The Apostle Paul is the undisputed author of Romans. The letter was written to the early Christian
church in Rome,
around 56 AD. For this entry, all words
in italics are taken from the MacCarthur Bible Commentary.
Paul was born about
the time of Christ’s birth, in Tarsus, an important city in the Roman province of Cilicia.
He spent much of his early life in Jerusalem
as a student of the celebrated rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). Like his father before him, Paul was a
Pharisee (Acts 23:6), a member of the strictest Jewish sect.
Paul grew up in an important city and was taught under a
very respected rabbi among the Pharisees.
Acts 5:34 describes Gamaliel as a “teacher of the law held in respect by
all the people.” Our introduction to
Paul in the Bible comes in Acts 7:58. A
man named Stephen, who was among a tiny sect called “the Way,” was being stoned
for blasphemy and it records that “the witnesses laid down their clothes at the
feet of a young man named Saul.” It is
clear that Saul (who later became Paul) was a respected rising star among the
religious community of the time and was one of the biggest persecutors of the
early Christian church.
Miraculously converted
while on his way to Damascus
to arrest Christians in that city, Paul immediately began proclaiming the
gospel message. (Acts 9)
Conversion seems like too nice a term for what happened to
Paul. He did a complete 180. He went from being in a place of respect and
power among the religious elite to embracing persecution and suffering as a way
of life. He would have been rejected by
all those he knew and loved at the time.
Something pretty miraculous must have happened and it did.
Then Saul, still
breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the
high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that
if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them
bound to Jerusalem. As he journeyed he
came near Damascus,
and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice
saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ (Acts 9:1-4).
Jesus then told him to go into the city and he would be told
what to do. When Paul opened his eyes,
he was blind. The Lord told a believer
named Ananias to go to Saul and put his hands on him so he could receive his
sight back. Having received the vision
from the Lord, Ananias then politely responded, “ARE YOU CRAZY!?.” Okay, that was not his exact response, but
pretty close. Ananias of course obeyed,
Paul was baptized, and immediately began preaching Christ.
After narrowly escaping
from Damascus
with his life…
Before Acts 9:20 in my NKJV Bible the heading reads: Saul Preaches Christ. Literally three verses later there is a
new heading: Saul Escapes Death. It is amazing how closely those two things
are related, especially in the early church.
The Way was blasphemous and a threat to be removed. To preach Christ meant to face death and persecution
daily. We forget this in the United States,
but there are still places in the world today where “escaping death” still
follows “preaching Christ.” I find it
extremely convicting that Christianity spread to the ends of the Earth amidst
persecution and torture. There was
nothing convenient about being a Christian in the worldly sense. If not from God, it would not have
lasted.
Paul spent three years in Natatean Arabia,
southeast of the Dead Sea (Galatians 1:17,
18). During that time, he received much
of his doctrine as direct revelation from the Lord (Galatians 1:11, 12).
The only mention of Paul’s time in Arabia
comes from two verses in Galatians.
These are the quiet years of Paul’s Christian life and no doubt was a
period in which the Lord shaped him into the man he would become.
More than any other
individual, Paul was responsible for the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. He
made three missionary journeys through much of the Mediterranean world,
tirelessly preaching the gospel he had once sought to destroy (Acts 26:9)
Like I said, a complete 180.
The man who could have arguably been called the greatest persecutor of
the Way in its earlier years became its greatest missionary. He planted churches all along the Mediterranean.
This is what happened to him through his efforts (as he records in his
second letter to the believers in Corinth):
From the Jews
five times I received forty stripes minus one.
Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was
shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journey’s often, in
perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in
perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in
perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in
sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and
nakedness… (2 Corinthians 11: 24-27).
Sounds fun doesn’t it?
Paul wrote Romans from
Corinth toward
the close of his third missionary journey (most likely in A.D. 56).
A woman from the Corinthian church in Cenchrea named Phoebe
(Romans 16:1) was probably the one who delivered this letter to the Roman
church. Paul was longing to visit them but
first he wanted to go minister to the believers in Jerusalem (Romans 15:25).
He later would be arrested in Jerusalem and was in prison for two years
before he appealed his case to Caesar. After
surviving a shipwreck along the way, he would eventually arrive to Rome as a prisoner (Acts
21-28).
