Romans: Background

Before we begin studying Romans

Background

You were an exemplary student of the Bible and learned the order of the books in the Bible — especially the New Testament — very well. It helped you to find a letter quickly without having to look up the page number in the table of contents. Now I am going to turn your whole world upside down by saying that most of us have had the order wrong all along. How so?

The links

A very simple way to understand the context of the New Testament is to use four links.

We have the four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These form our first link in the chain. They represent the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Not long ago someone in one of the home cell groups reacted with great surprise when I mentioned that large portions of the Gospels are actually still part of the Old Testament. That is genuinely so. Much of the content of the Gospels deals with the coming of Jesus Christ to earth to establish a new covenant. He uses the Old Testament to show how a new covenant is better. This new covenant only becomes valid after His death and resurrection.

After this we have Acts, the second link. Acts connects the four Gospels to the Church, represented by the history of Acts and the letters that follow it. What the twelve disciples (Matthias was originally part of the larger group) experienced in the Gospels was connected by the promise – the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which is the foundation of the Church. Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father (Acts 1:4). He said this before He ascended to heaven. Luke therefore tells of something that did not take place after Acts 1:1, but before it. The story of Acts actually only begins in Acts 1:12.

The third link is the work of Paul as evangelist, summarised in Acts and laid out by Luke, and expanded in his thirteen letters. It shows how the Church was established and grew in areas where no one had previously been exposed to it. We will return to this shortly.

The fourth link is the general epistles of other persons – Peter, James, Jude, Apollos (if it was indeed Apollos who wrote Hebrews), and John. By its very nature John’s Gospel is excluded here because it forms part of the first link, but the fourth link includes the three epistles of John as well as the recording of Revelation.

Let us return to the third link, Paul’s epistles. You know them in this order:

• Romans
• 1 Corinthians
• 2 Corinthians
• Galatians
• Ephesians
• Philippians
• Colossians
• 1 Thessalonians
• 2 Thessalonians
• 1 Timothy
• 2 Timothy
• Titus
• Philemon

The list consists of thirteen letters to various churches and individuals – seven churches and three individuals. But what if I told you that this order is actually wrong and should be entirely different? If you study Paul’s letters in the correct order, a whole new world opens up and you will never look at his writings in the same way again.

What is the problem with the current order?

Our Bibles arrange the letters according to the authors (Paul, Apollos [if we accept that Apollos wrote Hebrews], James, Peter, John, and Jude) and by length — not by the time (chronology) in which they were written.

The correct order

If we read them in the order in which they were written (there are minor differences depending on who is consulted and how events in Acts are interpreted), we get a much better picture of Paul’s argument for the gospel that he proclaimed and defended so powerfully. Read in the correct order, we see the development of Paul’s ministry. Here they are (to the church or individual; acceptable time period; where they were written; and historical references in Acts):

What we have here is a historically accurate order, as far as biblical and historical records make it possible to determine precise dates. It portrays how Paul grew as a believer. In the letter to the church in Galatia he rebukes the readers for having so quickly strayed from the gospel he proclaimed. While in Corinth he writes to the church in Rome, whom he has never yet met.

Four of the letters were written while he was under house arrest for the first time. After that he is free for a while and writes the first letter to Timothy and one to Titus. Then he is finally in prison and writes his last letter to Timothy. It is especially this second letter that is a moving account of someone who has sacrificed his life for the gospel and is awaiting his reward (2 Tim 4:7-8) after having been abandoned by some co-workers (Demas) and others having had to continue with their own ministries (Crescens, Titus, Tychicus, Carpus, Priscilla, Aquila, Onesiphorus, Erastus, Trophimus, Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia).

Now that you have a better understanding of the timeline, the events in Acts will also make more sense. To understand Paul’s writing to the church in Rome we must therefore look at the circumstances as Luke describes them in Acts 19 and 20. This takes place during Paul’s third missionary journey. Read both chapters to understand the history. Two verses stand out:

• Acts 19:21 – Paul indicates that he wants to visit Rome, probably on his way to Spain (Romans 15:24, 28).
• Acts 20:3 – Paul stays for three months in Corinth at the home of Gaius (Romans 16:23) and during this time he writes the letter to the Romans.

How do we know that it was indeed during this time that he wrote Romans from Corinth? There are several indications:

• Romans 15:26 – Macedonia and Achaia had made a financial contribution for the poor in Jerusalem. In Acts 20:2-3 we read of his return journey. Macedonia was part of Greece, and Corinth is in Greece.
• Romans 16:1-2 – Paul gives recognition to Phoebe, who was a deaconess in the church at Cenchreae. Cenchreae was the eastern port of Corinth.
• Romans 16:22-23 – Paul mentions Gaius. He was a prominent resident of Corinth and Paul had stayed with him during his time in Corinth.
• Romans 16:23 – Erastus, the city treasurer. Archaeological excavations in Corinth indicate the name of a person named Erastus.

Now that we understand the context in which Romans was written, as Luke describes it in Acts, it is very clear that the letter to the church in Rome was not the first letter Paul wrote — even though it appears first in our Bibles. Paul had therefore already grown in his ministry among the Gentiles. While letters such as those to the churches in Thessalonica and Galatia were very urgent and addressed crises that had to be resolved immediately, the structure of Romans is far more doctrinally and theologically precise and systematically laid out. It is this writing that we will study in greater detail.

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