romans

Throughout the past two chapters, Paul has been slow building his argument that everyone stands in the same position before God. He started off by talking about the general state of affairs in the world, using traditional stories and tropes (1.18-32). But then moved on to attacking all kinds of religious hypocrisy: those who judge … Continue reading Not Even One: Romans 3.9-20

Last time in this series on Paul’s letter to the Romans, we saw how after laying out a well-known story about how sin works in the world, Paul turned the table on his readers: Anyone who judges others, whether from a sense of moral, theological, or ethnic superiority, stands condemned, because we all end up … Continue reading Paul on Jewish Privilege and Its Limits: Romans 2.25-3.8

In the last post we saw Paul lay out the first piece of his argument that everyone is in the same boat before God and needs salvation. That first piece used common Jewish stories about Gentiles to make the case that those who have never even heard of the Law and the Prophets have no … Continue reading God’s Impartiality: Romans 2.1-24

In Romans 1.16-17 Paul proclaimed the thesis of his letter: That the good triumphal news to which he has unashamedly devoted his life reveals God’s justice in God’s welcoming everyone, both Jew and Gentile, into the Kingdom of Heaven. Today’s text (1.18-32) starts the first big section of the letter’s body, a lengthy argument that … Continue reading No Excuse, or A Story about Outsiders: Romans 1.18-32

Back when I did the series on Ephesians a few years ago, I developed a habit of pausing at the end of big chunks of text and writing a targum on it. A targum, which is a historical genre of Jewish literature, is essentially a translation but also interpretive paraphrase of a biblical text. I … Continue reading A Targum on Romans 1.1-17