After his instructions on community life, Paul wraps up the paraenetic section of his letter to the assemblies of Rome by connecting the unity of Jewish and Gentile Christ-followers, which has been one of the letter’s major themes, with his hoped-for mission to Spain.
Text
[Today I’ll provide a summary of this text, which contains a lot of Bible quotes and little of interest from a translation perspective. So please consult your preferred translation for the full text
Paul repeats the commandment to welcome one another, grounding it in Christ’s welcome of the faithful. Christ came to the Jews in fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham that his descendants would bless the world, a promise that echoed throughout the Scriptures, as Paul shows in a series of proof texts.
Paul expresses his confidence in his readers’ ability to live out the message of this letter, which he has written in bold terms by virtue of his calling to be the apostle to the Gentiles. By virtue of this same calling, he longs to see the gospel proclaimed around the known world. Because of this he plans on a missionary journey to Spain. It’s on this journey he expects to visit Rome and hopes to visit with them. But first he must return to Jerusalem to pass on the offering collected in Greece for the impoverished Judean Christians, which they gave generously as a wonderful sign of just the kind of solidarity among the faithful Paul has been writing about. He then asks for their prayers for his safety on this journey, since he has made many enemies in Judea.
Paul then commends by name both members of his community in Corinth, from which he writes, and of the Roman assemblies to which he writes. Interspersed within this are some final instructions, which summarize the paraenesis. Paul concludes the letter with a final doxology, praising God in terms that summarize many of the letter’s themes: God strengthens the faithful in alignment with the gospel of Jesus Christ, which has been long hidden, disclosed only in shadow in the prophets, but now proclaimed openly for the whole world, to bring everyone into faithful obedience.
Experience & Encounter
I’m obviously doing a disservice to these texts by tackling them all at once. But I think it’s fair to do so, since amidst his scattered plans, prayers, and personal commendations, Paul in effect summarizes the letter as a whole:
- 15.7-13 summarizes both 1.18-8.39 (God’s actions to bring Jew and Gentile alike into a justice/righteousness grounded in faithfulness) and 9-11 (God’s blessing of Gentiles through the Jewish people and tradition)
- 15.5-21 hearken back to Paul’s introduction in 1.1-4
- 15.22-32 returns to Paul’s desire to visit Rome and his prayer for them in 1.8-15
- 16.17-20 summarizes the paraenesis, with its exhortations to unity, attitudes of service rather than gratification, and faithful obedience.
Explore
The section is the peroratio, the conclusion of the letter, in which we would expect a summary of the text’s themes and an exchange of greetings (Witherington 351f). This is exactly what we see here. But, as Witherington notes, there is one thing missing from this summary: it does not revisit the thesis statement of 1.16-17. There isn’t much to say about this other than that it’s unexpected.
Because of the summary nature of the passage, I didn’t find much to ‘explore’ here. Likewise, the commentators who have been my dialogue partners and guides in this series, aren’t exactly quiet on these texts, but don’t offer much that hasn’t already been covered.
What is new content is the list of individuals Paul names. For how this list informs how we interpret the book, see my earlier post on the identity of Paul’s Roman audience.
Challenge & Expand
Again, as a summary, there isn’t much new here. But it’s interesting to me that so much is grounded in empathy and reciprocity — two ideals which have never been more prominent in Western discourse nor more attacked than they are today. But it’s all over this passage: Our welcome of one another is grounded in Christ’s welcoming of us. The Romans are to see their receiving the gospel from the Jews as an example for taking on a role in sending Paul to preach the gospel in Spain. The Greeks saw their receipt of spiritual blessing from Judeans as a motivation to give back to them in their time of need. The point here, and throughout Romans, is clear: We’re all in this together.
Summary & Conclusions
In the conclusion to his letter to the Romans, Paul summarizes the book’s major themes and calls to action, while planting seeds for his planned missionary journey to Spain.
* For full references, please see the series bibliography.
Matthew Root 