “all in Rome” who are believers, irrespective of their ethnic origin, although he knows that the majority of them are Gentiles. Paul wants to show them how he has been concerning them all that—he thanks God for all of them, he prays for them constantly, he longs to see them, he feels under obligation to preach the gospel in the capital city of the world. Paul has been eager to teach apparently Christians in Rome the real doc-trine of Christian beliefs which has been ambiguous among them. Here he wrote clearly his understandings as follows:
• The Wrath of God (1:18-3:20)
• The Grace of God (3:21-8:39)
• The Plan of God (9 – 11)
• The Will of God (12:1-15:13)
Since Rome was a metropolitan city and commercial center of the time there might have been moral corruptions and religious syncretism. Perhaps Paul might have been eager to send them ethical precepts even though he has never visited them. As he was the first great interpreter of “the mind of Christ” with reference to the ethical problems of early Christianity, the emergence of specific moral problems in the Church at Corinth (which he had faced once) in particular gave him the opportunity to apply to concrete issues. The following theological doctrines to enforce ethical actions are found in his letter to Romans. The first is Christo-centric. The ground of the new life in Christ is oneness with him. He describes this experience as being “in Christ’” an intimate relation of the Christian with his Lord (Rom 16:3, 9). Second, an ethic of Spirit. He shows that the “Christian life becomes a life in the Spirit” (Rom 8; 7:6). Third, the experience of repentance. “Renewing of the mind” is the equivalent of repentance in Paul’s thought (Rom 12:2). Fourth, an ethics of the Church. Gifts of the Spirit are to be used to serve one another and the Church as a whole (Rom 12:5f.). The kingdom is “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” In summary, Paul’s letter to the Romans was written to prepare the way for a visit Paul planned to make to the Church at Rome. His plan was to work among the Christians there for a while and then, with their support, to go on to Spain. He wrote to explain his understanding of the Christian faith and its practical implications for the lives of Christians. His notable explained facts are:
• The holiness and love of God,
• The sinfulness of man,
• The doctrine of justification by faith,
• The purpose of the law of God and
• The power of God’s Spirit in the believer’s life, etc.

Out of reasons why Paul wrote to the Romans his reconciling effort of “the old faith and the new faith” which effects racial preference (discrimination) in Rome appears significantly.

REFERENCE

1. Bowen, Roger, A Guide to Romans: TEF Study Guide 11. London: S. P. C. K., 1975.

2. Barnettee, Henlee H., Introducing Christian Ethics. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1961.

3. Barth, Karl, The Epistle to the Romans. Translated by Edwyn C. Hoskyns. Lon-don: Oxford University Press, 1950.

4. Stott, John R. W., The Message of Roman. England: Intervarsity Presee, 1994.

5. Good News Bible “Today’s English Version.” UBS, 1976.