Our reading challenge for the day is Romans 11-16. I’ll hit a few highlights. You make comments too and fill in the gaps. What strikes you as specially significant?
Romans 11 - All Christians are grafted in to Christ. Gentiles in part serve to call Jews to repentance and faith.
Romans 12 - Verse 21 sums up the chapter. “D not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (ESV). This is not our natural inclination but it is God’s nature.
Romans 13 - Orderly societies are governed. We may well object to some of the governance we face. We respond by striving to do good in our society and using the means available to us to live out chapter 12 verse 21.
14.1-15.13 - In all the freedom Jesus as given us, we act for the good of our neighbor. In all this Jesus shows himself to be the one who loved us enough to give his life for us.
15.14-16.27 - Paul tells the Romans of his plans and sends his greetings to them.
Showing posts with label Romans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romans. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Bible Reading Challenge Week 13 Day 3
Our reading challenge for the day is Romans 6-10. I’ll hit a few highlights. You make comments too and fill in the gaps. What strikes you as specially significant?
Romans 6 - Our response to God’s grace is to avoid sin, not to sin more. My observation is that where God’s grace is proclaimed people try to cast out sin. Where God’s Law is seen as our salvation people tend to minimize the seriousness of sin. It seems backwards, but it’s what happens.
Romans 7 - Sin grabs us by the power of the Law, showing us how badly we need repentance and forgiveness. The more aware we are of God’s demands the more we see how great his forgiveness is.
Romans 8 - Here we see that Jesus has removed our condemnation. We stop to wonder at how great this Gospel is.
Romans 9 - Some use Romans 9 to say God chooses some for salvation and some for condemnation. Yet it is speaking of God’s choice of the line of the Messiah. Salvation is always by grace through faith. God has always redeemed all who believe, even though they delayed through unbelief for a time.
Romans 10 - All are saved from sin in the same way - belief on Christ. This is why proclamation of the Gospel is so critical.
Romans 6 - Our response to God’s grace is to avoid sin, not to sin more. My observation is that where God’s grace is proclaimed people try to cast out sin. Where God’s Law is seen as our salvation people tend to minimize the seriousness of sin. It seems backwards, but it’s what happens.
Romans 7 - Sin grabs us by the power of the Law, showing us how badly we need repentance and forgiveness. The more aware we are of God’s demands the more we see how great his forgiveness is.
Romans 8 - Here we see that Jesus has removed our condemnation. We stop to wonder at how great this Gospel is.
Romans 9 - Some use Romans 9 to say God chooses some for salvation and some for condemnation. Yet it is speaking of God’s choice of the line of the Messiah. Salvation is always by grace through faith. God has always redeemed all who believe, even though they delayed through unbelief for a time.
Romans 10 - All are saved from sin in the same way - belief on Christ. This is why proclamation of the Gospel is so critical.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Bible Reading Challenge Week 13 Day 2
Our reading challenge for the day is Romans 1-5. I’ll hit a few highlights. You make comments too and fill in the gaps. What strikes you as specially significant?
Romans 1 - The Gospel is God’s power, revealing God’s righteousness (1:16-17). How often we try to depend on our own obedience rather than on Christ’s righteousness imputed to us by faith! May we rediscover this critical realization of Jesus for us day by day.
Romans 2 - God’s kindness is to lead us to repentance (v. 4). When we strive to live by the Law rather than in repentance and faith we deny all our Lord has done for us.
Romans 3 - God’s love shown in Jesus is siffucient to exclude all our boasting. We dare not trust in ourselves, no matter who we are. Salvation remains by grace through faith. Yet God’s Law has a purpose. How does God’s Law work?
Romans 4 - The Law shows us we need to look to God’s promises as Abraham did.
Romans 5 - Our peace with God is dependent on Jesus and his death for us while we were still sinners. Consider how Jesus is the second Adam, the one who did not fall, and who redeemed all mankind from the curse.
Romans 1 - The Gospel is God’s power, revealing God’s righteousness (1:16-17). How often we try to depend on our own obedience rather than on Christ’s righteousness imputed to us by faith! May we rediscover this critical realization of Jesus for us day by day.
Romans 2 - God’s kindness is to lead us to repentance (v. 4). When we strive to live by the Law rather than in repentance and faith we deny all our Lord has done for us.
Romans 3 - God’s love shown in Jesus is siffucient to exclude all our boasting. We dare not trust in ourselves, no matter who we are. Salvation remains by grace through faith. Yet God’s Law has a purpose. How does God’s Law work?
Romans 4 - The Law shows us we need to look to God’s promises as Abraham did.
Romans 5 - Our peace with God is dependent on Jesus and his death for us while we were still sinners. Consider how Jesus is the second Adam, the one who did not fall, and who redeemed all mankind from the curse.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Delivered by Death
Sermon “Delivered by Death” Romans 5 informed by Numbers 1-22
Lord, open our hearts that we may live to you, receiving of you all your great and precious promises, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Have you ever been downcast? I have. There have been some time in my life when I’ve just wanted to pull the covers over my head and disappear. We’ve all been there. Sometimes we are pretty low. Life seems to be against us and we don’t know quite how to deal with it. Maybe it would help if people would just leave us alone. Or maybe it would help if they wouldn’t abandon us. We want help, but we also want everyone to go away and stop trying to help. After all, those other people don’t understand, do they? Not at all. We’ve been beaten down and we’re discouraged. Life has the upper hand. Most of the time we are able to shake our heads, clear out the cobwebs, and go on with life, realizing God’s gracious hand is there somewhere. But sometimes we can’t do that. And occasionally we’re honest enough to ask the question, the big question, what’s going on? Why are we still here? If this is life, do I really want it to go on forever?
How do we deal with it when the people around us are feeling beaten down? What’s a good response to it? Of course, it’s different for each person, at least a little bit different. Some of the particular details change, but the big picture remains the same. Job’s friends who comforted him actually did something very well. They came to him and sat with him. For a good while they showed that they cared enough to lay aside their own priorities, their own occupations, their own concerns and just be present for him. That’s something I’ve found to be useful many times in ministry. A lot of times the person sitting on the other side of the desk will start talking and end up explaining to himself just what’s troubling him. After a while I can help him look at some of the Scriptures that speak to the underlying issues and we’re done. Someone who has been living as a Christian for a while, reading the Scripture regularly, hearing the Gospel regularly, that person is going to have considerable resources and often just needs a little nudge in the right direction. But what is that right direction?
If you’ve been keeping on top of our Bible reading challenge you’ve read most of Numbers in the past week. And you’ve seen that it is about a lot more than a census of Israel. It’s about God equipping his people to dwell in the land of promise, the place he has given them. And it’s all centered around worship, which in turn is centered around God’s means of grace given for the forgiveness of his people. Our Lord provided the priests and Levites to bring the people face to face with himself. And so his chosen people could come before him he provided means of forgiveness. All who trusted that God would receive their sacrifices saw that the Lord gave them forgiveness and restoration. There’s the right direction, the way we try to guide people. When we are in distress we look to God, and we look to him through the person and work of Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. This is how we have peace with God. And that peace with God is exactly what we need.
So wait a minute. If I’m in distress, what I need is someone to point me to Jesus? Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I won’t say that looking to Jesus will change your immediate circumstances. I wish I could say that, but I can’t. Or if I did I’d be making claims which our Lord doesn’t make. But what did we see in Romans chapter 5? We don’t find ourselves rescued from suffering in that chapter. I know some of you would like that. I know I’d like it, as someone who has dealt with chronic pain for decades. No doubt I’d like Jesus to remove those sufferings. But that isn’t what he’s done. He is doing more than that. He has made peace with God and given us access to God’s mercy. He has reconciled us to God. He has delivered us, not from suffering, not from death, but through suffering, through death.
Jesus himself walks us through those times of suffering that we endure. Now here’s another of those tough biblical counseling situations. I have stopped counting the number of times someone has looked at me and told me that he knows exactly what God was accomplishing by his circumstances. Maybe you know what the Lord is doing in your life right now. I’ll admit it. I don’t know. I may know part of it, but I don’t know all of it, not at all. Just recently I’ve been using an illustration in counseling situations. We’re all familiar with an onion, aren’t we? It has lots of layers. And you can peel off one layer, then there’s another. Peel that one off and you find another layer. It keeps going on and on. And it’s all bundled up together. My understanding of God’s purpose and will in my situation is very limited. I may know some of what he’s doing in me, or maybe in a few people around me. But it will only be partial knowledge. There are other people who are watching. I may not know what they are seeing or what the Lord is doing in their lives. I might find out years from now that the Lord was equipping me for this or that way of ministering to somebody. Or I may never hear about it but someone else has a benefit from the experience I had years ago. It’s like an onion. Our Lord knows every layer. We know a little tiny piece of it.
But here’s what the apostle says God is doing through our suffering. In Romans 5:3 we see that suffering produces perseverance. It is through struggles that we grow. It is through difficulty that we learn to push on and keep working. If everything in life were easy what would we do? How many of us would stand up to a challenge? We’d simply become passive, lazy, and we would give up at the least challenge. But that’s not the kind of world we are in. When challenged we persevere. And our sufferings show us how we will persevere. What does perseverance do? In verse 4 we see that it produces character. We push on, we face our struggles, we don’t give in. And what happens when we make it? It feels pretty good, doesn’t it? I was talking with someone recently who faces a lot of challenges at work. His job involves a lot of deadlines and a lot of variables. The playing field he is on changes all the time, moment to moment, and a large part of his occupation involves adjusting to those changes so as to reach a goal on time. Other people depend on him at various times during the work day. It energizes him. What happens when we work hard and succeed? We develop character. What happens when we don’t have to work hard to succeed? We develop a very different type of character. Our struggles build us up. What does that character produce? Again in verse 4 we see that it produces hope. And our hope is in Christ Jesus, who has faced all the sufferings we will ever face. He has persevered through the life he lived on our behalf. And he has overcome all of the struggles, including the struggle against sin, on our behalf, living a perfect life for us.
This sounds like a nice motivational idea, doesn’t it? And some people would stop right then and there. Jesus lives a perfect life for us and we can folllow him by living our victorious life. But there’s something else, something we don’t dare forget, right there in Romans 5. How does Jesus give us this perfect life? He has a delivery to make. And this is where I start using the word “deliver” in two different ways. We all know what it means to receive a delivery. I find it an exciting time. The big brown truck (sorry, Roger) stops in front of the house, someone gets out, and brings me a box. There’s a delivery. I receive a package. Jesus delivers us his life, his perfection, his grace. And he does it in a package, known as Word and Sacraments. That’s why we rejoice to receive communion today. Jesus delivers forgiveness, life and salvation through his body broken for us and through his blood shed for us. He delivers forgiveness and hope through the spoken word in the Scripture readings, in the sermon, and in the other parts of the liturgy. This is a wonderful delivery. But the other way we can use the word “deliver” means “to rescue.” Jesus delivers us. He rescues us. And he rescues us from death. How does he do that? In Romans 5 verse 8 we read that he delivers us, rescues us, by dying for us. Does he do this because we prepare ourselves? No. Does he do it because we are good people? No. Does he do it because he somehow knew that we would believe so he wants to reward us? No. He died for us while we were still sinners. He delivered us. He rescued us. He gave his life so that his perfect life could be applied to us. And that life is applied to us by faith. By faith we receive God’s grace. By faith we look to our Lord and confess our sins. By faith we look to our Lord as the one who forgives our sins and cleanses us from unrighteousness. By faith we receive that deliverance which he purchased by his death. By faith we receive life and salvation, knowing that Jesus has reconciled us, made us one with God, through his death for us.
Have you been beaten down? Have you realized that what you were depending on was lost, and lost forever? Maybe you have been hurt. Maybe you have been the one hurting others, alienating them. Maybe you see your sin and how it separates you from God. Maybe you aren’t quite sure what you see because you’ve been so hurt and confused. Maybe you are despairing and then wondering how God can forgive you at all because you wonder if he can forgive you. Maybe you have tried to make yourself righteous before God and seen it fail. Or maybe you are realizing that you have depended on your own righteousness. It won’t work. And you know it, and I know it. What has worked? Jesus, who gave himself to reconcile us to God through his own death on our behalf, he is the one who has worked. His forgiveness is sufficient to bring us to life and salvation. Where do we find that life and salvation? We find it as we look to our Lord in faith, confessing that he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We find it as we receive the body and blood of our Lord, given and shed for us. We find it as we call upon our Lord, Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, who has poured out his love into our hearts. Let us call upon the Lord then in faith.
Rise with me to pray. Our Lord Jesus Christ, we confess that we are among the ungodly. We needed you to die for us. And before we were even born, you did just that. As you have delivered your death on our behalf, deliver us from death, through your death and resurrection. Let us see you as the risen Lord, the one in whom we also rise in the last day, to join with you in life everlasting. This we pray in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Lord, open our hearts that we may live to you, receiving of you all your great and precious promises, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Have you ever been downcast? I have. There have been some time in my life when I’ve just wanted to pull the covers over my head and disappear. We’ve all been there. Sometimes we are pretty low. Life seems to be against us and we don’t know quite how to deal with it. Maybe it would help if people would just leave us alone. Or maybe it would help if they wouldn’t abandon us. We want help, but we also want everyone to go away and stop trying to help. After all, those other people don’t understand, do they? Not at all. We’ve been beaten down and we’re discouraged. Life has the upper hand. Most of the time we are able to shake our heads, clear out the cobwebs, and go on with life, realizing God’s gracious hand is there somewhere. But sometimes we can’t do that. And occasionally we’re honest enough to ask the question, the big question, what’s going on? Why are we still here? If this is life, do I really want it to go on forever?
How do we deal with it when the people around us are feeling beaten down? What’s a good response to it? Of course, it’s different for each person, at least a little bit different. Some of the particular details change, but the big picture remains the same. Job’s friends who comforted him actually did something very well. They came to him and sat with him. For a good while they showed that they cared enough to lay aside their own priorities, their own occupations, their own concerns and just be present for him. That’s something I’ve found to be useful many times in ministry. A lot of times the person sitting on the other side of the desk will start talking and end up explaining to himself just what’s troubling him. After a while I can help him look at some of the Scriptures that speak to the underlying issues and we’re done. Someone who has been living as a Christian for a while, reading the Scripture regularly, hearing the Gospel regularly, that person is going to have considerable resources and often just needs a little nudge in the right direction. But what is that right direction?
If you’ve been keeping on top of our Bible reading challenge you’ve read most of Numbers in the past week. And you’ve seen that it is about a lot more than a census of Israel. It’s about God equipping his people to dwell in the land of promise, the place he has given them. And it’s all centered around worship, which in turn is centered around God’s means of grace given for the forgiveness of his people. Our Lord provided the priests and Levites to bring the people face to face with himself. And so his chosen people could come before him he provided means of forgiveness. All who trusted that God would receive their sacrifices saw that the Lord gave them forgiveness and restoration. There’s the right direction, the way we try to guide people. When we are in distress we look to God, and we look to him through the person and work of Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. This is how we have peace with God. And that peace with God is exactly what we need.
So wait a minute. If I’m in distress, what I need is someone to point me to Jesus? Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I won’t say that looking to Jesus will change your immediate circumstances. I wish I could say that, but I can’t. Or if I did I’d be making claims which our Lord doesn’t make. But what did we see in Romans chapter 5? We don’t find ourselves rescued from suffering in that chapter. I know some of you would like that. I know I’d like it, as someone who has dealt with chronic pain for decades. No doubt I’d like Jesus to remove those sufferings. But that isn’t what he’s done. He is doing more than that. He has made peace with God and given us access to God’s mercy. He has reconciled us to God. He has delivered us, not from suffering, not from death, but through suffering, through death.
Jesus himself walks us through those times of suffering that we endure. Now here’s another of those tough biblical counseling situations. I have stopped counting the number of times someone has looked at me and told me that he knows exactly what God was accomplishing by his circumstances. Maybe you know what the Lord is doing in your life right now. I’ll admit it. I don’t know. I may know part of it, but I don’t know all of it, not at all. Just recently I’ve been using an illustration in counseling situations. We’re all familiar with an onion, aren’t we? It has lots of layers. And you can peel off one layer, then there’s another. Peel that one off and you find another layer. It keeps going on and on. And it’s all bundled up together. My understanding of God’s purpose and will in my situation is very limited. I may know some of what he’s doing in me, or maybe in a few people around me. But it will only be partial knowledge. There are other people who are watching. I may not know what they are seeing or what the Lord is doing in their lives. I might find out years from now that the Lord was equipping me for this or that way of ministering to somebody. Or I may never hear about it but someone else has a benefit from the experience I had years ago. It’s like an onion. Our Lord knows every layer. We know a little tiny piece of it.
But here’s what the apostle says God is doing through our suffering. In Romans 5:3 we see that suffering produces perseverance. It is through struggles that we grow. It is through difficulty that we learn to push on and keep working. If everything in life were easy what would we do? How many of us would stand up to a challenge? We’d simply become passive, lazy, and we would give up at the least challenge. But that’s not the kind of world we are in. When challenged we persevere. And our sufferings show us how we will persevere. What does perseverance do? In verse 4 we see that it produces character. We push on, we face our struggles, we don’t give in. And what happens when we make it? It feels pretty good, doesn’t it? I was talking with someone recently who faces a lot of challenges at work. His job involves a lot of deadlines and a lot of variables. The playing field he is on changes all the time, moment to moment, and a large part of his occupation involves adjusting to those changes so as to reach a goal on time. Other people depend on him at various times during the work day. It energizes him. What happens when we work hard and succeed? We develop character. What happens when we don’t have to work hard to succeed? We develop a very different type of character. Our struggles build us up. What does that character produce? Again in verse 4 we see that it produces hope. And our hope is in Christ Jesus, who has faced all the sufferings we will ever face. He has persevered through the life he lived on our behalf. And he has overcome all of the struggles, including the struggle against sin, on our behalf, living a perfect life for us.
This sounds like a nice motivational idea, doesn’t it? And some people would stop right then and there. Jesus lives a perfect life for us and we can folllow him by living our victorious life. But there’s something else, something we don’t dare forget, right there in Romans 5. How does Jesus give us this perfect life? He has a delivery to make. And this is where I start using the word “deliver” in two different ways. We all know what it means to receive a delivery. I find it an exciting time. The big brown truck (sorry, Roger) stops in front of the house, someone gets out, and brings me a box. There’s a delivery. I receive a package. Jesus delivers us his life, his perfection, his grace. And he does it in a package, known as Word and Sacraments. That’s why we rejoice to receive communion today. Jesus delivers forgiveness, life and salvation through his body broken for us and through his blood shed for us. He delivers forgiveness and hope through the spoken word in the Scripture readings, in the sermon, and in the other parts of the liturgy. This is a wonderful delivery. But the other way we can use the word “deliver” means “to rescue.” Jesus delivers us. He rescues us. And he rescues us from death. How does he do that? In Romans 5 verse 8 we read that he delivers us, rescues us, by dying for us. Does he do this because we prepare ourselves? No. Does he do it because we are good people? No. Does he do it because he somehow knew that we would believe so he wants to reward us? No. He died for us while we were still sinners. He delivered us. He rescued us. He gave his life so that his perfect life could be applied to us. And that life is applied to us by faith. By faith we receive God’s grace. By faith we look to our Lord and confess our sins. By faith we look to our Lord as the one who forgives our sins and cleanses us from unrighteousness. By faith we receive that deliverance which he purchased by his death. By faith we receive life and salvation, knowing that Jesus has reconciled us, made us one with God, through his death for us.
Have you been beaten down? Have you realized that what you were depending on was lost, and lost forever? Maybe you have been hurt. Maybe you have been the one hurting others, alienating them. Maybe you see your sin and how it separates you from God. Maybe you aren’t quite sure what you see because you’ve been so hurt and confused. Maybe you are despairing and then wondering how God can forgive you at all because you wonder if he can forgive you. Maybe you have tried to make yourself righteous before God and seen it fail. Or maybe you are realizing that you have depended on your own righteousness. It won’t work. And you know it, and I know it. What has worked? Jesus, who gave himself to reconcile us to God through his own death on our behalf, he is the one who has worked. His forgiveness is sufficient to bring us to life and salvation. Where do we find that life and salvation? We find it as we look to our Lord in faith, confessing that he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We find it as we receive the body and blood of our Lord, given and shed for us. We find it as we call upon our Lord, Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, who has poured out his love into our hearts. Let us call upon the Lord then in faith.
Rise with me to pray. Our Lord Jesus Christ, we confess that we are among the ungodly. We needed you to die for us. And before we were even born, you did just that. As you have delivered your death on our behalf, deliver us from death, through your death and resurrection. Let us see you as the risen Lord, the one in whom we also rise in the last day, to join with you in life everlasting. This we pray in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Romans
"Romans" Carson & Moo pp. 391-414
p. 391 "Romans is the longest and most theologically significant of the letters of Paul, 'the very purest gospel' (Luther). The letter takes the form of a theological treatise framed by an epistolary opening and closing. The opening contains the usual prescript and thanksgiving and is concluded with a transitional statement of the theme of the letter: the gospel as the revelation of God's righteousness, a righteousness that can be experienced only by faith."
On pp. 391-392 Carson and Moo outline the body of the book in four parts: "The gospel as the righteousness of God by faith (1:18-4:25). . . The gospel as the power of God for salvation (5:1-8:39) . . . The gospel and Israel (9:1-11:36) . . . The gospel and the transformation of life (12:1-15:13)."
Romans claims Pauline authorship, a claim which is not seriously disputed. Dating is a bit more complicated. Paul discusses the fact that he is going to Jerusalem and that he wishes to go to Rome on his way to Spain. Carson and Moo consider that the most likely place of authorship was Corinth, from where Paul may well have gone toward Jerusalem about 57.
The situation of the church at Rome is also possibly problematic. Carson and Moo do not think that Peter is likely to have founded a church in Rome prior to the time Paul would have written Romans. They also do not think it likely that Paul would make a visit such as he describes in Romans 1:8-15 to a church founded by another apostle. Rather, they suggest that the church in Rome was founded by Jews who had been present in Jerusalem at Pentecost.
Carson and Moo discuss the text of Romans on pp. 398-401. There are some suggestions of interpolations and redactions, mostly spurred on by the doxology found in 16:25-27, which "is omitted in some manuscripts and appears at different places in others" (p. 399). Carson and Moo consider that the text has always had all sixteen chapters and that it is simply slightly uncharacteristic of Paul's letters, but not necessarily inauthentic.
As to the genre of Romans, it is more like a treatise of doctrine than a personal or typical epistolary letter. The purpose is clearly to lay out doctrines in detail. Numerous possible purposes for composition have been put forward. There are few statements about the purpose of the letter, though it is clear that Paul is intending to introduce his plan to visit. We may find it more fruitful to look at multiple reasons for writing, based on the different types of information contained in the letter.
The theme of Romans has likewise shifted in scholarly opinion. Interestingly enough, Carson and Moo trace the locus of the theme moving from near the beginning, with the Reformational focus on justification by faith, to the union of Christ and the Church in chapters 6-8, to salvation history in 9-11, and to exhortations to unity in 14-15. Currently all four positions are alive.
In summary, the book seems to have undergone lively and varied scholarly discussion. It is a lively and varied book which lends itself well to such research and commentary.
p. 391 "Romans is the longest and most theologically significant of the letters of Paul, 'the very purest gospel' (Luther). The letter takes the form of a theological treatise framed by an epistolary opening and closing. The opening contains the usual prescript and thanksgiving and is concluded with a transitional statement of the theme of the letter: the gospel as the revelation of God's righteousness, a righteousness that can be experienced only by faith."
On pp. 391-392 Carson and Moo outline the body of the book in four parts: "The gospel as the righteousness of God by faith (1:18-4:25). . . The gospel as the power of God for salvation (5:1-8:39) . . . The gospel and Israel (9:1-11:36) . . . The gospel and the transformation of life (12:1-15:13)."
Romans claims Pauline authorship, a claim which is not seriously disputed. Dating is a bit more complicated. Paul discusses the fact that he is going to Jerusalem and that he wishes to go to Rome on his way to Spain. Carson and Moo consider that the most likely place of authorship was Corinth, from where Paul may well have gone toward Jerusalem about 57.
The situation of the church at Rome is also possibly problematic. Carson and Moo do not think that Peter is likely to have founded a church in Rome prior to the time Paul would have written Romans. They also do not think it likely that Paul would make a visit such as he describes in Romans 1:8-15 to a church founded by another apostle. Rather, they suggest that the church in Rome was founded by Jews who had been present in Jerusalem at Pentecost.
Carson and Moo discuss the text of Romans on pp. 398-401. There are some suggestions of interpolations and redactions, mostly spurred on by the doxology found in 16:25-27, which "is omitted in some manuscripts and appears at different places in others" (p. 399). Carson and Moo consider that the text has always had all sixteen chapters and that it is simply slightly uncharacteristic of Paul's letters, but not necessarily inauthentic.
As to the genre of Romans, it is more like a treatise of doctrine than a personal or typical epistolary letter. The purpose is clearly to lay out doctrines in detail. Numerous possible purposes for composition have been put forward. There are few statements about the purpose of the letter, though it is clear that Paul is intending to introduce his plan to visit. We may find it more fruitful to look at multiple reasons for writing, based on the different types of information contained in the letter.
The theme of Romans has likewise shifted in scholarly opinion. Interestingly enough, Carson and Moo trace the locus of the theme moving from near the beginning, with the Reformational focus on justification by faith, to the union of Christ and the Church in chapters 6-8, to salvation history in 9-11, and to exhortations to unity in 14-15. Currently all four positions are alive.
In summary, the book seems to have undergone lively and varied scholarly discussion. It is a lively and varied book which lends itself well to such research and commentary.
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