Romans: St. Paul owes to Everyone

St. Paul owes to Everyone  

Passage: Rom. 1:13-17

Structure:

a. 1:13a, I intended to come to you

a’. 1:13b, to reap some harvest among you

  b. 1:14, I owe to Greeks and barbarians

    c. 1:15, I am eager to preach the Gospel

    c’. 1:16a, Gospel is the power of salvation

  b’. 1:16b, to Jew first, also to the Greeks

d. Righteousness of God

d’. Righteous shall live by faith   

Important terms:

Harvest (lit. fruit) – might be a misleading term, for it can create a notion of a fundraising campaign. If we would have word “fruit” in place that leads a reader to better understanding of St. Paul’s purpose: “he is thinking primarily about gaining new converts to faith.” (Middendorf, Romans 1-8, p.81).  

Righteousness is a very complicated term in the Bible. Basically, this single word can be “blamed” for the Reformation. The main difficulty for a good understanding is the “attribution” – is it an act/actions of man or of God?

Jews, Gentiles, Greeks and barbarians. It is vital to set this terminology straight – Jews and Greeks (v. 16) is a description of two parties within the Church of the First century in the boundaries of the Roman empire (those who were born into a community of believers and those who converted to faith). Yet, the apostle recognizes that there is a deeper division among the nations, beyond the usage of Greek as their prime official language – Greeks/Roman citizens and barbarians (very not PC term, seriously). Together they would comprise the Gentiles – in Hebrew goyim.        

Commentary:     

The paragraph has a very Pauline beginning – “I don’t want you to be unaware, brothers” (1 Cor. 10:1, 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 1:8; 1 Thes. 4:13).

St. Paul wants to come to Rome and see the members of the church face to face – as we talked in the previous lesson – but was prevented. Prevented by what or who? St. Luke records that the life of the apostle was under a close guideship of the Holy Spirit (Acts 16:6). Is it the same reasoning here? Or he simply had a scheduling conflict? I don’t think it has to be either-or verbiage. He could’ve been busy with ministering to other congregations, another trouble he got himself into, or anything else, while noticing the Holy Spirit is behind these preventive actions.

He wants to preach the Gospel in Rome. There can be two underlining reasons for it. Rome has a congregation, and Paul wants to see his friends and gain more people for salvation. At the same time, seeing the imperial capital as a center of the outreach can help us to appreciate St. Paul’s example of strategic thinking. Out of Rome the power of salvation can outflow to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

The fact that Paul refers to Habakkuk is important. As a [former, we’ll talk about it discussing 5:8] Pharisee, he operates not only in the confinement of Torah (5 Books of Moses) [like a Sadducee would] but uses the Scripture as a whole. Later, he will build up “a case for righteousness” based on Abraham’s example (4:3). Here he introduces himself as a pastor and a theologian with “Pharisean” tool bag.                   

Book of Concord: 

1:16 – AC XXVIII:8-9, On Church Authority, the blessing of salvation can reach us only by the ministry of the Gospel through proclamation of the Word and administering the Sacraments. For it is “the power of God for salvation.”

1:17 – FC, Epitome, III:10, discussing the justification and saved through faith alone in Christ.

Hymnal:

LSB 555 – Salvation unto Us has Come

LSB 586 – Preach You the Word