Faith Class: Romans

We will be covering a lot of material, however, there is much that never makes it to the classroom. I will try to keep this blog posted as frequently as I can.

I am not done with Ontology and God, Time, and Eternity and hope that it will not be too long before I get back to those issues. I will probably revisit those topics in a more brief format (which I am finding is the normal structure for most blogs).

Two issues from last week that were not covered:

1)The New Perspective:
Moo has a brief discussion concerning this in the EBS text. It questions the assumption that the Jews of Paul's day really thought that they were justified by works. Rather, they were a people saved by a covenant with God. So what about Paul's stress on the law? They were being saved by the covenant and it was conditioned on their obedience to the law. Their efforts were to maintain their covenantal status. Where did this leave Gentiles? This is the hypothetical resolution to Paul's motives for stressing that one is not saved by works. At the time of the publication of Moo's work this view had gained favor with scholars; There have been challenges to this view since, in fact, I have met someone doing a dissertation on just this subject and he believes that the New Perspective is in a grave situation in regard to its sustenance as a viable approach to studying Romans as well as history.

2) Why did Paul want to bring the gospel to Rome if there was already a predominantly Gentile church already in place?
Some have speculated that Paul did not see it as a true church because it was not founded by an apostle. I think we are all in trouble if this were the case! Fortunately, Paul used the term "ecclesia" which means "church" so I think we are safe. So what did Paul mean? He said he feared building on another's foundation, so why did he want to bring them the gospel? As it turns out, he could have been talking about the gentiles at large (in Rome) since most Jews had been kicked out of Rome by AD 49. That seems to be the simplest conclusion and I favor it unless there are good reasons to doubt it, I am aware of none but I could be wrong. Another possibility is that Paul makes it clear in a large portion of his writings that those who persevere until the end will be saved, he could be bring them the gospel to produce faithfulness and encourage them, which is what he says he wishes to do at the beginning of Romans. What ever the case I do not believe Paul contradicted himself and this can be well established within the text.