When in Romans: An Invitation to Linger with the Gospel according to Paul (Theological Explorations for the Church Catholic)
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
When reading the book of Romans, we often focus on the quotable passages, making brief stopovers and not staying long enough to grasp some of the big ideas it contains. Instead of raiding Paul’s most famous letter for a passage here or a theme there, leading New Testament scholar Beverly Roberts Gaventa invites us to linger in Romans. She asks that we stay with the letter long enough to see how Romans reframes our tidy categories and dramatically enlarges our sense of the gospel.
Containing profound insights written in accessible prose and illuminating references to contemporary culture, this engaging book explores the cosmic dimensions of the gospel that we read about in Paul’s letter. Gaventa focuses on four key issues in Romans—salvation, identity, ethics, and community—that are crucial both for the first century and for our own. As she helps us navigate the book of Romans, she shows that the gospel is far larger, wilder, and more unsettling than we generally imagine it to be.
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- Provides an invitation for those who would not normally read a book about Romans
- Explores the book of Romans in ways that can be comprehensive
- Encourages readers to situate themselves “in Rome” and “in Romans” to obtain a better and fuller understanding of its themes
- When in Romans . . . Watch the Horizon
- When in Romans . . . Consider Abraham
- When in Romans . . . Give Glory to God
- When in Romans . . . Welcome One Another
Using contemporary cultural illustrations from sources as varied as Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life and Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Land of Hope and Dreams,’ Beverly Roberts Gaventa delightfully clarifies Paul’s complex message in Romans. In beautifully written prose that is as compellingly clear for the novice as it is exegetically convincing for the scholar, Gaventa reminds us of the cosmic, liberative power of Paul’s message. Here is that book of uncommon quality: easily accessible and utterly indispensable. Reading Romans today? Start here.
Brian Blount, president and professor of New Testament, Union Presbyterian Seminary
This is a book the church has long needed. Professor Gaventa pulls back the thin veneer of familiarity to introduce us to the high drama in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Her writing is both scholarly and accessible, ancient and contemporary, theological and pastoral.
M. Craig Barnes, president, Princeton Theological Seminary
No one makes Romans come alive quite like Beverly Gaventa. In this highly accessible but provocative book--aimed at a wide Christian audience—she challenges our domesticated construals of Paul’s gospel with a vision of God’s comprehensive saving agency. If the starting point and the primary subject matter of the letter is not us but God, we are suddenly liberated from our excessive anxieties about ourselves, the church, and ‘ethics.’ Here are 3-D lenses to see Romans, the gospel, and the reality of God’s grace, power, and mystery in a new and exciting way.
John M. G. Barclay, Lightfoot Professor of Divinity, Durham University