Preparing to Pray Romans Well – Part Two: Getting to know the author, Paul and his Passion

Who was St. Paul? What motivated him in all of his journeys around the eastern Mediterranean and stirred his desire to go to Rome and then westward to Spain? These questions can help us get a better feel for what motivated Paul to write this letter to the house church communities in Rome, and give us ears to better hear his most impassioned pleas and feel his deepest concerns.

To get to know the author of Romans, we do well to step outside of the letter for a few minutes. While Paul does get autobiographical in some of his letters, he does not have a lot to say about his history in Romans, besides introducing himself as a servant/slave of Jesus who has an obligation to proclaim the good news to Greeks and non-Greeks, gentiles and Jews at the outset and then later to tell a little bit about his previous missionary travels, work to collect charity for the (Jewish) believers in Jerusalem and his hoped for plans to travel to Rome and then on to Spain. So, let’s take a look at the book of Acts where Saul of Tarsus (our Apostle Paul) meets Jesus the Messiah in a blinding, eye-opening moment on the road to Damascus: a story that is rehearsed three times in Acts.

You will see the story narrated first in chapter 9, and then you hear it again in chapter 22 where Paul shares his personal story with an angry mob in Jerusalem (the mob that got him arrested leading to more than four years of imprisonment that included his incarcerated trip to Rome), and then once more in chapter 26 where Paul shares his story again for Roman leadership that lacks clarity in why Paul is in chains in the first place. Each narration is slightly different, but all the important details are the same. I encourage you to read all three of them. And while an in-depth study of these three narratives could result in all sorts of useful insights, I will keep this investigation brief, highlighting the points that seem most relevant to helping us understand what Paul is doing in Romans and then helping us pray with Paul through these inspired words.

First, Saul of Tarsus was a strict Torah-keeping Jew, zealous for the Law and all it meant for the Jewish people in ancient Rome. Much of what that meant was identity marking, keeping the Jewish people from being washed away in the flood of Hellenistic paganism, but it was also hope in the One God of Abraham to fulfill His ancient promises. The zeal for the Law could become hatred for the Roman oppressors, but also violence against other Jews whose relationship to the Law was lax: compromisers of the covenant. This was Paul’s history, “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples (Acts 9:1; cf. 22:3-5, 19-20; 26:4-11).”

Second, Saul of Tarsus met the risen Jesus in a powerful, objective encounter on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus. A light brighter than the sun burst open the sky and a voice spoke to him from the heavens. The details about what Saul’s companions saw or heard vary slightly in the three accounts in Acts, but the gist is unchanged: Saul talked to Jesus and was physically blinded by the light while his companions saw the light but did not understand any message from the dazzling display. This conversation with Jesus led to Saul’s complete 180 regarding who Jesus was and who Jesus’ followers were. They were no longer threats to the integrity of Israel, but the fulfillment of all that Israel (from Moses, to David and the prophets til the present) was meant to be. This reality hit Saul hard and fast, and he began articulating it in synagogues to other Jews within weeks of meeting Jesus (9:4-9, 20; 22:6-11; 26:12-14, 20).

Third, Saul’s blinding meeting with Jesus not only opened his eyes to the reality that Jesus had resurrected from the dead as his disciples had been claiming and truly was the Messiah, King of the world, but also left him with a new mission to be zealous for. It did not come to fruition immediately (9:30; cf. 11:25-26 and Galatians 1:17-24), but Saul eventually became Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles based upon the heavenly vision he received on that desert road. His understanding of the Scriptures was reworked around this call to “proclaim [Jesus’] name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel (9:15),” hence Paul was “obligated to both Greeks and non-Greeks,” and “so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome (Romans 1:14-15)” (cf. Acts 22:14-21; 26:16-19).

Paul’s meeting with Jesus radically changed his personal life, to be sure. It also immediately put him out of a job and probably was disastrous to his family life, at least for a while (cf. Acts 23:12-22). More importantly to our interests in Romans, that meeting with Jesus began a lifelong journey of reconsidering what God’s promises to Abraham and David and through the prophets meant (cf. Genesis 12, 15; 2 Samuel 7; Jeremiah 31; Isaiah 42ff; et al). Paul was called to take the message of the Jewish Messiah to the Gentiles so that they too, might “receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in [Jesus] (Acts 26:18b).” This was radical and it caused no little amount of trouble for Paul, as Jesus promised him from the get-go (Acts 9:16; 22:18; 26:17). The manner in which Paul began to see Jesus in all of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and his interpretation of the Scriptures about the Gentiles in light of the revelation of Jesus was earth-shaking and literally changed history. The fact that God was working through Jesus and now through Paul and his companions to make one people for God out of both Jews and non-Jews was one that many found confusing, distressing and even maddening, but Paul never gave up on that vision. And it is from that zeal for God’s glory through Jesus and passion for a people made up of all peoples living in love that Paul writes to the Romans.

Let’s take a look at four passages from the letter to the Romans that illustrate these insights into Paul’s passions and concerns.

Romans 3:21-26

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

The theological grist in this paragraph is rich, and the history of its interpretations and the debates that have unfolded around it is equally rich, while at times confounding, for its literary and Jewish contexts have often been left behind. However, for our purposes I just want to point out the Jew and Gentile unity that stands behind the purpose and efficacy of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. The Cross of Jesus does not, in Romans, stand alone for individual spiritual actualization, but rather is the point through which God’s eternal plan for Abraham’s call to become the Blessing for all peoples passes (cf. Rom. 4). Paul is passionate for the righteousness of God and the one people of God to be realized as the culmination of God’s redemptive work through the shedding of Jesus’ blood; this sacrifice proves God right in His judgements and in His merciful forbearance.

Romans 15:17-24

Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written:
“Those who were not told about him will see,
    and those who have not heard will understand.”
This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.
But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

I’ve already commented on this passage in the opening entry to this prayerful exploration of Romans, so I’ll make this brief. Here we see Paul’s unrelenting passion to proclaim Jesus as King where he has not yet been proclaimed. His whole life agenda revolves around this passion, which by the way, probably goes a long way to explain the global missionary focus of Reformation churches whose theology is so heavily Pauline. But the other side of this passion is his incarnational purpose. Paul didn’t show up in a new city simply to say some words, as good as they were, but rather to demonstrate the reality of the message he proclaimed. It was what he said and did, and what the Spirit did through him, that won Gentiles to trust in King Jesus. NT Wright helped me see this point more profoundly in his biography of Paul where he shows how Paul engages the Servant Songs of Isaiah to be about himself, which is different than the other New Testament writers who apply these prophetic poems to Jesus the Messiah. It is this radical identification with Jesus (the Servant) that motivates Paul’s life and mission. He wasn’t suffering messianic delusions of grandeur, but giving up his whole self to demonstrate the wonder of Jesus’ life, suffering and resurrection wherever he went (cf. 1 Thess. 1:4-2:12; Gal. 3:1; 1 Cor. 11:1; Phil. 3:17).

Romans 9:1-5 & 11:11-8

I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring!
I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.

Finally, despite Paul’s vocation as ‘the apostle to the Gentiles,’ his heart for his own people, the Jews, only grew more passionate. His longing that the majority of his Jewish contemporaries would turn away from their rejection of Jesus as Messiah is as deep as could be imagined. It’s honestly hard to take Paul seriously, which is probably why he goes to such lengths in chapter 9 to convince his readers/hearers that he’s not exaggerating; who could truly wish that they themselves would be cut off from Christ so that others could know Christ?! Even as Paul faithfully planted churches among the Gentiles, his heart longed that the Jews witnessing their transformation would also come into fellowship with God through Jesus. And, as always, Paul’s desire for Jew and Gentile to be united in Jesus, to respect and love one another, comes through in this passage from chapter 11.

Prayer Exercises

1. Choose one of the three narratives of Paul’s call to Jesus and the Messianic mission to imaginatively meditate upon. Enter into the story as Saul of Tarsus or one of his companions, or even Ananias of Damascus. What do you hear, see, feel? How are you affected? How does Jesus meet you in this meditation?
2. Listen to Paul’s compassion for his fellow Jews in 9:1-5 and ponder how that kind of heart would look on you. Then pray for that kind of compassion from God to fill you.
3. Pray for unity in the churches of Jesus around the world.
4. Pray with Paul that many Jews would recognize Jesus as Messiah and King.

Preparing to Pray Romans Well – Part One

Scripture, Christians believe, carries and is carried along by the breath of God. This inspiration is God’s respiration, the thoughts of God unveiled into the world of hearing and speaking human beings who themselves find their breath to be from God. God’s breath, the brooding wind that hovered over the chaotic primordial waters of Genesis 1, is God’s ruach (Hebrew) or pneuma (Greek); these words are the same words for God’s Spirit who is the living, loving carrier of God’s presence into the world and into the hearts of believers. Scripture is life and conversation, a platform of communion with the Living God who speaks.

All of this means that reading the Bible, for a believer, is not only or even primarily about knowledge acquisition, for we are invited into a love relationship with the living God, not a theology course (as helpful as good and clear theology can be). The Bible is not a list of rules to follow or propositions to believe in order to pass some religious quiz, but is instead primarily a story. The Bible narrates the activities and words of God’s Spirit as He breathes in and through creation and the lives of human beings. The reader of this narrative is invited into the story, invited to continue the story of breathing in God and breathing out praise and thanksgiving, obedience, service and worship. A life lived in communication with Scripture becomes a life that smells like God: a body saturated by God’s respiration, a heart captivated by God’s song, a mind reworked by God’s words. So when we approach Scripture, we are invited into the Narrative, this Song, this Life of togetherness with God, which sounds more and more like what we think of when we say “prayer” than it sounds like just reading or even study. I’m embarking on a journey to meet with God in conversation through St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans, to “pray Romans,” and I’m inviting others into that journey. 

Now that we have moved to a more expansive view of this letter that contains God’s breath than merely mining it for theological nuggets to place on our mental shelves or to fashion into weapons to use in argument with believers and unbelievers who fail to read like we read or believe like we believe, I want to take a step back to admire the forest of Romans before we begin communion with God in the shade of individual trees. Bluntly, I want to take a look at what this letter is all about before beginning the practice of meditatively praying short passages from the letter; I’m actually going to get studious before going mystic.

The present thoughts have been formed in nearly 25 years of reading, memorizing, studying and meditating on Romans, and more recently by some insight from The Bible Project,  N.T. Wright in his biography on Paul and Scot McKnight in his Reading Romans Backwards. These biblical scholars shed much needed light on the why of Romans and the primary aims Paul had in mind when he wrote the missive. This particular epistle is often read differently than Paul’s other letters, except maybe Ephesians, as readers get caught up in the deep theology of chapters 1-5 or the intensely intimate and psychologically penetrating passages in chapters 6-8 or the knot of predestination vs. free will that seems to be so tightly tied up in chapters 9-11. The final section of the book is often seen as a stand alone exhortation to ethical living, rather than the logical conclusion to all the theological work Paul had been doing in the first eleven chapters. This misses much of what Paul was really after and often ends up in fruitless arguments.

My first step in attempting to explore Paul’s reason for writing Romans takes us through the two main points of his practical agenda. Later, I will look into Paul’s personal passion in life with Christ, and then an exploration of the church(es) situation in Rome that Paul wrote to address, and then a quick overview of what he means when he says ‘my gospel.’ All of this will add up to a decent summary of Paul’s theological agenda in the epistle, and from there more fruitful prayer and meditation should be accessible, along with more helpful interpretations and applications.

Paul’s Practical Agenda: Romans 1:7-15; 10:9-15; 15:1-33 and 16:1-3

Romans 16:1-3a

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.

This brief greeting carries more weight than we might usually give it, so it’s worth paying attention to. In this Greco-Roman era there was no postal service, so letters were hand carried by slaves, hired servants or colleagues to their recipients. It was common practice to send a letter like this in the hands of a close associate who would know the letter well and would read the letter aloud to the recipient, in this case the house churches in the city of Rome. In fact, the reader would likely perform the letter, seeking to replicate the author’s tone and special emphases. A letter like Romans would also call for pauses to explain certain passages that would be met by blank stares or questions from the audience. Phoebe seems to be the carrier, so likely the reader/performer/explainer of this deep well of truth and challenge from the Apostle Paul. It is well to remember that the recipients of this letter likely saw Phoebe’s face and heard Phoebe’s voice as she attempted to fully communicate Paul’s heart to them.

Romans 1:7-15

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.

St. Paul was a praying man, and his prayers reached to Rome, even though he had never yet been there and to the Christians there, even though he had never met most of them. But, he didn’t write this letter (longest of all his extant writings) just to let the Roman believers know about his prayers; he also had been longing to visit them and is growing hopeful that the time for that long awaited visit may be near at hand. He wants to strengthen them in their faith and to be encouraged by them in faith. He wants to visit them in order to see more Gentiles in Rome come to recognize Jesus as Lord, because that is his life mission, but not even just that. He tells them more about his reasons for writing and for longing to visit them later in the letter.

Romans 15:17-33 (selected verses 19b-24 quoted below)

So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written:

“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand.”
This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you. But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

Here is the pressing matter pushing Paul to write at this particular time. For numerous reasons, including the success of his preaching and church planting, the regions of modern day Greece, Turkey and Syria are no longer where he believes he needs to be laboring with the Gospel. Instead, he desires to continue his Christ-given mission of proclaiming and promoting Jesus as Lord and Savior to the center of the Empire (where Caesar claimed to be lord and savior) and then beyond, to the west, even Spain where Jesus of Nazareth was not yet known. And, he hopes the churches in Rome will unite around him in prayer now, but also that they will provide some material support for him on his Spanish mission when he arrives. This support would look like money, but probably also personnel to travel with Paul for protection (travel could be dangerous) and to help in the mission as was his practice throughout his travels and labors in the eastern Mediterranean. Paul hints at this “being sent” in 10:9-15.

As he states later in this passage, he hopes to travel to Rome after completing a trip to Jerusalem to deliver a gift of money from the churches throughout Greece (Achaia and Macedonia) to the believers in Jerusalem. This was to be a sign of solidarity between the mostly Gentile churches in Greece and the Jewish mother church in Jerusalem. But, more on Paul’s passion for unifying Jews and Gentiles in the Church in my next entry. 

Extra Info: What Paul doesn’t know is that he will eventually make it to Rome after visiting Jerusalem, but it will be two years later, and he will arrive in chains with a Roman escort as a prisoner of the empire. What we don’t know is exactly where Paul was when he wrote this letter, but the best evidence points to Corinth in 57 AD/CE.

Romans 15:1-16 (selected verses 1-3, 5-7, 15-16 quoted below)

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” 

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God

In these verses Paul reveals an even weightier reason for writing, but one that was, on its own, less time sensitive. So much of the heavy theological work Paul does throughout the letter is to help these small congregations (as we would call them) that were more like families learn to live in unity and love with one another. That unity and love was at risk because of cultural, religious and socio-economic differences. Here a little history is in order, and while this reconstruction of the situation in Rome is, by nature, somewhat speculative, it is highly likely, well regarded in the scholarship and based upon the known facts:

Several years before Paul wrote to Rome, the Emperor Claudius had expelled ‘the Jews’ from Rome over some disturbances that may have been linked to the spread of Jesus’ message in the city and the negative reactions of Jews who rejected the message. Whatever the cause was, Jews, including Jewish Jesus followers, were expelled from the city at their own expense. The Jesus movement in Rome at that time was probably majority Jewish or close to it. When the Jews left, the Gentile Christians were left to develop on their own for at least a couple of years, or maybe as long as a decade or more.

When the Jews were allowed to return to Rome after Cladius’ death, they returned without recompense for the homes and businesses they left behind (economic privation). The Jewish believers would have found the house churches totally dominated by Gentiles. These Gentile Christians would not be wholly free of general Roman disdain for Jewish people and would not likely have been eager to give over leadership to the newly returned Jews. Add to this the fact that many Jewish Christians still held very tightly to the Law (food prohibitions, circumcision and Sabbath being major markers in keeping the Law), while Gentile Christians would have, most often, seen little value in those regulations as they had come into the family of Jesus without previously knowing or obeying them. This Law issue is massive throughout our letter.

This is a very brief sketch of the situation, but it gives a taste of the situation Paul was writing into. I will go into some more depth of how it plays out in the letter in a later installment to this exploration. Suffice it to say that Paul had heard that the Roman believers were not all getting along, were not willing to eat together and were even condemning and shunning one another. This is not the kind of acceptable offering he wants to offer to God, nor is it the kind of church that can really get behind him in his hoped for mission to more Gentiles farther west. Paul wants the believers to live in love through Jesus “so that with one mind and one voice [they] may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and so that he may be sent forward by both Jewish and Gentile Christians – sent from a unified Church to extend that unified Church.

For Prayer Exercise

1. Memorize some or all of Romans 10:9-15
2. Pray for Christian workers you know of who are working to proclaim and promote the Kingship of Jesus into areas that do not yet know him (cf. 15:30)
3. Practice Lectio Divina with 15:1-7

        This is a form of praying with Scripture. A simple introduction can be found here. The four steps are very helpful in drawing one’s heart and mind into God’s presence through the Scriptures. They can be significantly expanded upon from the simple introduction linked above.