Sounds like you put all the blame on the Gentiles. I get the impression that all sides were equally at fault. I do think that the Spanish mission was very central to Paul's plans, since he had finished up his preaching in the East. Rome was of course halfway to Spain from Jerusalem. Going via Rome also gave Paul a good 'excuse' to make an exception to his normal practice of not going where Christ was already named.mikew wrote:I haven't felt like the Spain trip was anything central to the idea of the letter. The main thrust was to remove Gentiles' boasting and promote in them a benevolent heart toward Jews. Gentile believers initially had their experience of salvation through the Jewish believers' synagogues and such Gentile believers got a dose of legalism that soured any interest in the Law (Jewish Law or Law of Moses). So by the time the Jews returned from banishment, the Gentiles had new rules and new doctrines. The Gentiles controlled things and rejected the Jews from fellowship in the main gatherings.
I don't know. I would love to see a summary of all the various commentators and scholars and how they interpret and view Romans. Even if Jewett was wrong on everything else (and I don't know where he 'fits' in), his research in discovering the cultural setting, and his arguments vis a vis the Spanish mission, would still be good in themselves, in my opinion.Jewett in the end does not show the letter to the Romans in a simple light. He doesn't provide a key that makes Romans easy to read and understand.
Yep, I agree. It would have been obvious to them. I don't know how this relates to Jewett - perhaps you could summarise why you think his view isn't simple, or why you think it fails this test? Perhaps he would say that they would have instinctively read it the way he teaches it. I can't comment, because I don't know what sets him apart or how he differs from you.What is critical to understand here is that Paul had to write a letter that could be understood quickly by his audience with the letter read aloud to the group. If the letter were so difficult that it took them ten years to figure it out, that would be too late for Paul's purpose.
Yep, that was one of the insights I really appreciated in Steve's messages (which I'm still half-way through). I'm not sure where you are going with all this - it seems to me that you are arguing against something without really stating what it is, so I'm not really following where you are trying to go, or what points you are trying to make (or why you seem to phrase them as though I didn't hold them myself).When we can see that Paul addressed problems of the Gentile audience and that the transition from Rom 1 into Rom 2:1 was an appeal similar to Nathan's approach to King David (2Sam 12:1-9), the letter can start to be seen as having a very simple flow to it. Our difficulty comes from a detachment from the circumstances of the times and the emotions of the letter.
Well I totally disagree with this one - I take it to have been written to all the house churches in Rome. I don't think there was any general fellowship beyond the various house churches, and this is where some of the cultural setting can help us. Nor do I see things as an either/or - the occasion that Steve gave doesn't exclude that this was within a wider context of a Spanish mission (Jewett holds that there were divisions between the Jews and the Gentiles). I simply wanted to make the observation that many scholars do now see the epistle as occasional. But you are almost suggesting that Paul just half-heartedly suggested he might go to Spain. But if he really did plan to go, this would present huge logistical challenges. The people Paul writes to in chap. 16 are people he was already acquainted with, and therefore his greeting to them was a way of encouraging good-will towards him. He sends Phebe on the delicate mission - someone who has already underwritten Paul's work - and he asks the Romans to help her in whatever business she proposes to them.Even chapter 16 makes sense when we understand the divisions in the Roman Church. The greetings were to those who were not welcomed in the general fellowship. If they were direct audience to the letter, Paul would have given direct greetings. So Paul was giving sort of a practical step to reconcile the Church groups.
