Universality In Paul's Letter To The Romans

Paul’s spirituality is reflected in each of the seven uncontested letters. The themes of cruciformity, community, and universality are woven throughout his letters and they shape the messages and advice he gives to each city. The cruciform and communal aspects of Paul’s message are clearly seen in his letter to the Romans. Throughout Romans, Paul addresses what it means to live a cruciform life within Christ, as well as the importance of establishing and maintaining community among all believers. Romans is a unique letter that was written under different circumstances that most of the other uncontested letters. Unlike other letters, Paul never visited Romans and was not their ‘spiritual father’. The occasion behind why this letter is written

Part of this strife came from differences in practices. There were believers, perceived to be mostly Jewish Christians, who would not eat certain foods and observed special days while there were other, mostly gentile, Christians who did not restrict themselves in the same manner. One way that Paul addressed this issue is to encourage acceptance and minimize the judgment of fellow believers. Paul says, “Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them,” (Romans 14:15). Another way that Paul attempts to relieve some tension is to use the analogy of an olive tree. The gentile believers have been grafted onto the tree that represents the Jewish believers. Some of the old branches have been broken off (Jews who don’t accept Jesus as the messiah), and this allows other branches to be grafted on, (the gentile believers), but just as the old branches were broken off, the new branches can also be broken off; just as the new branches were grafted on, so can the old branches be grafted back on. The purpose of this analogy was to remind the gentile believers that they shouldn’t feel superior to the Jewish believers because they felt enlightened, but should instead be grateful to be a part of the new community within Jesus (Romans 11). Paul describes how important it is to live in community together because the church is one body that only functions because of its many parts, “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another,” (Romans 12:4-5). Cruciformity and community combine in Romans as Paul urges the Roman believers to live a cruciform life, in order to live in better community together. An example of