Paul: The Apostle to the Jews at Rome
Richard Willoughby

Copyright 2000
International Standard Book Number: 0-9651120-4-7
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-090057

Contextually, the student should understand that Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 of Paul's letter TO ROMANS need not be considered as a single unit of thought. Therefore, an attempt to outline them as a single unit of thought is deemed unnecessary in that which follows.

To say that another way, the student should recall that Paul's letter may be viewed as having two general sections, neither of which is to be misunderstood as an attempt to organize the letter beyond the canonically accepted Chapter and Verse numbers or to be misunderstood as an attempt to show that one of the two sections is more important than the other. The two sections are viewed as follows:

One section of Paul's letter TO ROMANS, in some respects, is structured not unlike his other letters that have Introductions, Bodies, and Conclusions. Still, to assert that such a document is a letter at all, because of an outward appearance of definite structure, leads to unfound conclusions by the unwary.

Another section of the letter TO ROMANS, in some respects, has a relatively amorphous structure, resembling as it does a compendium of Paul's thoughts, sayings, writings, preachings, teachings and revelations as given him by one Jesus of Nazareth. In another sense, but certainly not the only sense, they are rendered as the ipsissima verba of Paul within the letter of Paul TO ROMANS, at least in their presentation, if not veritable quotes, then in paraphrase by his amanuensis (grammateus).