Imagine yourself in a college speech course. Your assignment: a brief speech on "the meaning of life." Over late-night cups of coffee, you outline the Christian faith and what it means to you. You devote a lot of time to this assignment - after all, this speech may be the only clear expression of faith your classmates will ever hear.
But what if you were asked to write up the speech for your local paper? Instead of a few dozen listeners, you would have thousands of readers. Undoubtedly, you would devote even more time and care to preparation.
Letter to the Center of the World
Let your imagination run even further. How would you react if you were asked to adapt this same speech for a front-page story in the New York Times? This newspaper has sophisticated, demanding readers. In writing for them, you would meticulously pore over every word, polishing phrases and making sure your thoughts were complete and well-expressed.
You can see a similar process at work in the aposlte Paul's various letters. Some of his letters were, like a college speech, addressed to a small cluster of people he knew by name. Often they consisted of warm, personal words of advice or even fatherly scolding.
But, Romans . . . the very title of this book conjures up images of the powerful empire that ruled the western world. To people of Paul's day, Rome was the center of the world in every way: law, culture, power, and learning. A letter to |
