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Romans Class at Biola; Dr. Berding
At least five house groups:
1) The church in the house of Prisca and Aquila.
2) Those in the household of Aristobulus
3) Those in the household of Narcissus
4) The brothers and sisters
5) The saints
Three most important effects of the Romans churches:
1) Persons expelled from Rome: Jews and Christians, Gentiles who are Christians
2) Jewish and Christian definition: Jewish Christians and Non-Christian Jews who would’ve probably tried to make a distinction
3) The unity of Christianity in Rome: Jewish Christians would’ve had to assimilate in a different culture and people
Why did Paul write Romans?
Missionary purpose
Apologetic purpose
Pastoral purpose
Summarizing purpose
What is the unifying theme of Romans?
1) Justification by faith
2) Union with Christ and the work of the Spirit
3) Jews and Gentiles in salvation history
4) Unity between Jews and Gentiles
All true, but one theme: GOSPEL
What is Paul’s central ministry calling?
To bring to faith Gentiles who have never heard of Jesus Christ.
Other related ministries:
1) Prayer for the churches
2) Encouragement/exhortation
3) Defending the integrity of the gospel against false teachers
4) Miracles and healings
5) Evangelism
6) Mentoring
7) Modeling the faith for others
What are Paul’s various roles?
1) Paul as evangelist and missionary.
2) Paul as teacher and defender of the faith.
3) Paul as pastor and counselor.
4) Paul as thinker and theologian.
How did Paul decide where to serve?
Sometimes: thoughts messages, peace (or lack of it), all on the foundation of missional wisdom.
“Righteousness of God”
1) A righteous attribute which God possesses.
2) a righteous activity which God exercises.
3) A righteous status which comes from God to people who believe.
Are idols something or nothing?
1) Idols and gods are merely objects within creation that God created (Deut. 4:15-21; Job 31:26-28), whether mountains or stars.
2) Idols are fashioned by human hands out of stuff God created
3) Idols are demons, who are also created.
Is it appropriate to make the hermaneutical move from images to ideas when discussing idolatry?
Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5; Phil. 3:19
What are some modern categories of idolatry?
Things that entice us. Things we fear, trust, and need.
10 central characteristics of God in Romans
1) Righteous in all He does
2) Judge and wrath-bringer
3) Maker of atonement through Jesus
4) Raiser of Jesus from th dead
5) Glorious and worthy to be praised e
6) No partiality
7) Foreknower and predestiner
8) Promise-giver and promise-keeper
9) Revealer of His plan of Salvation
10) Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit
Dunn accuses the Lutheran position of what?
Anti-semitic interpretation of Paul
Four key issues in the New Perspective on Oaul
1) Special standing with God based on God choosing to enter into covenant with them by his grace. (E.P. Sanders)
2) Paul doesn’t have problems with the law itself. (James Dunn)
3) Paul was concerned between Jews and Gentiles (K. Stendahl)
4) Justification by faith means something different (N.T. Wright)
Paul’s use of OT Quotations
Possible explanations:
1) Single meaning, unified referents
2) Single meaning, multiple contexts and referents
3) Fuller meaning, single goal
Paul’s main hermaneutical assumption:
God set in place certain historical patterns and theological themes in the OT in order to move things toward Christ (and the new day that dawned with the the coming of Christ that will finally be culminated in the eschaton)
10 big patterns and themes:
God’s character, God’s promise, human sin, God’s judgment, God’s working with a remnant, redemption, good news extending to the Gentiles, morality, messianic expectation, echatological salvation
Paul’s use of the OT in Romans:
1) Paul sometimes seems to use a short phrase from a passage to conjure up the entire passage
2) Paul sometimes seems to draw upon OT verses where he doesn’t intend the reader to make connections with the entire passage
3) The connection pattern or theme between an OT and a NT passage does not always have to be the big idea of a passage; it can be a subtheme in the OT passage that is picked up by Paul
4) Paul can take a text that was originally about YHWH in its OT context and apply it to Christ
5) Paul can take a text that applies to Israel in its original context and apply it to Gentiles in Romans since the basic idea is true for both.
Special revelation
God has shown us about Himself through the Scriptures and through the person of Christ.
General revelation
For those who accept it as a valid category—shown through nature, patterns of human behavior, and anything that can be accessed through human logic alone.
Thomas Aquinas on revelation
Believes in general and special
Karl Barth on revelation
very skeptical of general revelation; Neo-orthodox
**Phrases that suggest humans could come to know something about God from general revelation alone:
Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:12-16; Acts 14:13-18; Acts 17:22-31
Pluralist
All roads lead to heaven
Inclusivist
Salvation is through Jesus but people can come to faith through other means Excl
Exclusivist
Salvation is only through faith
The Heart of the Gospel: The Law
Mosaic law and regulation; indeed, any law; A principle
The heart of the Gospel: The righteousness of God
Divine attribute/divine activity/and or human standing before God
The heart of the Gospel: Faith in Jesus/the faithfulness of Jesus
Belieivng in Christ (60/40)
The heart of the gospel: sin
Breaking the mosaic law, indeed any law of God
The heart of the gospel: the glory of God
Transformational glory God intended for humans or simple, praise given to God
The heart of the gospel: justified
Acquitted (with positive connotations)
The heart of the gospel: grace
unconditioned acceptance by God
The heart of the Gospel: redemption
being bought out of slavery to sin
The heart of the Gospel: propitiation
removal of the wrath of God through a sacrifice
The heart of the Gospel: forebearance
God holding back punishment
Catholic view of righteousness
Believed that righteousness is imparted to us, where God puts moral righteousness unto us (through baptism and the Eucharist as received by faith). Justification collapses into sanctification
Protestant view of righteousness
Jesus’ perfect righteousness was imputed to us, that is, “reckoned” or “charged” to our account. It is his righteousness. Justification then, is prior to sanctification.
Four Catholic practicies still affirmed even by these Catholic theologicans that show the gap between Catholic and Protestant understandings of justification:
1) sacrament of infant baptism (primary cause of justification)
2) penance: restoration of one’s state of grace when you sin
3) Eucharist is necessary to received propitiation
4) Purgatory: one suffers for his own sins
Define atonement
How God deals with sin and restores humankind’s relationship with Himself
Major theories of Christ’s atonement: Example
Jesus’ death as a human was an example of dedication that we humans are to follow today (Fastus Socinus)
Major theories of Christ’s atonement: Moral influence
God displayed the full extent of his love by allowing Jesus who was divine to die on the cross. We should affirm this love of God toward us by loving God and turning away from sin (Peter Abelard)
Major theories of Christ’s atonement: Ransom to satan
Jesus was given by God as a ransom to satan to buy humans back from satan’s control.
