What the book is
Romans is the longest of Paul’s letters, and the one in which he sets out the good news he preached most fully. He wrote it to the believers in Rome, a church he had not founded and had not yet visited, made up of Jews and Gentiles who had come to faith in Jesus. Its theme is stated near the start:
I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is God’s own power at work to save everyone who believes, the Jew first and the Greek as well.
Few books have shaped Christian thought more. Augustine, Luther, Calvin and Wesley each tell of coming to a new understanding of the gospel through it, and its words about faith, grace and the righteousness of God are still at the centre of debate among those who read it most closely.
Who wrote it, and when
Almost no one doubts that Paul wrote Romans. He did not write it down himself: a man named Tertius, the scribe who wrote the letter out, adds his own greeting near the end (16:22). The letter itself tells where Paul was. He is about to take the money collected by the Gentile churches to the poor among God’s people in Jerusalem (15:25–26), and he hopes to visit Rome afterwards on his way to Spain (15:24, 28). He commends Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, who most likely carried the letter (16:1–2). So most date it to around AD 57, written from Corinth during the visit described in Acts 20:2–3.
How the book is laid out
- Greeting and theme (1:1–17): Paul introduces himself and the gospel, “the righteousness of God” revealed “from faith for faith”.
- Everyone under sin (1:18–3:20): Gentiles and Jews alike have failed to live as God made them to, and the law cannot put them right.
- Righteousness through faith (3:21–4:25): God puts people right with himself through faith in Jesus Christ, as he did with Abraham, who believed God before he was circumcised.
- New life (5–8): peace with God, Adam and Christ, freedom from sin and the law, and life in the Spirit, ending with the certainty that nothing in all creation will be able to cut us off from the love of God.
- Israel (9–11): Paul’s anguish for his own people, God’s choosing, and the hope that “all Israel will be saved”.
- Living the gospel (12:1–15:13): worship that is fitting, love, the governing authorities, and welcoming one another across differences about food and holy days.
- Plans and greetings (15:14–16:27): Paul’s journeys, and greetings to a long list of men and women in Rome.
How Open Word Bible translates Romans
Romans has some of the most debated sentences in the New Testament. The draft does not hide those debates: where the Greek can fairly be read more than one way, a meaning decision says which reading the text follows and why, marks it uncertain, and gives the other reading in a footnote. In Romans that happens more than eighty times.
Key words. Faith, righteousness and grace are kept the same wherever they mean the same thing, so the thread of Paul’s argument stays visible. “The righteousness of God” (1:17) is explained in a decision as God acting rightly to put people right with himself; the note says that some read it as the righteous standing God gives, and others as God’s own faithfulness.
Faith in Christ, or Christ’s faithfulness? In 3:22 two Greek words can mean “faith in Jesus Christ” or “the faithfulness of Jesus Christ”. The draft follows the first and footnotes the second. See Faith in Christ, or the faithfulness of Christ?.
”We have peace.” In 5:1 the manuscripts are divided between “we have peace with God” and “let us have peace with God”. The draft follows its Greek text, “we have peace”, and footnotes the other reading.
The “I” of chapter 7. Who is speaking in 7:7–25, where “I” do what I do not want to do? Paul before he believed, Paul as a believer, or Paul speaking for Israel under the law? The text keeps “I” and the present tense, and a note says the question is open.
A comma in 9:5. Paul’s Greek had no punctuation, and where a modern editor puts a full stop in 9:5 decides whether the verse calls Christ “God over all”. The draft reads it that way and footnotes the alternative. See Punctuation the apostles never wrote.
Phoebe and Junia. Phoebe is called a “deacon” of the church at Cenchreae, the word that names an office in Philippians 1:1, and a decision explains the word for her support of others, “patron”; the footnote gives “servant” and “helper”. Junia is a woman’s name, and with Andronicus she is “prominent among the apostles” (16:7); the draft reads this as counting them among the apostles, and the footnote gives the other reading, “well known to the apostles”.