Romans 1
Romans 1 | |
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← Acts 28 | |
Epistle to the Romans 1:1-7 in Papyrus 10, written about AD 316. | |
Book | Epistle to the Romans |
Bible part | New Testament |
Order in the Bible part | 6 |
Category | Pauline epistles |
Romans 1 is the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It is authored by Paul of Tarsus, but written by an amanuensis, Tertius, while Paul was in Corinth, in winter of AD 57-58.[1] Paul wrote to the Roman Christians in order to give them a substantial resume of his theology.[2]
Text
- The original text is written in Koine Greek.
- Some of the most ancient manuscripts containing this chapter are:
- Papyrus 40 (ca. AD 250; extant: verses 24-27, 31-32)
- Papyrus 10 (AD 316; extant: verses 1-7)
- Codex Vaticanus (AD 325-350)
- Codex Sinaiticus (AD 330-360)
- Codex Alexandrinus (ca. AD 400-440)
- Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (ca. AD 450; extant: verses 4-32)
- This chapter is divided into 32 verses.
- Several scholars believe verses 18 to 32 are a non-Pauline interpolation.[3]
Structure
This chapter can be grouped (with cross references to other parts of the Bible):
- Romans 1:1-7 = Greeting
- Romans 1:8-15 = Desire to Visit Rome
- Romans 1:16-17 = The Just Live by Faith
- Romans 1:18-32 = God’s Wrath on Unrighteousness
Cross references
Verse 16
- For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.[4]
Verse 17
- For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.[5]
Citation from Habakkuk 2:4
- "The just shall live by faith" (ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται).
The Septuagint has ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεώς μου ζήσεται.
The phrase comprising the last three Hebrew words of Habakkuk 2:4 is cited in Greek three times in the New Testament, all in Pauline epistles — Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; and Hebrews 10:38 — "demonstrating its importance to the early church," asserted Dockery.[6]
Moody Smith, Jr. showed that in this verse, by exegesis of Galatians 3:11 (also quoting Habakkuk 2:4), Paul took the ek pisteos with the verb zesetai not by the subject of the sentence, ho dikaios.[7] This is supported by Qumran interpretation of the text, as well as Paul's contemporaries and more recent commentators, such as Lightfoot.[8]
Verses 19 to 20
- For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse;[9]
This is one of the important statement in the Bible for the concept of 'natural revelation', that other than revealing Himself in Christ and in the Scriptures, God reveals Himself to everyone through nature and history, and all human beings have the capacity to receive such revelation because they continue to bear the divine image.[10]
Verse 26
- For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:[11]
- "gave them up" (also in verse 24; "gave them over" in verse 28) is from the Greek word paradidomi, "hand over", refers to more than a passive withholding of divine grace on God's part, but as God's reaction to the people who turning from the truth of God and his moral requirements to their own gods and sinful ways (verses 23, 25, 27).[10]
Verse 27
New American Bible Revised Edition
- and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.[12]
- "the due", "which was meet" (KJV) or "was fitting" (King James 2000 Bible) (Greek: ἔδει, edei)
Equivalent to "was due" , which is better, though the word expresses a necessity in the nature of the case - that which must needs be as the consequence of violating the divine law.[13]
- "penalty" or "recompence" (KJV) (Greek: ἀντιμισθίαν, antimisthian)
Greek concordance and lexicon define this word as: "a reward, recompense, retribution";[14] "remunerating, a reward given in compensation, requital, recompense; in a bad sense."[15]
See also
- Homosexuality in the New Testament
- Martin Luther
- Paul of Tarsus
- Rome
- Other related Bible parts: Habakkuk 2, Acts 9, Galatians 3, Hebrews 10
References
- ↑ Halley, Henry H. Halley's Bible Handbook: an abbreviated Bible commentary. 23rd edition. Zondervan Publishing House. 1962.
- ↑ Holman Illustrated Bible Handbook. Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. 2012.
- ↑ Percy Neale Harrison, Paulines and Pastorals (London: Villiers Publications, 1964), 80-85; Robert Martyr Hawkins, The Recovery of the Historical Paul (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1943), 79-86; Alfred Firmin Loisy, The Origins of the New Testament (New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1962), 250; ibid., The Birth of the Christian Religion (New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1962), 363 n.21; Winsome Munro, Authority in Paul and Peter: The Identification of a Pastoral Stratum in the Pauline Corpus and 1 Peter, SNTSMS 45 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 113; John C. O'Neill, Paul's Letter to the Romans (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1975), 40-56; William O. Walker, Jr., "Romans 1.18-2.29: A Non-Pauline Interpolation?" New Testament Studies 45, no. 4 (1999): 533-52.
- ↑ Romans 1:16.
- ↑ Romans 1:17
- ↑ Dockery, David S. “The Use of Hab. 2:4 in Rom. 1:17: Some Hermeneutical and Theological Considerations.” Wesleyan Theological Journal 22, no. 2 (September 1, 1987): 24–36.
- ↑ Smith, D. Moody, Jr. "HO DE DIKAIOS EK PISTEOS ZESETAI". Second article in XXIX (Studies & Documents, ed. Jacob Geerlings), Studies in the History and Text of the New Testament in honor of Kennet Willis Clark, Boyd L. Daniels & M. Jack Suggs, eds., pp. 13-25.
- ↑ Lightfoot wrote: "I cannot doubt that ek pisteos is to be taken with zesetai; and not with ho dikaios". Lightfoot, J.B. Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul, Bibliolife. 2010. p. 250. ISBN 978-1140434795.
- ↑ Romans 1:19-20.
- 1 2 New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition. Edited by D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, and G. J. Wenham. Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994. pp. 1121-1124. ISBN 9780830814428.
- ↑ Romans 1:26
- ↑ Romans 1:27.
- ↑ M. R. Vincent, Marvin R. Vincent. Vincent's Word Studies in the New Testament. 1985.
- ↑ Strong, J. The exhaustive concordance of the Bible: Showing every word of the text of the common English version of the canonical books, and every occurrence of each word in regular order. Ontario: Woodside Bible Fellowship. 1996.
- ↑ Thayer, Joseph. Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Coded with Strong's Concordance Numbers. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers. 1995. ISBN 9781565632097.
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