How Did Paul's Purpose To Unify Religion?

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The basis of Paul’s purpose in unifying the church is to help both Jews and Gentiles understand where they came from. I hold the argument that Paul’s audience was primarily the Gentiles in Rome because the Gentile majority is quite evident (1:5-6, 1:13). However this should not support the claim that Gentile roots started the church. Rome was likely raised on Jewish heritage through the preaching of the gospel in synagogues. Gentile Christians would therefore have very little knowledge of the OT scriptures. Schreiner pointed out that “Jews have debated Jewish Christian and Gentile interpretation of Scripture from the beginning” (Schreiner, 14). Jewish Christians had been long accustomed to their religious differences such as food regulation, and special days like the Sabbath, and the feast of days. Gentile Christians on the other hand were very much into Christian freedom. These two cultural conflicts divided the church and caused problems. The abandonment of or refusal to adopt such important identity markers probably caused few …show more content…

He says, “You also have died to the law through the body of Christ (7:4). We are no longer bound to the old way of the written code, and Paul wants Jews and Gentiles both to understand that so that they could be civil with each other. Part of the letter is set to show what the gospel says about these two groups, ultimately trying to bridge the gap between them and remind the church that God represents unity and we must be unified as a body to represent who God is well. Moo suggests that part of Paul’s purpose is to help the Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians understand their different roots of faith within the relation of salvation history (Moo, 12, 17). We can see this in Chapters 12-15 when Paul talks about God’s plan and promises for Israel’s salvation and Paul’s exhortation to imitate Christ’s acceptance of Jews and Gentiles

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