June 11, 2011 – Romans 15

This sounds like the end of the letter to the Romans, but there's still one more chapter. A little bit about what Paul is talking about can be made clearer I think. First of all the money he is taking back to Jerusalem, as I understand it, is because the church in Jerusalem was suffering from a famine I believe. In the movies about acts that I've seen Paul is greeted with animosity by the Jews or Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and they feel he is there to the argue with them or to brag about his converts. But without even saying a word he brings in bags and bags of gold or money and more or less convinces them of the Gentiles willingness to become Christian by the fact that they gave so much to help the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. We also know that Paul does not come to Rome on his own after this trip. This trip to Jerusalem to take money ends with him being arrested for preaching in the temple, and this arrest is when he asked that his case be heard in front of Caesar, which requires him to be taken as a prisoner to Rome. So Paul ends up going to Rome, but only as a prisoner. After this is a it is unclear exactly what happens to Paul. I've read that he was under house arrest but still allowed to preach and never left Rome again. I've also read the there's some thought that he was released, eventually went to Spain and preached and then came back to Rome and was arrested again and that arrests is what eventually led to his martyrdom. We really don't know because Acts ends with his first arrival in Rome being arrested, so we just don't have any source to tell us what happened to Paul.

But because we're coming to an end of Romans, I think I will just make one more attempt at a logical argument against the whole notion of once saved always saved that can sometimes be argued using Romans. These letters that Paul writes are to Christians, and because they're Christians we assume that they believe in Christ. Yet Paul believes, enough that he would write letters to correct them, that there salvation is still at risk. It makes no sense to write letters to correct people for their salvation if an understanding of once saved always saved it is to be believed or followed.

I also think it was interesting that Paul talks about the need for Christ to be Jewish in order to fulfill the prophesies of the Old Testament, but understands that to only mean that it had to be where Christ came from, not what Christ was going to do. Christ was a Jew but he came for all, appears to be a clear message from Paul throughout Romans.