Some Thoughts on Why Paul Composed His Epistle to the Romans

From Season Five, Episode Two, Of the Blessed Hope Podcast

Why did Paul compose this letter? Romans is Paul’s longest letter and written to a church that neither he nor his coworkers had founded. People often speak of the Book of Romans as though Paul were writing a systematic treatise on the Christian faith. Phillip Melanchthon famously described Romans as a compendium of Christian doctrine refuting Romanism.[1] As Roman Catholic biblical scholar, Joseph Fitzmyer points out, “one can almost write the history of Christian theology by surveying the ways in which Romans has been interpreted.”[2] No doubt true and a very good point worth considering.

Yes, Paul does have a systematic core of doctrinal beliefs expressed at many points throughout Romans, but this epistle is written to the church in Rome likely to introduce himself and explain his future travel plans which included a visit to the city.[3] While Romans does address a particular set of circumstances (focusing upon the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in the church, along with the nature of God’s righteousness which revealed in the gospel), the Book of Romans is not a systematic theology of the Christian faith in any modern sense of the term.[4]

Many interpreters of the Book of Romans have attempted to identify a single theme which dominates the letter.[5] Yet Paul says little about why he composed this letter, although in the introduction (verses 1-15) he does speak of his future travel plans. He informs the Roman congregation that he hopes to go to Spain after his trip to Jerusalem is completed, and if he does, he will stop and visit the church in Rome on his way back from Jerusalem, and then go on to Spain.[6] His desire to make this trip is expressed again at the end of the letter in Romans 15:25. When Paul employs Tertius to set his words to parchment, Paul is still in Corinth–things there apparently calmer–getting ready to make his way to Jerusalem to deliver the offering for the poor collected from the Corinthians and the churches of Macedonia as recounted in Acts 20-21.[7] But so far, he tells the Romans, he has been prevented from making his way to Spain because present circumstances require him to take care of other matters before that can happen (cf. Romans 1:13; 15:22).

Therefore, one reason for writing Romans is strategic. The Christians in Rome would be able to help support such a missionary endeavor at the opposite end of the Mediterranean Sea from Paul’s immediate destination, Jerusalem. In fact, in Romans 15:24, Paul speaks of possible help from the Romans should the Lord open that door.[8] Paul is, in part, writing this letter to introduce himself to an important church in the very heart of the Roman empire. A very good reason to write an epistle such as this one.

Paul also speaks of his desire to give the Romans a spiritual gift (Romans 1:11) which anticipates his comments toward the end of the epistle about his desire to preach the gospel in person to this congregation so as to make sure there was peace in the church between Jew and Gentile (Romans 12:3; 15:15-16).[9] Such Jew-Gentile issues were faced by most first century churches and can be boiled down to a single question, “as fellow believers in Jesus Christ, how are Jews and Gentiles to get along with each other in the church given the mistrust and cultural differences between the two groups?”

Those Jews who came to believe that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah, wondered what to do with Moses and law-keeping once they were convinced that Jesus was that one foretold by Israel’s own prophets. On the other hand, Gentile converts who came to believe that Jesus was the Son of God had never heard of Moses, Abraham, David, or Isaiah, nor they had read any of the Old Testament. Their struggle was to rid themselves of their pagan practices now that they had become Christians. Many Jews wanted Gentile converts to live as Jewish proselytes (something which Paul condemns in Galatians), while many Gentiles couldn’t understand why Jews had a problem with their eating supposedly unclean food (such as pork) and remaining uncircumcized, which is why James warns Gentiles to be sensitive about Jewish scruples and practices reflected in the admonitions of the Jerusalem Council (cf. Acts 15:5-10).

This struggle between Jew and Gentile over the place of Moses, the role of the law and its relationship to the gospel, and living a Christian life “in Christ,” explains why it is that Romans speaks so powerfully to Christians in an age such as ours when in many circles the gospel has been obscured by apathetic fog, or completely lost. The Jews in Rome were struggling with legalism–“what does God require of me to be justified?” The Gentiles in Rome were struggling with living out the doctrines of a new religion–“since I am saved by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, what does God expect of me now that I am a Christian living in a throughly pagan environment?” Bigger questions need to be answered as well. What is God doing in bringing these two seemingly incompatible groups together in a new covenant and one spiritual body–the church? What does the future hold for Jew and Gentile in light of Christ’s expected return? All these issues remain with us today . . . And they are only resolved through a proper understanding of the gospel.

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[1] Philip Melanchthon, Commentary on Romans, trans., Fred Kramer (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1992), 11.

[2] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 33, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven; Yale University Press, 2008), xiii.

[3] See J. Christiaan Beker, “Recasting Pauline Theology: The Coherence-Contingency Scheme as Interpretive Model,” in Jouette M. Bassler, Pauline Theology, Volume 1: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 15-24.

[4] See Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, 16.

[5] For a summary of discussions of Paul’s central theme, see: D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: The Zondervan Corporation, 1992), cf. 241-242. An excellent history of the interpretation of Romans is found in Cranfield, Commentary on Romans, I.30-44, and Westerholm, Romans: Text, Readers, and the History of Interpretation.

[6] Cranfield, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, I.12-16; Carson, Moo and Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, 252-253.

[7] Compare Acts 24:17 with Romans 15:23-38.

[8] See Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, 17-18.

[9] Thielman, Paul, 215.