Romans 1

A few textual notes on Romans 1 (with a lot of help from AJ):

• God's "power" is "declared"/"revealed" in three places:
1. Jesus: The declaration of Christ to be the Son of God in the resurrection of Jesus (v.4)
2. The Church: The Gospel which brings salvation (v.16)
3. Creation: In the things that are made (v.20)
• God's power creates life in all three instances
• Paul longs to see the Christians in Rome because he is "eager" to preach the Gospel to them. Do we have that same passion?
• "from faith for faith" could mirror the "Jew first and also to the Greek" in the previous verse. In which case faith is from the Jews for the sake of the world. That mixture of mission and Jew/Gentile relationship would fit with the theme of the letter as a whole.
• In verses 23-25 we are told that men "exchanged...God" for created things, and so God "gave them up". In verses 26-27 we are told that women "exchanged natural relations for those contrary to nature...and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women". Sensitive thing to speculate about, but the parallel would seem to be deliberate. The patterns of our relationship with God are replayed on the smaller scale of human relationships.
• Verses 18-32 goes through 3 cycles of denying God->sin. In the first two cycles the sin is sexual immorality, in the third cycle Paul widens the fallout to all kinds of (mainly horizontal) sin. Why? Perhaps to build up to 2:1. We all get busy judging those committing those sexual sins which are markers of a world in rebellion, then in the third cycle our sins are equated with them and the condemnation which we've applauded suddenly falls on us and Paul declares "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things." The rhetoric is quite powerful, but also deeply theological. He knows exactly what he's doing.