Essay #7: The teaching of Paul, Jesus, and the Scriptures.
Over the past 14 weeks we have read most of the letter to the Romans. Imagine for a moment, its first reading at one of the many synagogues or house churches in Rome. Phoebe, who carried it to Rome (16:1), would take it to the elders. At the next meeting of the congregation (Sabbath or Lord's day or at both), they would have read the whole letter at one sitting. Perhaps Phoebe herself would have read it as a visiting preacher about the year 57, the fourth year of the emperor Nero. 1,945 years later, this much-studied letter has worked its way around the world in the faith of many, particularly in the West through Ignatius of Antioch, Origen, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and Barth, to name only a few among many whom we might recognize. Clement of Rome references the work as early as 90 C.E.
The epistle divides broadly into two parts. The first 12 chapters outline the means of salvation. The last 4 chapters exhort us to live the consequences. You can almost hear the pivot working with the grand opening of this second part: I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God...(12:1). Paul is himself moved by these mercies. Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God (11:33). Paul could almost have begun his exhortation earlier in the letter (following chapter 8). Given his pervasive concern with the unity of Jew and gentile, however, and his awareness of the divisions in Rome's communities of faith, he delays the exhortation until he has further explored the mystery of the unbelief of some of his own people (chapters 9-11). So chapter 12 begins with much more than a simple "therefore". Both preceding and following an appeal to the equality of all before God, the Jew first, and the Greek, i.e. gentiles (1:16), he beseeches us as a royal priesthood, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. This is a long way from the condemnation that we also equally share (3:23).
The exhortation falls into three major sections: the first (12:3-13:14) is teaching based on Leviticus 19:18: You must not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the children of your people, but you must love your neighbour as yourself. The second (14:1-15:6) extends the middle part of the first section (13:1-7); and the third (15:7-13) sums up the argument of the whole epistle: that the God of Israel is calling both Jew and gentile together. Paul is writing to a divided community. Each section appeals to Scripture to convince both audiences: the Christ-believing gentile and Jew and the non Christ-believing Jew. We will address the second and third sections in the next essay. Today we look at that first section.
How often have we thought that the Old Testament depicted an angry and vengeful God? This assumption is inaccurate. The commandments of the old covenant, given that we might live through them (10:5 quoting Leviticus 18:5), can also be seen as a promise that love will become complete in us. (Note that Paul would be studying his Bible, the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, which Jews today call the Tanakh. He did not have the New Testament to study!) Paul uses vengeance is mine, says the Lord (Leviticus 19:18), not because God takes vengeance, but because vengeance is not ours as humans to take. God's character is love. In Christ and in his suffering, we see this character revealed. The problems in the Old Testament days, as in our own day, are borne of our human dysfunction, and are not problems in the character of God or the nature of the teaching. James (James 2:8), Jesus (Matthew 5:49), and Paul (Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14) all quote the second half of Leviticus 19:18: You shall love your neighbour as yourself, as the end of the Law. We are called consistently to love and feed the hungry enemy and by so doing reveal the mercy of Christ in a physical way. It is an understatement to say that we are made both vulnerable and uncomfortable in accepting the challenges that this teaching presents.
The teaching (Hebrew Torah) of the Bible is consistent across these three examples: Love your enemy, a phrase which Jesus speaks uniquely on his own authority; Do good to those who persecute you, a phrase that reflects the teaching of Jesus, but is from Paul (12:14); and the teaching of Proverbs on feeding the hungry enemy (25:21-22). Two weeks ago, we read that Jesus came specifically for the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15). Our preacher made clear that this story of the Syro-Phoenician woman means that salvation has come to all, whether Jew or gentile. Paul likewise writes that Jesus came to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the gentiles might glorify God for his mercy (15:9, Psalm 117). All of us, Paul included, are part of a tradition of grace that extends from the core of the teaching of Israel and is confirmed in the faithful, loving action that we find from God in Christ Jesus our Lord.