Paul commands submission to governing authorities as God's ordained ministers, explaining that rulers are a terror to evil works and bear the sword as God's agents of justice. He summarizes the law in the command to love one's neighbor, then issues an eschatological exhortation to wake from sleep, cast off works of darkness, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ, making no provision for the flesh.
Greeting, desire to visit, gospel summary.
Transformed living, submission, love, unity.
Paul wrote his longest epistle to the Romans from the city of Corinth around AD 57 during his third missionary journey. He had never visited Rome when he wrote this comprehensive theological treatise.
RomansPaul dictated Romans to a scribe. Near the end, that scribe suddenly speaks up in his own voice: 'I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord' (Romans 16:22). A brief, human 'fourth-wall' moment slipped right into Scripture.
Romans 16:22
