We have the steep confidence that you are Lord of history and you are Lord of lives. So we pray to you appealing to you that you would move hearts to soften and recognize that we are all sinners before the living God. We praise you for the ability to study your word this evening. We pray that you would make the letter to the Romans warm and near to our hearts and that you would challenge ourselves in light of the gospel truth that we would not be endeared by it as much as awakened and overwhelmed with your love and what it cost you to bring us back into a reconciled relationship with you. We pray for this evening and ask you that you would bless and that you would not only bless us but that you would use us as living letters. Round about us where we live and where we work. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well we do have just a few short hours to look at the book of Romans and perhaps the first thing we can do is look at your handout that I gave you and to reflect a little bit on the historical setting of the book of Romans. I do have a handout for you. On page 16 and 17 you see the rough outline of Paul's itinerary Paul's movement and as you remember from last time second Corinthians was written from Macedonia probably or perhaps Philippi in anticipation of Paul's visit to Corinth and as far as I can see Paul's third visit to Corinth he mentioned it himself in chapter 13 and so as he moves to Corinth to deal with that very difficult situation of disharmony, disunity, discord, factions, seeking self he then in that very cradle of conflicts rights to the Romans. So the very arrival in Corinth for a shorter time than the preceding visits in Corinth between 56 and 57 most likely marks the time at which Paul writes to the Romans. So this would be Paul's third visit in Corinth the first one preceding the writing of first Corinthians, the second visit being the sorrowful visit that we can conclude from second Corinthians being a brief trip from Ephesus to Corinth back round trip rather than to make the big Macedonian journey which Paul had originally intended and then we remember from last time that he went up through Trollas Macedonia and then down to Corinth to conclude his journey of soliciting funds from the Macedonians and the Greeks back to Jerusalem but there is a great desire for Paul to go to Rome. So this is at least the rough outline you get the date here AD 57 so that would be an important date for you to remember plus minus always an approximate date for the composition of Romans. Now if we look at the conclusion of Romans it is likely that Phoebe the person mentioned in the introduction to the greetings of Romans actually brings the letter to the Romans it's not absolutely conclusive but I commend to you our sister Phoebe a servant translates the NIV but it's Diaconon and if you do a word analysis of Diaconon it's not necessarily a deaconis Diaconon can be a person that serves in a particular function so you have to be careful not to narrow the word meaning here but it is a significant person who has a particular commission in the church of Krenkiha Harbor plays near Corinth I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and to give her any help she may need from you for she has been a great help to many people including me. So this is most likely the person that brings the letter to the Romans to Rome and Paul composes this letter led by the Spirit of God to the Romans. Now the immediate occasion that immediate situation from which Paul writes is that he desires to visit Rome so as we slowly inch our way towards answering the question why did Paul write Romans which has been a question besetting many an exegyde and theologian we can at least say that he desired to visit Rome he says so in Romans 110 following and he repeats so in Romans 15 22 although you get the impression from the historical setting that Paul desires to go to Spain and use Rome as a stopover but not only as a stopover but also as a time of mutual strengthening mutual encouragement and perhaps to receive some help to move on to Spain. So we can say that in a simple fashion connected with that in some ways is the collection that Paul seeks for the Jerusalem church in Romans and elsewhere Paul states that since we since you Gentiles received such great benefit from the Jews they should receive some physical benefit in their time of need from the Gentiles. So there's this argumentation but really it is a means of expressing the unity in faith. You know that Paul is strongly aware that while there is already a schism, a tension between the Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian factions in cities particularly in Palestine it is a growing concern to him elsewhere and he knows about that problem in Rome as well and I'll get to that in just a minute. So the collection for Jerusalem is somehow intertwined with his desire to go to Rome. The collection is a link between 1st and 2nd Corinthians and Romans and so he seeks to bring the people of God together and that's a major undertaking because certainly the Jewish Christians run the risk of falling back into Judaism see Hebrews and Galatians and the Gentiles run the risk of falling back into their various pagan religions see Corinthians Colossians there are so many strings attached to people's lives and thinking and so these two groups are always being wooed back into their cradles where they came from and you have probably seen Christians that as they became older reverted back into their older patterns they were not able to break loose from that which they were called out of to constitute the people of God to be at his disposal and so these varied groups are called together to be the people of God and that is a supreme challenge and as we have seen in other areas it is a supreme challenge to this day in this city in our churches in our lives in our relationships so we have a huge challenge at hand and we see Paul wrestling with it. Look at the concern that he has in Acts 1921 I'm just briefly giving you a little bit of a setting understanding of where Paul is at what he is pursuing. Acts 1921 states this after all this had happened Paul decided to go to Jerusalem passing through Macedonia and Ohio and then quote from Paul after I have been there he said I must visit Rome also and so there's concern to go to Rome and then Acts 2311 continues that theme in a more theological sense Acts 2311 says the following night the Lord stood near Paul and said take courage as you have testified about me in Jerusalem so you must also testify in Rome anticipation of a witness form that is not necessarily free but that he will have the freedom and opportunity to witness so this is the sense the calling to go to Rome and now turn over to Romans 1523 1523 and I can't read all of it but here Paul says this 8057 in Corinth concluding his or not concluding but continuing his third missionary journey 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 see you in Rome I plan to do so when I go to Spain I help to visit you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there after I have enjoyed your company for a while now however I'm on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the saints there for Macedonia and Haia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem and then comes this reference of spiritual benefit from the Jews and now physical support so this probably is the best way to bring those themes of visiting Rome Acts 1921 and 2311 together with the service to Jerusalem the need to go to Jerusalem first and bring this fruit this first fruit of the Gentile church as a sign of gratitude and the sign of solidarity with the Jewish Christians in Palestine sometimes a gift is a very significant bridge builder if there are the right motives okay let's go back and think why did Paul ride Romans well there are very many divergent views on this and you will be bombarded with different explanations as you read various commentaries I think there are two camps basically that we can distinguish there's the historical camp and there is the dogmatic camp and I'll just call it like that the historical camp and the dogmatic camp now the historical camp says there are clear historical indications why Paul writes to the Romans these are the predominant moments perhaps the exclusive reasons why Paul writes to the Romans and I would say that's a little extreme but I certainly do side with some of the points put forward one of them is just look at the pattern of Paul's letter writing he has just written second Corinthians in anticipation of arriving there of helping that particular church with their particular problems remember the image of a plough that I've used of Paul moving through a particular church and uncovering the stones in the rocks and the problems that persist in that particular situation why would that not apply to Rome well the big argument against it is Paul knew Corinth and he didn't know Rome well that's a little flat and a little superficial because Paul did not know the Colossian church in Colosse either but he had informants he had people that told him that concerns who ministered in particular churches and who would you quote and refer to concerning Rome what would you suggest anybody how could he Paul have heard of Roman been intimately acquainted with the situation now who had just come from Rome recently yes Priscilla and Aquila a very important leadership group and actually in the greetings to the Romans Paul greets Aquila and Priscilla so they must have returned at the time of 52 AD they were with Paul and at this time 57 they're back in Roman I'll explain that historically the possibilities of those movements they were very mature couple they instructed the Paulus when they heard about his zeal for explaining the Old Testament scripture how it speaks of and leads towards and calls for the truth in Christ and so Aquila and Priscilla would have very much informed Paul this is the situation of the church in Rome this is what concerns us these are the problems these are the tensions so the historical explanation that Paul would get on fire for that church and seek to serve that church just like he is seeking to serve the church in Corinth which he knew and the church in Colosse which he did not know first hand really is not a big argument so I think the historical reference to answering objections dealing with problems certainly fit into the basic pattern of the pastoral care of the apostle to the Gentiles called to serve and there is a similar controversy I believe in Rome as we have already detected in the Galatians churches the judaizing phenomenon there's something of that there and I will try to specify that as I go on so there is that aspect I believe the historical reference that goes beyond what I have just explained namely desiring to see the Roman church desiring to meet with them desiring to move beyond them desiring to share with them there's this deeper concern of this is what you need so there's an apostolic ministry to the Romans based on the historical setting and situation those who pursue a dogmatic explanation for the writing of Romans say this we are going on in years at least in terms of Paul's career not that he would have served many decades but 57 he is becoming more and more experienced and here in Corinth he says for heaven sakes we've got to define and clarify the true nature and the full nature of the Christian faith and so he sits down and writes this brilliantly argued well developed step by step presentation of what are the rudimentary elements of the Christian faith and it really doesn't matter who he writes it to the Romans or somebody in Spain that's not really important what is important is what he's setting out this would be a little bit of a caricature of the dogmatic explanation of why Paul writes it really has no historical connection and no historical concern as much as is the general impression I've got to give and God compels him to give to the Christian church wherever they are the full council of God regarding the gospel and beginning from nearly Adam and Eve to explain and describe what the gospel is all about and what it leads to now there's some merit to this because as we will see when we look at the book of Romans the letter to the Romans there's a fascinating and an intriguing clarity of development when you may have a challenge to find out the red thread of the book of James you will not have that in Romans now we may quibble about all kinds of different details of how we arrange and outline the book of Romans but the basic structure is rather clear and rather defined so there's some merit to this dogmatic presentation to this dogmatic view of what Paul is really about well what do you do if you come to a fork in the road well the best thing is to take it so I would say both hand both more of this and some of this there is a historical occasion there is the historical concern what I've said about the historical reasons they figure in into Paul's concern for the Roman church would we gather from the book of Acts but there is certainly that sense of a mature complexive presentation not necessarily systematic presentation but very well developed presentation of the basic concerns of the Christian faith certainly still tailored to the Roman situation so I do see some of those dogmatic elements in it that certainly the historical factors would be more predominant in my understanding as we will see as we go a little closer to Roman you get a free trip to Rome tonight so we're traveling all over the place here for free so here tradition is hopefully being well spent on these free trips I hope you see that there is a problem somehow a problem among Jews over the Christian faith and there's most likely a problem between Jews and Gentiles in Rome as well so there are some of these tensions these differences that we can already assess in other letters some of the problems that we find in Galatians re-arising here most likely there's also a tension between the strong and the weak those who are part of the Roman establishment and those who are not and again the unity of faith is threatened if there's anything in Romans that you gather it is that we're all in the same boat and we have the chance only because of God's mercy to be saved and to live a godly life so we're brought down and we're brought up and regardless of where you come from you're brought down and regardless of where you come from you're brought up bringing down part is really uncomfortable as we will see so I would say there are some problems some challenges that Paul faces and that he addresses and as you will see one of the big challenges interpreters have had is to explain Romans 9 to 11 in the whole scheme of Paul's argument why does he spend 9 10 11 I need to say to chapter by his three chapters on the question of Israel within God's salvation historical plan what is going on here there is a possible explanation here namely that Paul increasingly gets concerned about the fact that wherever he goes there is a problem with Jewish reception of the gospel and there is a real quote-unquote success with gentile reception of the gospel and so it's not a question of why am I so unsuccessful with Jewish people as much as Paul's theological question what is God thinking and doing with his covenant people what is going on here why is it so evident that the spirit of God and the gospel is readily received by those who are not his people and is so unreadily received by those who are called his people what's going on here and Paul is very concerned and perhaps anticipates that concern among the minority of Jews who have become Christians in Rome as well and who have seen great suffering already so I think it figures in to this total understanding of God's plan to deal with that issue carefully in Romans 9 to 11 and we'll get to that in just a little while so this is a very brief sketch of why did Paul write Romans for what purpose there are then to summarize primarily historical concerns and secondarily there are concerns of bringing the total maturity of the Christian gospel and the faith to the Roman Christians what I would like to do now and in your lecture outlines it would be lecture number 22 by the way we're lecture number 22 exactly on time exactly as planned I'm always on time I'm always with a plan so long as I get to move the plan according to my schedule we're at number two Rome in the late 50s in the first century 80 so we're going to go and try to search a little bit what we can find out about the political and the general situation in Rome to see a little more to describe a little more what the historical situation looks like and how Paul addresses the Roman Christians within that situation we will understand a little more about the movements of Aquila and Priscilla we will understand a little more of what is actually concerning the Christian church in Rome and then obviously our purposes that as we understand the historical setting as we understand these circumstance of Romans in that setting that will become transparent of what the message is and that that transparency will speak to us rather readily so the excursion of looking at historical questions the excursion of understanding the message of Romans two that historical setting will pay off the sense that you will understand the reality of that setting and readily be able to apply it to our own situation so it is actually not a shortcut to open scripture and say what it is say to me it's actually a deviation it is the most direct way to get at the message of scripture by going through the pain of understanding the historical setting of understanding what is Paul giving to the Romans and then to ask what does that say to us it's more work but then scripture is a challenge for us to engage exactly in that kind of work let's look a little bit at Rome and obviously we could spend hours there's so much data and information we know a lot more about Rome than we know about Palestine at that time of the first century AD let's begin with Nero so we're looking a little bit at the historical situation when Paul writes to the Romans the emperor Nero is on the throne and Nero is known as quite a vicious emperor I believe AD 54 he begins and I think it goes till 68 somewhere around that it is important to know that the first phase of Nero's Nero till about 59 marks a less vicious less destructive phase in his rule not that he was always at any time good or benevolent that his ruthlessness and his selfishness had not come to fruition with 59 that breaks out and finds his climax initial climax at least in 64 AD and you remember that in 64 AD we have the first major Christian persecution 64 AD 64 in Rome there was a major fire in the circus Maximus and Tacitus who is a careful historian says this fire may have been started by Nero and his handyman Swetonius is quite sure that Nero did so there was this rumor in the city that Nero thought the best way to redesign Rome was to burn it down and use the Alexandrian pattern or some other big city pattern really make a monument for himself that people would say poor Nero Rome most of Rome burned down but look what he did so this would be an enduring memorial to him so that rumor persisted and so he needed some scapegoats and is not perchance that he chose the Christians in 64 AD to use the scapegoats and to burn them on stakes have them eaten by dogs it's the first vicious Roman persecution of Christian Christians although it is localized in Rome in 64 so by this time Nero is certainly a destructive force and some sources imply that both St. Paul and Peter found their martyrdom in this very persecution of Christians but we are going to fire down the road the initial phase here if we say 57 finds Nero still a little less vicious and a little less involved there is a significance in Paul's writings to Roman citizenship not so much that he would draw his safety from that and that he would use it as something to fall back on as much as using it as an analogy as you enjoy rights and protection privilege responsibility and belonging somewhere as a citizen so you understand yourself as a citizen of God so there's more using that as an image rather than as a final port for your soul having forbidden so there is the significance of the Roman empire and is perhaps significant to some that Romans 13 the entire issue of how should we relate to governmental authority into the institutions of authority fall into this phase 57 into this phase of Nero and some argue or question how would Paul have written if Romans would have been written later in the suppressive phase of Nero and obviously there's a huge theme of the individual and the corporate responsibility and submission to the authority of the state Dietrich Bonheuve has wrestled with that very existentially and personally in his life in this big issue I do not believe in the absolute authority of government by the way so you cannot read Romans 13 in an absolute sense you need to respect human and worldly government as an institution of God but still there are limits and points of question that must be asked let's look at a little at some other aspects in Rome so you have this empire that has arisen at least from 64 BC has become a major power the major power in the entire Mediterranean sphere and what you need to imagine with the Roman empire is that they had the know how they had the money they had the blacks the military metal they had the asphalt for the streets but they did not have the culture and so they imported the culture from Greece the thought the philosophy even religious influence came from Greece and was imported so it's very much a shell the lost structures of the Roman Empire very well developed but basically the philosophical internal cultural literary part is borrowed long term from Greece Seneca was an important force in Rome a stoic popular philosopher and it's not perchance that he was inclined towards the stoic philosophical trend you may remember a little bit from our study on acts 17 what the stoic philosophy helped to the aristocracy in Rome but also the general populace so we need to think of a fairly strong stoic influence in Rome as we see the letter addressed to the Roman Christians that is a very big factor now if you look at stoic philosophy at the root and elementary factor it is very much a self governing self discipline type of an approach to life I'm not going to repeat the things that I said about stoic philosophy but everything you know about it needs to kick in here and you need to apply that to what is going on as a major influence in Rome at this time Seneca did speak for the equality of all men even slaves there are some thoughts concerning that we know that in 8061 little bit later to the time that we're looking at there was a popular protest the populace arose when a master had been murdered pedanus secundus and that the slaves were supposed to be murdered and executed the slaves of this murdered man and so the populace rose up and said why do these slaves have to suffer for the murder of their master tuscitus and his unhalls describes this event so there's something moving within of some good nature but at this point Rome is already in decline there are some of these influences stoic influences such as Seneca but a large majority of those who enjoy goods live in luxury indulge in literature pursue the corruption of the legal courts enjoy themselves in the theaters and dabble with philosophy for a entertainment and past time you know that the main rule in the Roman Empire was upon em at stsensis bread and the circuits to translate that into English would be chips and football game so long as you give the people food and distraction you've got them that's but you must take care that you feed your people and that you give them distraction if they give get a paycheck and some sports distraction you've got them it's amazing how modern the Romans were isn't it so that was a general populace and a decay a moral decay internal decay in the Roman Empire at this time already and you can already see where I'm going here with Paul speaking very clearly for a moral brightness in Romans 12 to 15 but not in a stoic way you know that's the important thing that you don't get that into your stoic throat but into the gospel throat how is a godly life possible where does it grow out of you've got to think deeply and begin with the gospel and end with the gospel and not begin with the gospel and end with stoic rectitude and correct conduct so you see this distraction you see the moral decay and I still remember my Latin teacher being moved to tears when he had to tell us about the internal moral decay of the Roman Empire and we were just sitting there chuckling and saying well it serves the Romans right that they went down and our teacher would just get even more infuriated because he thought it was such a great empire and so much wonderful things accomplished and here they lose their strength by internal immorality by internal corruption by compromising their legal system I don't know if I'm telling you too many modern things but the Western world seems to be repeating history doesn't it and there are certainly those who historians who analyze the rise and fall of nations and they see very very troubling parallels between the rise and the fall of the Roman Empire and the the general strength and also weakness of the Western world and so Romans has more to say on that subject even what else can we say about Rome just a few other aspects that may round out sketch not the picture but the sketch you need to imagine Rome as a multi-racial and multi-ethnic city of world stature it is predominantly numerically a world of slaves there are some freed men there some of whom chose to stay with their former masters which does not justify slavery and then Rome is filled with world religions and that is the other thing that we need to say besides Panem and to census you have emperor worship you see the Romans absorb so many peoples and so many religions that they had to find a common denominator for all these if you eradicate religion you strike a very sensitive basic court of human existence Roman not Roman but cubanism has shown that Augustine is right that man is an unchangeable worshipper and if you do not let man worship you will be in deep trouble and the Roman government the Roman leadership understood that and so the entire unifying character for all these various religious involvements and tendencies from the Persian religion to various pagan religions from Asia minor and including Judaism led to one basic common denominator there must be the worship of the emperor entire terminology of curiosity somewhat associated with that I won't say a lot about that here the Jews had an exception to that they were even there was even a specific law that exempted them from particular taxes because they were paying temple taxes this was a special enclave and that perhaps explains the persecution of Jews even before the Christians were persecuted in Rome under Caligula but I'll I'll explain that in a little bit emperor worship was a very simple common denominator to bring the people together and you see emperor worship is no problem at all if there is no moral obligation to the god of Abraham I second Jacob if there's no moral application to a living god it's no big deal to say how we worship you lunatic but if you want to be considered god go right ahead well we'll certainly make do you that favor if you're that conceited and we'll go on with our business I'm sure there were people who just rendered lip service to that but see the Jews could not do that and the Christians after them neither and so then that became a problem if you could not pursue and conform to the emperor worship it was a very simple common denominator I remember President Clinton saying one time that all that matters is you did you conform to the constitution and show up for work in the morning do you remember that I think it was a simple statement like that it's a minimalist understanding it doesn't really matter what you think what your moral standards are what your life is all about if you conform to the constitution and you show up for work that's good enough that was a little bit of that it's a very very minimalist description of what is necessary for a state to function and if you if you questioned the emperor worship you were in deep trouble and so we see already that there is a problem here arising on the horizon now I have mentioned that world religions were involved in Rome and certainly also many Jews settled there after Pompeii took Palestine for Rome after about 63 BC there's a strong influx of Jews of the Jewish population in Rome first they arrive at slaves then some of them are freed men there's establishment of the synagogue sometimes since the time of the Exodus there's this pattern of establishing a Jewish center of reading of learning of teaching and of worship and prayer the synagogue is that center in Rome as well and we have reference to the synagogue of Friedman in Acts 6 10 as one example already Cicero in 59 BC we're going a little back here speaks of the fact that there are many Jews in Rome and around AD 1 thousands of Jews are reported to be living in Rome now with Caligula and his anti-Jewish sentiment after about AD 19 there is a more repressive position and movement going on from the Roman Empire and so you see that there is already a sense of narrowing that independence limiting that independence of the Jewish worship has something to do with emperor worship but it probably has something to do with certain senses yes there's participation in the economic part of life bread but since some of these games were very vicious and suppressive slaves had to give their lives for the fun and entertainment of people it wasn't just a football game people died I believe that there was a sense of hesitancy in the part of Jews to participate in that kind of a life and so they were already isolating themselves and when a group a minority isolates itself and questions or just does not participate in what the group does there's trouble in the land you probably remember how you were treated in school if you did not participate in game A or game B and that's a sociological phenomenon and I think we have that in Rome at least with the time of Caligula now we know that in 80 52 and now we come a little closer to our time 80 52 there was an expulsion of Jews from Rome because there was trouble there was trouble in Rome and Claudius the successor of Caligula the emperor Claudius throws out Jews from Rome now if we take Acts 18 to literally we may get the impression that all of the Jews were thrown out I think it's Acts 18 to I'm not quite sure because there we read there he met a Jew that is Paul met a Jew named Aquila a native of Pontus who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome now if you don't read that in context you may think that that is every single Jew but if you read a little bit about the situation that Srotonius particularly describes there was an uprising there was a tension among Jews inner Jewish problem and when the Roman emperor and the government sees that there's trouble that they don't understand they just try and throw them out what was the tension Srotonius says that there was a tumult at the instigation of a crustace there was a tumult at the instigation of a crustace many scholars believe that this is a mis rendering of Christ and that is a misreading that there was some kind of a leader in this group crustace who instigated that difference it is a more plausible reading that some of these Jews were Christians who confessed Christ is Lord and a Savior and other Jews who did not and that there was a great rift inner Jewish rift in Rome 8052 which led to the expulsion of those trouble making Jews so I would suggest that Acts 182 should not be read in an absolute sense but all those who caused trouble especially those who belonged to this Christos movement were thrown out and some of the leaders Aquila and Priscilla among them those who were involved in that tumult and so there is a growing concern within the Jewish group and certainly within Rome over this Christos movement over those who belong to Christ I think that's about what we need to know about the general situation in Rome the various people living there we're going to move on after the break to study a little bit of who is there in terms of the Christians and then move into the question of how Paul speaks to their Christians in Rome both these Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians great supreme challenge and what a wonderful way that Paul takes to speak to them about the total council of the gospel