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The present essay aims to review the neuralgic issue of the ‘Romans debate’in light of a growing tendency toward certain agreement in most recent studies. On the basis of the results of this general consensus, it examines five distinctive features of Romans — i.e., 1) Paul’s selfintroduction to the Addressees mostly unknown to him; 2) Paul’s explicit presentation of his apostleship and gospel; 3) Paul’s detailed explanation of his apostolic ministry and missionary travel plan; 4) the ‘double character’;5) Paul’s extensive use of the Old Testament and the diatribal style —, in order to ascertain what kind of component every feature is reflecting as to the purpose(s) of writing. Since the letter’s occasion was to prepare Paul’s forthcoming visit to Rome, his purposes in writing it must have anticipatorily pointed to his purposes in visiting Rome. Paul’s purposes of visiting his addressees plainly articulated in the epistolary frame are binary: (1) to “impart some spiritual gift”, so that they may be “stabilized”(1:11) and thus they, together with Paul, may be “mutually encouraged by each other’s faith”(1:12); (2) to “be sent on my way there [to Spain] by you”(15:24b). These two purposes of Paul’s visit to Rome — the first pastoral and the second missionary —can be equally applied to his purposes for writing Romans, yet tinted with an anticipatory, provisional sense. These alone seem to be the original purposes of Romans that determined the unique qualities and features of the letter. First, the indefinite “some spiritual gift”(ti ca,risma pneumatiko,n,1:11) very likely refers to ‘his own gospel preaching’for unifying and stabilizing the discordant Roman congregations who were, composed of Jewish and Gentile members in various house churches, conflicting over the ethnical advantage (2:17-20, 3:1; 11:18) and the Torah-observance (14:1-15:13). This pastoral purpose was of vital importance to Paul, not only for fulfilling his apostolic responsibility to be an apostle to the Gentile world,but also for accomplishing his missionary plan for the near future. Second, since Paul had finished his mission work in eastern regions of the Mediterranean (15:19, 23a), he wanted support and cooperation anew from the Roman recipients in his extending Gentile mission to Spain (15:24b),expecting from them the same role that the church at Antioch of Syria had done. However, in order to prepare their readiness to receive him and to join him in his upcoming outreach to the west, Paul had to introduce himself and his gospel to the Christians at Rome, most of whom knew him very little. Therefore, Romans was written to serve as a ‘letter of recommendation’for Paul himself as well as for his gospel. These two (pastoral and missionary) purposes account for the five distinctive features of Romans, for both purposes determined them. As for the ‘double character’and the ‘intensive use of the OT and the diatribestyle’of the letter to the Romans, they become comprehensible when we situate the both purposes into the circumstances of Paul’s addressees. The ethnical, social, and theological change in the Roman congregations that was caused by the Edict of Claudius and the subsequent Jewish immigration into Rome compelled Paul to introduce himself and his gospel correctively and justly against any misunderstanding antagonistic attitude toward him. He felt it necessary to elucidate the core content of his gospel in depth enough but merely to the needful extent, proving that his teachings entirely correspond with the Jewish Holy Scripture and that objections to his gospel are groundless, defending against the typical questions and counterarguments he had confronted in the mission fields. Thus, Romans took the shape of a‘ tractate letter’. Some of the purposes proposed by the positions based on ‘conditions existing among the Christians at Rome’, e.g., ‘to effect a reconciliation between the strong and the weak (14:1-15:12)’, and ‘to counsel regarding the relation of Christians to civil government (13:1-7)’could be added on the list as ‘secondary’or ‘subsidiary’purposes. Yet these concerns would hardly be identified with the original purposes of Paul; they could be better integrated into our pastoral and missionary purposes, being explained as individual factors concretely performing its superordinate purpose.
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Purpose of Roman, Romans Debate, Double Character of Romans,Epistolary Framework, My Gospel, Use of the OT, Diatribe
