Treasures from Rome: GEMS for You from the Epistle to the Romans

By John Zehring

"Treasures from Rome" takes Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and mines from it thirty gems that apply to your daily life today as they did to the Romans, gems which sparkle from the pages to guide people of faith in their desire for an encounter with the Divine. The book is not quite the same as a bible study, nor is it a sketch about Paul or the church he founded. Rather, it is a devotional springboard for you to enrich your faith, deepen your relationships with others, discover new heights to your faith and leap further into your closer walk with God. Your life will be enriched by these gems.

Some may view Romans as the Apostle Paul’s best work, a culmination of his thinking, preaching and teaching. Others may see his words as less relevant to life in the twenty-first century, for they were not addressed to us but to a very specific group of Christians facing new complicated questions as Christianity spread beyond the Holy Lands into the Greek and Roman world. And yet, parts of Paul’s guidance jump off the page to all who encounter them as they lift up, inspire and call Christians to follow Jesus and glorify God. His words are truly gems peeking out from rocks and crevices, treasures from his Epistle that transcend time and apply directly to us as people of faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Zehring
• Release date: May 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463919439

John Zehring

John Zehring has served United Church of Christ congregations as Senior Pastor in Massachusetts (Andover), Rhode Island (Kingston), and Maine (Augusta) and as an Interim Pastor in Massachusetts (Arlington, Harvard). Prior to parish ministry, he served in higher education, primarily in development and institutional advancement. He worked as a dean of students, director of career planning and placement, adjunct professor of public speaking and as a vice president at a seminary and at a college. He is the author of more than sixty books and is a regular writer for The Christian Citizen, an American Baptist social justice publication. He has taught Public Speaking, Creative Writing, Educational Psychology and Church Administration. John was the founding editor of the publication Seminary Development News, a publication for seminary presidents, vice presidents and trustees (published by the Association of Theological Schools, funded by a grant from Lilly Endowment). He graduated from Eastern University and holds graduate degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, Rider University, and the Earlham School of Religion. He is listed in Marquis' WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA and is a recipient of their Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. John and his wife Donna live in two places, in central Massachusetts and by the sea in Maine.

Book preview

Introduction

Many scholars consider Romans to be Paul’s masterpiece, a garden in full radiant bloom containing a rainbow of colors. Like a resplendent garden also containing bugs and blight and never appearing the same way twice, each views the beauty in his or her own way. The horticulturalist, the photographer and the poet interpret it differently, but each agrees about its magnificence. A few may be even bored by it and rush quickly to move on. Dawn and dusk change its character, as do spring and fall. Some may view Romans as the Apostle Paul’s best work, a culmination of his thinking, preaching and teaching. Others may see his words as less relevant to life in the twenty-first century, for they were not addressed to us but to a very specific group of Christians facing new complicated questions as Christianity spread beyond the Holy Lands into the Greek and Roman world. And yet, parts of Paul’s words jump off the page to all who encounter them as they lift up, inspire and call Christians to follow Jesus and glorify God.

However the Epistle to the Romans is viewed, most would concur that they indeed form a garden of Divine beauty. This book takes the scenic walk through the garden, plucking beautiful treasures from it which you can use in your everyday life. It is not intended to be a comprehensive bible study, a commentary on Paul’s epistle or an explanation of the difficult parts which do not seem to apply to our contemporary experience. Rather, it lifts up the gems which sparkle from the pages to guide people of faith in their desire for an encounter with the Divine.

A person reading Romans for the first time may begin to wonder What has this got to do with me? Much from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans that was directed to a specific group of people for a particular purpose at a particular time in history. Paul’s words seem hardly to apply to anyone today. Much of Romans is about the attempt to birth a new church, circumcision, food appropriate to eat and especially the reconciling of Hebrew law with Christian grace. Protestant Christians in the twenty-first century may find their eyes glazing over as they search for how those words then apply to our experience today. For such a time as that, Paul’s words spoke directly to the people of the expansion of Christianity into the Roman world. And yet, like specks of gems peeking out from rocks and crevices, there are treasures from the Epistle that transcend time and apply directly to us as people of faith.

The gems are not evenly divided among the chapters. Some chapters are like uncovering a mother lode. Their yield holds some of the most favorite verses in the bible. Other chapters are more barren, speaking with relevance to the needs and questions of people in the first century, less so to us today. Libraries could hardly contain the works written about the Epistle to the Romans. Some emphasize grace, salvation and judgement – dominant themes in the Epistle. This book seeks especially to lift up the gems you can use as you seek to understand and to grow in your faith in God.

Rather than pursuing this epistle as a detailed study, let us instead mine for treasures buried within the sixteen chapters – treasures for you which speak to your needs and your desire to be faithful to God. Thirty gems from Romans are lifted up in this book. Others are missed, waiting to be mined at another time. The point is to select some of the treasures which speak to our faith today.

This is not a bible study nor a biographical sketch of the author Paul. As Paul’s letter to specific people for a particular purpose, it was not intended as a book of the bible to endure forever nor as a work of literature. Rather than delve into the original context or culture, Treasures from Rome lifts up what you can use to inspire you, strengthen your faith and lead you to some of the highest goals to which a human can aspire.

NOTES ABOUT THIS BOOK

Scriptures used in the work come from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.

I have attempted to use inclusive language wherever possible in the words I have written, although I have not altered the author’s reference to God as he. I recognize that the Divine has no gender and for many it may be just as appropriate and accurate to acknowledge God as Mother or Father. Whichever pronoun is used, consider God as a loving parent.

Some of this work is adapted from other books or eBooks I have written. My website can be found by searching online for John Zehring books.

Now, as you encounter the gems from Paul’s epistle, may these thirty treasures enrich your faith and your life.

John Zehring

Paul

Of Paul’s thirteen epistles, Romans is written among his last, written perhaps about a quarter century following the death and resurrection of Jesus. His epistle is directed to the Jews living in Rome who were becoming Christians but who were still committed to keeping the law of the Torah – the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures along with rabbinic commentaries about the laws. Consider how challenging and perhaps confusing their approach to this new religion was. Would a new Jewish Christian need to keep the law, like the dietary laws or the need for circumcision? Or, as they came to live under the grace of Jesus the Christ, were they no longer bound by the law? If we could put ourselves in their shoes, we could feel the pain of their attempt to be faithful both to their heritage as well as to the way taught and modeled by Jesus of Nazareth. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, seeks to give them the guidance they need.

Paul’s Jewish name was Saul. He was born in Tarsus, a bustling city a few miles inland from the Mediterranean on Turkey’s southern shore. Because Tarsus was a Roman city, Paul claimed Roman citizenship and also went by the Roman name of Paul. Paul of Tarsus. Saul, Jewish name. Paul, Roman name.

He grew up Jewish, was trained in the Jewish scriptures and traditions. Paul celebrated the Jewish holy days and entered the synagogue day school where he learned to read and write by coping passages of scripture. He could read Hebrew, his parents probably spoke Aramaic and he learned Greek as the language of the region much the way English is an international language today. Every Jewish boy learned a trade. Paul’s trade was tent making. Later, tent making was how Paul supported himself, which we know from Acts 18:1-3 (CEV, Contemporary English Version): Paul left Athens and went to Corinth, where he met Aquila, a Jewish man from Pontus. Not long before this, Aquila had come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Emperor Claudius had ordered the Jewish people to leave Rome. Paul went to see Aquila and Priscilla and found out that they were tent makers. Paul was a tent maker too. So he stayed with them, and they worked together.

Paul went to Jerusalem to study under the famous rabbi Gamaliel. Today that would be like going to study at a rabbinical school or a theological seminary. He grew to become zealous for the traditions and teachings of his people, perhaps in some ways zealous to the extreme. By Paul’s own account (Phil 3:5, CEV) he was a Pharisee, which was a Jewish political party: I was circumcised when I was eight days old, and I am from the nation of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin. I am a true Hebrew. As a Pharisee, I strictly obeyed the Law of Moses. You may recall that Jesus had a lot to say about Pharisees, mostly along the lines of: But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! (Matthew 23:13).

Paul became an extremist and set out on a course of persecuting his Jewish brothers who believed that Jesus was the Messiah – ironic since in Romans he is now ministering to their needs and growing pains. He was part of the stoning to death of a man named Stephen who did not concur with Paul’s theology (Acts 7:8, NRSV): Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. Paul was not a respecter of people whose views differed from his own.

It was reported to Paul that there were some Jewish brothers in Damascus who accepted Jesus as the Messiah, which made him rip-roaring mad. Before followers of Jesus became known as Christians, they were called followers of The Way. Here is the turning point, from Acts 9:

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? He asked, Who are you, Lord? The reply came, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do. The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

That changed everything. From there, Saul Paul traveled on three extensive missionary journeys and a final journey to Rome. Along the way, Paul started the Christian churches to which most his letters are written, although the church in Rome is not one that Paul planted.

There are twenty-seven books in the New Testament. Paul wrote thirteen of them, almost half the New Testament.

A few things to note about Paul’s letters:

First, he dictated them. Paul did not go to his word processor to write books of the bible or lasting literature. He did not sit at a word processor and probably did not use a quill tip pen and papyrus, although his scribe might have. In the early days of my career, I had a dictation machine. When my secretary returned the letter I dictated, I could not believe how awful my dictation was: long run-on sentences, insufficient punctuation and wandering disconnected thoughts. Some of Paul’s dictation looks that way. Some of his sentences are very long.

Second, he never intended his epistles to rank among the bookshelves of permanent literature. They were simply letters written for an explicit purpose to a specific group of people. Paul had no idea he was writing the bible. His letters might have been considered divinely inspired by some of his readers, but how could readers discern which parts were divine and which parts were Paul’s personal observations or opinions?

Third, his letters are like listening to one side of a conversation. We do not know what the other is saying or meaning.

Fourth, a large segment of Paul’s letters have to do with logistics, arrangements, travel plans, details, encouragements and specific purposes.

Gems

Consider now gems found in each of the sixteen chapters of Romans. These verses or sections of verses are treasures you can use to find strength, comfort, contentment, guidelines to live by and inspiration to know God better and to love God more. It is not quite the same as a bible study nor is it a sketch about Paul or the church in Rome. Nor is it intended for these passages to be taken out of context, but this is a search for gems you can use and not an exegetical study where you surround the verses with their context. Rather, it is a spiritual springboard for you to enrich your faith and to leap further into your closer walk with God.

Treasures from Rome:

GEMS for You from the Epistle to the Romans

GEM #1 (1:9b): …without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers.

GEM #2 (1:20): 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.

GEM #3 (2:1): Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.

GEM #4 (2:11): "For God shows no