passing judgment

Peter,

You said

‘Passing judgement’ then becomes the main theme of his argument - contrasting God’s judgement with man’s judgement.

I’m not so sure about this. Re-reading this passage, I am struck that the main theme is the rightness of God’s judgement against both jew and gentile, regardless of Torah observance. And the weight still comes down on ‘do the same things’. Paul seems to be trying to get around judgementalism to spotlight the real issue, that both Jew and Gentile are in desparate need, especially if they maintain the veneer that there is some distinction between them and the other.

Writing to the Roman church, and most likely in order to argue for a way forward for the gospel that does not forget the Jew, Paul wants to prevent the kind of Jew-Gentile rift that is so detrimental to the purposes of the Lord of the whole earth (his experience in Antioch and Galatia). The rift would speak exactly against the universal lordship of Jesus. His method is to stand apart from both parties and show them both to be wanting, as God’s spokesman. I wonder if we are too quick, too, to say definitively to which party Paul is speaking at certain points. Generally, we take 1.18-32 to be anti-Gentile and then 2.1-11 to be anti-Jew. Based on Deut 4.16, Psalm 106.20, and Psalm 81.12, this sequence could be flipped—the judgers could be the Gentile Christians in Rome who may be taking a special pride over against those ‘jews.’ This fits well with the likely tension that existed in the church in Rome with the jews returning to the city after having been expelled by claudius’ edict, some of them being christian. Paul wants to prevent the roman anti-semitism from dividing the people of God based on ethnic standards, or Torah observance.

Just a thought. I am enjoying reading the dialogue between you, Peter and Andrew. I am learning a lot. See ya in a little more than a month.

eric