©Michael Player
Chapter 1:1-7 (ESV) - Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Question to consider: Why does Paul stress that Christ sent the apostles to bring faith to all of the nations?
While in Corinth, the apostle Paul had a side business building tents so he wouldn’t be accused of profiting off of the Gospel. Working with him was a man named Aquila and his wife, Priscilla, a couple who had originally been at the church in Rome and ended up planting the church in Corinth after the Jews were expelled from Rome by emperor Claudius around AD 49.
The Roman church survived this period with the Gentile Christians, but when the exile was lifted, and Jewish Christians returned, there began to be leadership disputes between the two groups in the church. Paul had not been to the church at Rome, but he heard news of the philosophical issues they were dealing with, and therefore wrote to them using his authority as Christ’s apostle to the Gentiles.
Thus, the greeting to Paul’s letter has a more formal feel to it as he established his credentials for writing an authoritative letter to people he had never met personally. At the end of the letter, he would send greetings from Aquila and Priscilla, and hopefully these familiar names would help the letter to be well-received.
Paul established that Jesus was the fulfillment of God's promises through the prophets and a descendant of David, but that the grace He gave us was for people of every nation. The proof for this was in His resurrection from the dead. Paul then stressed that all of them in that church were loved by God and called to be saints and gave a greeting that was common to both the Jews and Gentiles in the church.
Peace was the common Jewish greeting (eirēnē in Greek and shalom in Hebrew) and Grace (Greek charis) was the common one among the Hellenists. Paul frequently used both in his epistles to address the church since our peace and blessings come from God.
Paul most likely wrote this letter around AD 55 with the intention of coming to Rome sometime later to go over it with them in person. While this letter may have been written to settle arguments within the Roman church, it is one of Paul’s more comprehensive documents of doctrines for the church universal, and thus it was passed around to all of the churches. Obviously, people today will still argue over the doctrines presented in this epistle, but my goal is to keep our minds on the intended recipients of the letter in order to maintain the context in which they were written.
Dear heavenly Father, please open our hearts to Your word and let it do the work in which You intended when it was written. Help us to understand You better and love You more so that we can seek to do the things that are pleasing to You. Amen.