Dreams of Rome

Week Six - Day 4

Today's Reading

Acts 20:2-3a, and Romans 1:1 to 4:25

Our few verses from Acts of the Apostles are meant to let us know where Paul is in his journeys.  He has been staying in Macedonia (northern Greece), possibly in Philippi, but now leaves to travel to Achaia (southern Greece) where he stays for a period of three months.  It is likely that he wrote his letter to the Romans during this period, and that is what we begin to read today.

Romans is the longest of the letters that Paul authored, and was written to a church that he had not founded.  In fact, Paul had never been to Rome but was hopeful to visit the believers in that city and to win more converts to the Christ.  His letter is an introduction of himself to that community and a way of establishing his credentials as an apostle.  It was not written to defend himself from personal attacks or because he was asked to intervene in any dispute.  He does hope to win their support for further missionary work in the western Mediterranean, including Spain, perhaps because he feels that he has done all he could do in the places he has visited and lived in the east.

The letter starts of gently and with words of praise for the Christians in Rome, but then immediately launches into a dissertation on God's wrath against sinful human behavior.  Much is often made of Paul's words regarding degrading passions and citing his words as condemnation of homosexuals.  What seems to be his target, however, is any lustful behavior that knows no bounds in the satisfying of erotic desires, of people who are "consumed with passion for one another" (1:27).  The resulting list of sins (1:29-31) are not about sex but about those behaviors that destroy meaningful relationships.

Further arguments are made regarding the inclusion of Jews and Greeks alike within the faith, and takes on the conflict over whether the Jewish Law must be followed or not.  This seems to have been a universal problem in the early churches and Paul spends much of his energy arguing that nothing is to be gained by following the Law, for God's promise of righteousness cannot be earned but is received through faith.