Theology in the Raw - What Is the Main Focus of Paul's Letter to the Romans? Dr. Joey Dodson

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Joey is my brotha from another motha. He also has a Ph.D. in New Testament from Aberdeen University, is the Dr. Craig L. Blomberg Endowed Chair of New Testament at Denver Seminary, and is the author of several books and peer reviewed articles. In this conversation, Joey walks us through the four main lenses scholars use to assess the main focus of Romans: Reformational, Apocalyptic, Heilsgeschichte (Salvation-History), and Reading Romans Backwards. To listen to our "extra innings" conversation, head over to Theology in the Raw's Patreon page to become a member of the Theology in the Raw community.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of theology around my guest today is my best friend, Dr. Joey Dotson. And what asked him to come on the show for the, I don't know, probably 10th time now, I always have my guests fill out a personal bio that I read in the intro and his personal bio that he wrote out was in Jesus, I hope with Preston, I hang. So that about says it all. He's also a brilliant scholar, amazing speaker, ministry leader, pastor, father, husband. He's written several amazing books and is also the Craig Blomberg. Well, he didn't give me his title, so I can't read it verbatim, but something like the Craig Blomberg chair of biblical studies at Denver seminary. Anyway, yeah, we talked about the

book of Romans, Joey's favorite book. And we talked about various scholarly approaches to the book. This is a fast paced, somewhat scholarly conversation, hoping keep up. You might have to go back and re-listen to some portions, a lot of names with our round, a lot of names with around and lots of references, the pop culture that aren't always easy to catch. But yeah, loads of fun. We also, I asked Joey to stick around for some extra innings, uh, conversations with him about some personal stuff in his theology, as you will see. So please welcome back to the show for the 1000th time. The one and only Dr. Joey Dodson. Joey Dodson. Welcome back for the seven, seven, 17th. So, okay. Okay.

You, you, you just got back from Hawaii, right? That's right. Was it, was that related to a the Algeron anyway? Totally. Yeah. They heard about me from you. So I appreciate it. I think my new life versus that even the children, even the dogs, you see the crumbs that fall off the Preston sprinkles table. So they told me you're too famous to get. So they wanted me. I'm off grand Preston. We can't get bad man, but we can do Robin, you know, this is okay. Okay. Let's wait a dot. But we can do game five. Get the runner up for the world series. You're a way better speaker than I ever will be. And 10 times the scholar that I ever dream of. So whatever thing you've got going on there, I, yeah, it's not true at all, but you have become quite the avid hiker to say the least. I mean, I cannot believe you did a, was it 22 mile trail run in Hawaii

with a 5,000 elevation gain? Is that true? That's not, that's crazy. 23 miles over 6,500 feet elevation. That's insane. I don't Walking like Frankenstein for the next week. Well, how? I mean, that's a marathon uphill. Yeah, yeah, very carefully. You're in that good shape. Obviously, that's the best shape of your life. It helps coming from Colorado because I don't have the altitude problem so I can breathe better there. But also, yeah, just someone asked me the other day said, Oh, just someone asked me the other

day, said, oh, you're already training for 14-er season, which in Colorado, we have all the 14-ers. And my wife laughed because I'm always training. So like everything I do is for the sake of getting on top of a mountain and getting down. Wow. How many 14-ers have you done? I've done 50. eight more left. 50? Here in Colorado, yeah. Oh my word. My oldest son is a chef in Northern California and outside of his house, he can see Shasta,

which is one of the Californian 14ers. So I'm hoping to see him this year and hike that one. I've driven by Shasta several times, it's amazing. Wait, where's he at? Scott River? He's at a marriage retreat, like a really bougie marriage retreat. Oh yeah. I've been there. I've been there. I've been to Scott river lodge. Yeah. So he's thinking a lot so far, but yeah, the highest I've done is 17 or in Peru. And so it was awesome. But you and I are going to do Patagonia Patagonagonia, 2026, baby.

Well, that's, I mean, we, would you say you got into hiking when we did our, for my 40th birthday, backtracking ship here in Idaho? I think that was pushing on open doors, but that definitely solidified it when we did this all too. It's such a great show. Oh, it's gorgeous.

Gorgeous. Here we are on my 50th birthday, Patagonia. Patagonia. And you're going to ride a wild llama? Is that what we decided? Oh yeah. You're throwing me on a llama? Dude, you keep sending me these terrifying pictures of like lions and bears and stuff running through the trails. Like, jeez. You're my Samson. You'll rip it apart with your hand like a young goat.

Oh, my word. That's going to be so much fun, man. Yeah, that's going to be killer. I don't think there's any jet lag getting down there, right? Because it's on a similar time zone. Is it on a central or eastern time zone or something? Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah, I guess we can hit the ground running.

Yeah, I need to get in shape for that stuff though. Like I have a good, like because of my lower back issues and stuff, like I have to be careful with how much like running and like I, I'll do leg stuff with the gym, but not that, not the stuff that would prepare me for like long, long hike. I'm going to be slowing you down. I have to do a Samwise. I can carry the ring. Dr. Sprinkle. I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like,

I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like,

I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be like, I feel like you're in such good shape. You're just going to like, I'm going to be slowing you down. If I have to do a Sam wise, I can carry the ring. Dr. Sprinkle. Oh, all right. Let's talk about something. Something people want to hear about. You have been studying Romans your whole life. When did you get into Romans? I mean, when did it start becoming a passion of yours? Yeah. Paul, I started off in Ephesians. So when I was 19 going on 20, I took a class translating Ephesians and absolutely loved

it. And Ephesians is kind of like the Joey to Romans at the Preston, you know, it's like diet Romans, if you will. And so, yeah, it was a, I loved Ephesians and that transitioned into loving Romans as well. So yeah, I'm 50. So about 30 years, I've been studying Ephesians to Romans and that got me into Colossians as well. How, I mean, somebody could wonder it's one book of the Bible. How, what do you, after 25 years, like you haven't, what do you do the next five years? Like, are you like, what have you, what have you not read? Like what book have you not read on, you know, like, is there more to study? Yeah. Yeah. This is coming from a guy who wrote,

who spent four years on a half a verse in Romans. Pots and kettles, pots and kettles, pots and kettles. Totally. I mean, we've just had two great commentaries come out on Romans. Beverly Gaventa, who's taken kind of an apocalypse through it. Michael Gorman looking at kind of the participation theosis type idea. And so every time I go to Romans, I learned something new. It's just quite fascinating.

And now you have the Paul within Judaism thrust that's coming in, that's making me reconsider, especially like Romans nine through 11, Jason Staples. What is that, Paul within Judaism? Yeah, I don't know. How's that? It's funny because I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it.

You have Paul the Jew, you have Frederick's son, you have staples that are kind of pushing this new reading of Paul that basically, Paul was okay with this is my understanding of it. So I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it. It's funny, you and I are old enough to remember when the new perspective came out. And the Lutherans were like, what's the new perspective? And there's like new perspectives and all the different waves and nuances and wrinkles. And I'm an apocalyptic guy and the new perspective people are like, what's apocalyptic? And we're

like, well, it depends on how you find it. And now we apocalyptic guys are like, Paul within Judaism, what's Paul within Judaism? But the idea that Paul was fine with the Jewish people being saved through the law, through Judaism, through the tradition, his problem with the law was only when it was for the Gentiles. And so for what I understand, almost like old school dispensationalism. Well, that's like our buddy, like Joel Willits and the kind of the new, the new new perspective. Yeah. Or who's that guy that cursed us out for studying under Gathricle? I think he was had a few, maybe too many. Marius Casey. Was it Marius Casey? No, it wasn't him. No, the guy who wrote the two

books on Romans, there were kind of game changers and he didn't Mark Nannos, Mark Nannos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of the key flag holders for the Paul within Judaism, but I'm still trying to map my mind around it. Matthew Novosin just came out with his book, Paul at the end of time or something along these lines that just absolutely blowing my mind. And so, yeah, I've, I've studied Romans for about 30 years and feel like I'm only scratch the surface and I'm not being, are you view some terms that we should probably define of apocalyptic and others like, so can you give us like the different frameworks or maybe, maybe even a step further back.

What does that even mean? Like to read it this way, read it that way, read it, how do we understand these different lenses and what are the different lenses and what are the distinctives? Yeah, I'm actually writing a book right now for Baker with Melissa Mandela and we're talking about all trails lead to Romans.

And so the different approaches to Romans and being the hiker that you mentioned, I'm combining two things that I love so much, hiking and Romans. And so kind of like four different approaches, four different trails. The first one would be the Reformation Trail, which most of your audience is probably

the most familiar with because that's what they've been raised, that's what they've been taught. Most of our speakers and teachers, preachers come from the Reformation Trail. And for them, they're going to emphasize justification by faith. You know, it's got to, faith to faith to faith. They're going to emphasize the thesis of Romans 1, 16

for I ain't ashamed of the gospel, why it's the power of God to salvation for all who believe. And so justification by faith, don't stop believing as it is written. It's from faith to faith, nothing but faith. And as it is written in Avakak, the righteous will live by faith. And so, with the Reformation Trail, they're going to emphasize Romans 1 through 4. It does a lot with Pistus and Pisteo and Decaiosune, righteousness and belief. And so Romans 1-4, the reason for the Reformation Trail, the reason Paul starts with Romans 1-4 is because that's the heartbeat.

That's the best trail, the best approach to Romans is Paul's coming to preach his justification by faith. For these guys, they're going to emphasize that salvation is by our faith in Christ. And so they're going to take the objective, genitive, you and Mike Bird have written on that type of idea. And so, yeah, for them, Romans 1 through 4 is what's most important. Kind of going to the idea that Ed Sanders pushes back on that Paul moves from plight to solution. So Romans 1 through 4 is, you are guilty, G-U-Y, L-T-Y, guilty, guilty, guilty, but God in his forensic grace took the righteous status and put it upon us because of what Jesus Christ has done. And so, yeah, that's the Reformation trail,

which again is what most people are original, are more familiar with. Although that's just one of the four trails. Is that, is it right? Is it wrong? Is it capture part, but not the whole picture? Yeah, well it depends whom you ask. You know, there's some apocalyptic people like Doug Campbell, who's going to say that Paul rejects the Reformation Trail,

that he's just making the mockery. He's putting on a mask of his opponent only to DDT the Reformation Trail. And so he's gonna see the next trail, the Apocalyptic Trail in competition with the Reformation Trail. I'm more of a idea that each one of these trails has something of value.

I do think it's true that we're justified by faith. I do think it's important, the idea of us believing in being faithful. And so, although I'm going to start with our salvation is by the faithfulness of Christ, it's our belief in the faithfulness of Christ. And so, it depends whom you ask in each one of these trails, how much they complement each other and how much they're in competition with one another. It's almost like a diamond that the Reformation Trail is just one facet of this beautiful diamond. But the problem is that for many of us, we've only focused on that one facet, but there's

so much more. There's a whole new world of Romans and Pauline theology and of the gospel that we have neglected or that we've relegated below the Reformation Trail. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. I agree with you. I think to pit these up against each other would be, I think, wrong-headed. And Campbell's, well, to be fair, I haven't read that book he wrote on it. But I don't know. He's an extent, he's a fun scholar to read. But sometimes I... Yeah. I don't know if you were in... When we were in Aberdeen, the Divine and Human Agency Conference, he was working on some of this and he was reading it. And because he was arguing that Paul never believed in justification by faith idea,

or I forget exactly, but Friedrich Avemarie was there and who's a Lutheran scholar, as you know, a friend. And all of a sudden in the middle of the paper, as Doug's reading, he just like burst out, no, no, that's an evil, that's an evil, that's an evil. And Doug got this wry smile, like he just pushed the Friedrich's stuff button so well. I was like, oh, this is so awesome. I do think that they complement one another. The problem is that the gospel is like a supreme pizza, and when you just focus on the Reformation

Trail, it's almost like you just have pepperoni. Pepperoni is delicious. I love it. But we probably want to add some more toppings. And it may not be even that Reformation trail is the most important topic for Paul. And so these other trails may say, yeah, Paul talks a lot about justification by faith when he's talking inside baseball. The only time Paul mentions justification by faith, we don't really see it in Acts. It's when we have to deal with this idea of the law.

And so we see it in Romans one through four, not so much after Romans 1-4. We see it here a little bit in Ephesians. We see it in Galatians, but in Paul's preaching in Acts and Paul's other letters, this is not what seems to drive him. Also, I mean, the context of justification by faith, like is it we are justified by faith and is the implication not by all the good works that we do? It's like, oh, that's not really what Paul's saying, I don't think. Or are we, we're justified by faith, not by simply being a Jew. Well,

those two things that he's potentially arguing against with justification by faith really colors our understanding of justification by faith really colors our understanding of justification by faith, right? That's right. Yeah, which is going to get us to that third trail in a moment where when Paul says salvation, first for the Jew and then for the Greek. And so Paul's going to even qualify that. Another trail may back it up even more to what we see in earlier in Romans where Paul

says, I didn't come to preach justification by faith. Paul didn't say that. Paul says, I came to preach justification that leads to obedience, the faith that produces obedience. And so, for Paul, he didn't just come to preach faith to faith to faith. He came to preach this faith that produces obedience, which we can talk about in a moment when we get to the imperial critical. Okay. Oh, yeah. So, what's the first, okay. First lens, reformation lens, second lens, second lens, the second lens is the apocalyptic lens. And again, from my reading, the apocalyptic, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure. Right. Right.

Justification by faith. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Right. Right. Pistis faith, belief and faithfulness. But they're going to say, but Paul does Romans one through four to get past the law and get past that discussion, because what he really wants to talk about is Romans five through eight. And so where Paul is not talking about us being guilty and criminals and culprits, but instead us being victims. And so whereas Romans one through four is going to emphasize little bitty sin, little bitty death and guilt and shame again, kind of what we all are more familiar with. The Apocalypse is going to say, actually, there's more to play than little bitty sin, little bitty death,

little bitty guilt. Instead, there's these cosmological powers of sin and death that are ruling over us. And so we don't just need reconciliation. We don't just need justification, but we need freedom. We need this liberation. And so the apocalyptic people will even come back and say, well, you know, Paul, before he wrote Romans, he wrote Galatians. And Galatians is arguably his first letter. He might have wrote first Thessalonians before. It's kind of a toss up. But Paul's very first statement about the gospel, Galatians 1, 3,

it says that Jesus Christ, he gave himself for our sins. Why? In order that we might be justified? In order that we might go to heaven when we die? No, I think all those are true, but He gave Himself for our sins in order to set us free, to set us free from this present evil age that's marked by the Stoicaea and the powers. And so Paul's very first statement to the Galatians

is that the gospel is first and foremost about freedom and liberation from these dark doors. Not freedom from our own individual sinful flesh. But it includes that. You know, you have, you have Krausson who comes and talks about the emergence of sin, that one of the mistakes that we often make is that we only look at sin as a misdeed or a wrong action, or we only look at sin like a power, a demon, a devil, or we only look at sin like this systematic, systemic empire rule. But what he does in his book, The Emergence of Sin, shows how all of those actually are the Russian doll where they kind of all fit in together. And even the sum is greater than its parts with that. And so, but the apocalyptic is going to say that the Reformation

has been focusing on more this forensic idea where righteousness is God's status that he's given to us. And then one day when we die or Christ comes back, we'll have the pathfully ever after. Whereas the apocalyptic trail is going to come and say that, well, righteousness can mean God's righteous status, but you have like Richard Hayes, for example, in one of my favorite articles. It says actually when Paul talks about de Chiosune righteousness,

he's drawing from this Old Testament idea that God's righteous is not just his righteous status, not just his morality, but it's his righteous commitment to deliver his people from bondage. And so the righteous deliverance from darkness into light, from exile into freedom. And so, whereas in Romans one through four, we don't have a whole lot of Holy Ghost, you know, there ain't no party like Holy Ghost, party goes Holy Ghost, party don't stop.

But then we get to Romans five through eight and we have the spirit to spirit to spirit. We have life, life, life, We have freedom, freedom, freedom. We have grace. And so whereas the Reformation Trail may tend to say that grace is about forgiveness, the Apocalyptic Trail is going to say, but it's about more. God didn't just give us grace to forgive us, but to give us the power to say no to sin. And so the Apocalyptic also will come and say, Hey, let's go back to Romans 1, 16 through 17, arguably the thesis of Romans, right? I'm not ashamed of the gospel,

which is a Greco-Roman philosophical tool. It's called a litates where you state the negative in order to emphasize the positive. And so when Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, he's saying, I love me some gospel. And reason he's not ashamed of it is cause the righteousness of God is revealed. And again, they're going to say righteousness is more than just God's status. It's his faithfulness to his chesed to his covenant, loving kindness to deliver his people. But the righteousness of God is what,

what, what has it done? What, What's happening to it? It is revealed? What's the Greek word for revealed? It's our word. It's the apocalyptic word. It has been revealed. And it has been revealed from faith to faith, whereas the Reformation is going to say that that's nothing but faith. So help me God. They're going to say actually from faith to faith is from the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to our faith. You and I were in a pub years ago with Mike Bird. He was drinking wine and we had a couple of IPAs if I remember correctly. And Mike was talking to us about this and he says, Joey, when were you saved? I don't know if you remember this or not. And I was like, ah, you know, when I was 16 going on 17. And Mike said, well, ask me when I was saved. I was like, when were you saved?

About 2000 years ago on a cross, you know, in his Aussie. But I found out about it more recently. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. It's a, the apocalyptic is going to say that we're so vain, we probably think about, we probably think faith is about us, but instead it's more Christo-centric. So on the cross and at the empty grave, this is when we were saved. So again, it doesn't negate the human agency, the human aspect of it, but it puts the... Sometimes the apocalypse is going to say that the Reformation has the wrong syllable on the wrong emphasis, or the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable. And so here they're going to say that to put the right accent on is to make sure that this is the faith of Christ

that leads to our faithfulness. And even the Habakkuk 2.4, the righteous one doesn't refer to us. The righteous one refers to Jesus Christ. And so they look at the Jewish tradition of how Habakkuk makes us a messianic promise. And so, the righteous one, that is Jesus Christ, lived by faith and therefore rebuild the righteousness of God that leads to salvation, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. We're going to give a free gift to whoever in the audience can catalog either direct direct quotes or allusions to pop culture during this episode, songs or South park episodes or whatever else you're going to have like a pre-qualification before I get on here. It's like you've been toying with George Michael there, but you haven't actually busted it out of you. You've been, you've been really close, but yeah, we'll see that.

I could see where somebody can be thrown off by calling that second approach, apocalyptic. They hear apocalyptic. They think, you know, stranger things or the book of revelation or kind of wild imagery or apocalyptic literature, you know, so they term it apocalyptic because it emphasizes God's in breaking of his cosmic act of redemption. Yeah. Right. Right. Is that, um, and it, and it, with a huge stress on divine agency and, and what it would be right, like discontinuity with maybe the old Testament as a whole, or can you unpack that a little bit? The kind of the continuity between some approaches and then the discontinuity between the apocalyptic.

Yeah. So Jane Lewis, Martin, Lou Martin, he's going to be in a sense an OG of the, especially the American reading of the apocalyptic. And he's going to emphasize this idea of discontinuity, that God is going to do a new thing. Since then, we've had people to say, well, actually, it doesn't have to be a matter of discontinuity and gets us into the weeds really quickly. I don't know if you were at the conference where it was Tom Wright, Doug Campbell, John Barclay and Enos. And it was a small room. So yeah, these four big names and the room was about the size of my office.

We're all kind of all packed on each other and they got really intense and about how to define apocalyptic. And I remember Doug was saying to Inti Wright, well, the way you define apocalyptic, everything's apocalyptic. And so, but yeah, so with the apocalyptic, they're going to see almost a break that, and especially coming back to this idea of Paul and the law, what's wrong with the law? If God's plan was to save from the law,

then if it wasn't to save from the law, then why did God ever get the law in the first place? But yeah, so sometimes there's friendly fire between the apocalyptic and the salvation history the third trail that we'll talk about That's there. And so yeah, so that's one of those I don't think that it's discontinuity. I think It's one of Paul's seemingly Tensions some paradoxes that we have that that he's going to try to tease out. But I don't know if he ever actually fully teases it out. And so for many of us, it's a struggle to try to say what Paul says because it may be

that Paul didn't have it fully developed in his own mind. I never understood, even when I was knee deep in this stuff and understood it much better than I do now. I never understood, yeah, the difference between, or the stark difference between a more salvation historical approach where there's an unfolding, the Old Testament sort of unfolds and unravels, it progresses and you have, you know, a Gentile getting saved here, a Gentile getting saved there, kind of like, and it kind of starts to snowball, and you have, you know, Israel given all these opportunities and they failed and then in exile, then there's this, you know, future hope of restoration. And then, and then that comes true in the new Testament. And so it's kind of this more

linear unfolding plan, but you have discontinuity built into that. You know, you have a, you know, the, the eunuchs will be coming into the kingdom. You have an influx, influx of Gentiles, not just a few here and there. You have, you know, the law will be written on your heart. Not, you won't, you know, it's not, you won't need to just have an external law that you need to obey the power of the spirit and Ezekiel and others. So it seems like the discontinuities that the apocalyptic approach emphasizes are already kind of built into the unfolding narrative. I don't, I never could, I don't know. I don't It seems like the discontinuities that the apocalyptic approach emphasizes are already kind of built into the unfolding narrative.

I never could. I don't know. I just, I would look at both sides. I'm like, I think you're all, it seems like you're kind of saying very similar things, but yeah. And Michael Palmer and company and other Dodgers fans, their book kind of deals with that as well. Who's this? Michael Barber. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's a fellow

Dodgers fan with you, but he, Brian Petrie and John Kincaid, they deal with this kind of say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we need to focus on this new covenant Jew because go back to Jeremiah, go back to Ezekiel and we see that there's discontinuity already kind of baked into the cake and kind of a third way, if you will. Obviously, I guess Lou Martin, I mean, you don't have circumcision. You would never get the impression that, right? Would you that circumcision wouldn't still take a central place in the, in the new cub. Well, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point.

I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point.

I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point.

I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's kind of thing. Like, I could see where there's that, that's a, that would be a pretty, pretty radical break with the old covenant. Yeah, I don't know. Jesus's individual resurrection seemed to go against the understanding of the day of the general resurrection where Jesus is his first fruit of the resurrection. That's quite the revelation. But with apocalyptic, as we already mentioned, the word revelation comes to bear. And so, revelation is apocalyptic literature, whereas Paul has apocalyptic eschatology in his thing. And so, again, we'll define it in the book. I define it elsewhere because it just gets very

slippery on how actually to do this. But yeah, so, but the Apocalypse would even say, well, in Romans 1, 16, and 17, we can go on to verse 18 as well, because it's not just God's righteousness that is revealed, but also His wrath is being revealed on the ungodliness and the impiousness of humanity. And so, they would even take it more. They might push back at the Reformation Trail and say, actually it's not plight to solution, but it's solution to plight. And so again, during one of EP Sanders,

it wasn't like Paul was wringing his hands like, oh, I'm feeling so guilty, I needed a solution. But instead God knocked him off his donkey on the road to Damascus. He saw the solution, the risen Christ and then realized that he must have a problem. And so that leads him to, yeah. So yeah, I hope people can see the difference there between plight to solution, solution,

the plight. Paul didn't know about his plight until the solution shone a light onto it. Whereas a tradition, right? The traditional reform Whereas the traditional Reformation model is Martin Luther. I mean, he was so weighed down with guilt. And then he says, I can't save myself. Oh, it must be Jesus. Yeah. Which affects the way that we did evangelism growing up, the way we were taught. Yeah. The Roman road, right? Yeah. The Roman road to salvation. And as we'll see with Romans road, it's not even about the evangelism. It's about the church as we go see with Romans road, it's not even about evangelism,

it's about the church as we go through. And so, yeah, you have to convince someone that they're a sinner and then they realize, but maybe, and maybe there are times that we do that, but maybe there are other times where we're like, hey, let me share with you this person of Jesus Christ. And then they realize how efficient their life is or how much in bondage they are in once they see Christ. And so, rather than anthropocentric, rather than starting with man and our guilt, we start with Christ. And so, that might be more effective when we're preaching and teaching and sharing the gospel with people. That's good. That's really good. All right, third approach. Yeah. I like to say hi. Just cause I rolls off the tongue. It took me six months to learn how to say that word. And now I can't say it again. I

think in Austria we used to like say it over and over again. Mark, but yeah. So they're going to say again, the way that I'm giving a more of a, a nicer read, a kinder, gentler read, but there was a sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. Romans 1 through 4, just in case of my faith, the circumcision of the heart, like you mentioned Deuteronomy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right, right, right. Romans 5 through 8, we've been set free. But the reason Paul writes Romans 1 through 8 is because what he really wants to talk about is Romans 9 through 11. And Romans 9 through 11 for many traditions, and again, growing up, it's almost like an excursion. Like even when we're like preaching, we're like, oh, we'll quickly either skip Romans 9 through 11

or we'll go through it, or it becomes this place, the debate, the ground for, is it Calvinism, Arminianism? And then we bring in Judge George Floyd, you know? And so, but they're gonna say that actually Romans 9 through 11 isn't a side trail instead. It is the summit. Um, Paul, uh, is his guy. This is what it, this is where he's been trying to get to all along. Exactly. Bringing Jews and Gentiles together. I'm the one man, Jesus Christ. I mentioned, uh, Ephesians two earlier, uh, when I was translating through it, I had this, um, my light bulb, a moment

that came on is that, you know, we're saved not by words, but by faith and grace. But we're saved for good works. We're God's poema, His masterpiece, saved for good works. But then Paul in verse 12 goes on to talk about what those good works are. It's to tear down the walls of racism. It's to bring Jews and Gentiles together. This is that mosaic that, and here you have that apocalyptic idea come in, but the mosaic of the church, the multi-cultured, multi-ethnic, every language, tongue, tribe coming together in the name of Jesus Christ. And God the Father takes that and says, booyah, he slammed dunks on the powers and authorities. He pants them. He does to the powers what the Dodgers did to the

Yankees in game five. And so this is that idea. So for the new perspective, sorry, for the salvation history, the idea is that God didn't just come to save us to forgive us of sin. He didn't just come to save us from the power of sin. He came to save us into a story. He came to save us into what He's been doing

since the time of Abraham. And so it's not just this, we have been released from guilt that we've been set free from sinful oppressive powers, but God did that so that we can be grafted in to the story of Israel, fulfillment of His promise to Abraham back in Genesis 12, and even going back to the proto-Eugenia,

the promise that He made to Eve in Genesis chapter three. And so this group rightly pushes back on this idea of Romans nine through 11 is not about individual predestination and foreknowledge and the Calvinism debate, but instead it's about the story of Israel. And so Paul begins Romans nine talking about how he is heartbroken that he, God, I speak the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God, that I wish that I could be anathema, cursed and cut off. Why?

For the sake of Israel, my people. And so Romans 9 through 11 is really about this question, what's up with Israel? Did God forsake Israel? And of course, Paul begins with this, putting on a mask, if you will, of Moses, who in Exodus 32, when Israel was apostate, says, hey, can you blot out my name from the book of life? And God's going to say, no, no, no, no, I'll have mercy on whom I mercy, I'll have compassion whom I have compassion, which Paul's going to quote later on. And then so he begins with this heartbrokenness for his loved ones that don't know the Lord.

But then he ends Romans 11 with this great compilation of hymns, of verses, that's going to talk about how God is going to come to bring and save Israel and the nations together. And so, the Salvation History Trail, I would say, says that if we don't come out of Romans 9 through 11 with the brokenness that we see in Romans 9, but also a hope for the nations that we see in Romans 11, then we missed out. And so, the Salvation History Trail may also go back to Romans 1, 16 and 17, like, yes, yes, exactly! That's not your verse. That's our verse. Well, what does it say? Salvation is first for the Jew and then for the Greek. And so, and even the way that Paul does the Greek there, the language,

it emphasizes that it's first for the Jew. And from faith to faith is from the faithfulness of, from the faith of the Jews to the faith of the Gentiles, who have now been engrafted in. They might also come back and say, well, canonically, what comes right before Romans? Acts. What's the last chapter in Acts? Acts chapter 28. What's the discussion in Acts chapter 28? These unbelieving Jewish people come to Paul, and Paul shares the gospel with them, and they reject it. And Paul's like, I knew Isaiah was right. I knew it was right. You're always going to be hearing, but never listening, which is what my

wife says to me about all the time. You're always gonna be seeing and never listening. And so I'm done with you and I'm going to the Gentiles. And that's the last comment we have from Paul. And then of course, Luke says, yeah, even though Paul was in prison, the gospel was free. And so reading it canonically, this sets up the idea.

Well, is God done with the Jewish people? And so Romans 9 through 11 gives that answer. And so in it, Paul's gonna say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm the apostle to the Gentiles, but the only reason I'm coming to you, share the gospel with you is so that it'll make my own people jealous. And then once your numbers are filled,

then all Israel will be saved. And so it reminds us that Paul wears Jewish underwear, that at his core, he is still Jewish and has his great burden. And so for him, the gospel and the righteousness, the faithfulness of God has to include his promise to his unilateral promise to David and Abraham for their descendants. As you're doing that, you're walking through the book and looking at these different lenses, but it's almost like I could see someone saying, these aren't different lenses. You're just summarizing different portions of the same book. Like why, why take, I'm trying to think

of volume one of the Lord of the rings fellowship of the rings. Why take fellowship with the ring or twin, the two towers or the turn of the king as the primary, this is the, this is what it's all about. It's like, well, these are just three sessions sections of the, of the story. And they're all as important to the story. Like, yeah, yeah. And again, we haven't gotten to the fourth one yet, but I'm saying that they are all important. And again, it's a matter of what is at the heart of Romans. What is that? The heart of following theology. And so for many, they've only just focused on the Romans one through four and haven't continued the trail on. Are they thinking that's what's important?

So it has that idea of emphasis that comes into it as well. But I lost my train of thought. ADHD happening. Blame it on ADHD. And I haven't gone through it because I'm trying to summarize it. But so the Reformation Trail, they're going to wind their trail throughout. And so for the people, they're still going to emphasize, whoa, whoa, this is now that we've received justification by faith, we have this peace with God, this access in which we stand.

And so, they're going to trace it out. Romans 7, we've talked about that on here numerous times, but their reading of Romans 1 through 4 as being guilty, neglecting or misunderstanding the apocalyptic idea that we've been set free from sin as well, they're gonna read Romans seven as the typical Christian life. They get to Romans nine through 11, as we see with the reformers,

and they're gonna read it, this idea of individual human salvation and predestination rather than focusing on the role that it has with Israel. I should say this and underscore it and put some highlights on it. I'm speaking very generally. And so you may have some audience members like, no, that's not what we believe. Or, Hey, you need to read Tom Schreiner. I understand that there are all those nuances that I don't have time to deal with,

but I'm just talking about just one stroke. So I hope your audience will be generous, generous with me. So, so these approaches, okay. So there, they are more than just summarizing this section. They are saying this section is where the kind of heart, the main point kind of comes out and we should actually read those other sections,

maybe a bit more like this main section. So apocalyptic, Romans five to eight, this is where these clear apocalyptic themes come out. And also if we go back and look at Romans five to eight, you know, this is where these clear apocalyptic apocalyptic pocalyptic themes come out. And also if we go back and look at Romans one to four, it's actually a little less reformational, a little more apocalyptic than you. And they're going to say it's just as much if not more. So in Romans three, again, Paul gives all these lists of scripture to say that we are sinners. I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. Would you like to be a sinner? We're all center center centers, but he says that we are all under sin. So Romans 3, 9 already introduces

this power of sin that is there. God is handing us over in Romans 1, 18 and following. He's handing us over to whom? He's handing us over to these evil powers. You know, the paradigm is how the apocalyptic is going to read this. The salvation history is going to say, man, we kind of quickly skip over Romans 3, but Paul's talking a lot about Israel here and the role of Israel. And so, yeah, so all of them are saying, yeah, there are truths in all of these different trails, but our trail is the best trail in which to understand Romans and extrapolate that to Pauline theology and the gospel. All right, take us to the fourth one.

The fourth one I call reading Romans in reverse, the triple R trail. Scott McKnight has a book, reading Romans backwards. And so the last trail is gonna come and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure, Romans one through four. All right, all right, all right, Romans five through eight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Romans nine through 4. All right, all right, all right. Romans 5 through 8. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Romans 9 through 11. But Paul really does Romans 1 through 11,

this heavy theological lifting, because what he really wants to talk about is the local church. It's all about that church, about that church, no trouble. So Paul does great theology because he wants that theology, that great lifting. He wants that rubber to hit the road specifically in Rome. And so Paul's not writing a systematic theology.

Paul's not sitting down and giving us church dogmatics. Paul is a pastor at his heart and he's writing to a church that is divided, likely over predominantly racial lines over the table. And so rather than Romans 1 through 11, we want to focus on Romans 12 through 16. So Paul does that in order to deal with what is most important, and that is bringing unity inside of the church, especially in Rome around racial lines. And so they might say, rather than starting in Romans 1-16, maybe we should start in Romans 16-1. And Romans 16.1 is where Paul gives the shout outs. He gives this, hallas.

And it begins, of course, with Phoebe and he has all these people. And so it's just a reminder that Paul's writing to real people in a real community that's struggling with real struggles that we deal with. And so it's going to say that sometimes we as scholars or church tradition emphasize so much Romans 1-11 that actually leads to the division that Paul's trying to redress. So think about how many denominations and fights and heretics that have been proclaimed out of Romans 1-11 that just totally go against Paul talking about humility in Romans chapter

12. And so the reading Romans backwards, Scott McKnight and company are going to just emphasize that Paul is writing to real people and this is a practical theology that leads to the church becoming who God wants it to be. And of course, with that, we have that evangelistic zill. Paul wants the church to be united because when he gets there, he wants them to say, yo know, yo, home, this is Spain. He wants to go to the ends of the world to share the gospel. And so, sometimes we neglected or misunderstood the ethics of Paul because we've been so worried and within the cumbersome discussions of the theology of Romans 1-11.

I just spent a whole chapter in Romans 16 or my book, my, in my forthcoming book as a whole chapter in Romans 16, man, so much there, dude. There's so much there. I used to skip over that as I got, here's a bunch of greetings, but like the, the greetings of an ancient letter were significant, right? And the end of a letter is significant. And the fact that he gives more greetings in this one chapter than by far any other letter is, I mean, I think even in any other just ancient letter, I think the greetings is just enormous. And it's men and women, it's Greek and Jews, it's slaves and free. And so it is really the extrapolation of what we see in Genesis and Galatians chapter three. And so the Roman

church is meant to be that beautiful picture, but they got to get united first. Andrew Clark has a good article on that, actually, on the socioeconomic leveling in Romans 16, slave free. It's almost like a commentary on Galatians 3.28. Andrew's got the Midas touch and everything he writes is just gold. He's just so in tune at the first century, man. Every time I go back to it, it's just like, gosh, it's like he was living there. So good. Yeah. There's actually been a lot of work done on Romans 16. So that last one, it takes, I mean, obviously, Paul gets really more concrete with stuff going on in the Roman church beginning, I mean chapter 12, 13, but especially 14 and 15, right? With the dietary laws and Jew gentile stuff. And

it's like, Oh, all this other previous Jew gentile stuff that felt more abstract is like, this is going on in the church at Rome, culminating in actual names of people. Like the woman who was like, was a mother to me and my coworkers here and my friend Phoebe and who funded my ministry and all these things. Like, it gets really personal. And he's trying to curry favor to, with the Roman church, which he's where he's never been to establish home base for his future hope to take the gospel to Spain. So, you know, here's a church where he didn't find, he didn't found, he does never been, but he's like, Hey, I know a lot of y'all, you know, like,

Speaker 0.(1h 10m 48s): That's right. Yeah. So if they can't send him to Spain, then there's no gain there. And so, yeah. So going back to your conversation about why does it matter? Does it really matter to me? Where does the Reformation Trail lead to Romans 12? At least the Reformation Trail that I grew up with, Romans 12 is, therefore offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. That's my individual body. I offer my body as a living sacrifice that's holy and pleasing to God, right? So I do my quiet time every day. I got to pray to make it today. I go to church. And every day. I got to pray to make it today. I go to church and that's how I offer my body as a living sacrifice. But the reading Romans

in reverse is going to say, actually, if we look at this in context, offering your bodies, this is Jewish bodies and Gentile bodies who traditionally hate each other, the anti-Semitism and the ethnocentrism that was there, they hated it. And so when Paul says, offer your bodies, these are Jewish and Gentiles bodies offering themselves as a living sacrifice within the church that's holy and pleasing to God. And so it takes it from this individualistic aspect to say, God didn't just come to save you from your individual sin.

He didn't just come to save you from the power of sin. He didn't just come to save you in fulfillment of that promise into that metanarrative, but God came to save you into the church, into a community, this multi-ethnic, multi-cultural community of broken people living in a broken world. And so, we offer our broken bodies as that living sacrifice. And so, even looking at this trail, for me, it's transformative the whole way that I see Romans 12. That's good. That's really good. Yeah. I mean, that's a general tendency, right, to read a lot of statements in the New Testament, the Bible through an individual lens, right?

And there's so much more. Not that there's not some individual focus, but I think it's way less than we often read into it, which is normal. We live in a highly individualist culture. The ancient world was not. We're narcissistic, so we read scripture with the grace of Jesus. Wendy Richards has a book called Reading Scripture with Western Eyes. Or Misread Scripture with Western Eyes. And then he has Reading Romans with Individualistic Eyes. And both of those kind of emphasize that, you know what, that we may not be reading it the way that Paul intended us for us to read it. And so, this idea of God calling us into a church is important that sometimes in our

individualistic lives, we're like, well, it's just about me and God. But no, it's about us with God, which means that we are part of the body of Christ. I think for Paul, this may be my apocalyptic mystic type idea coming in, but I think the body of Christ that Paul's going to talk about in Romans 12 is more than just a metaphor, more than just a symbol. That is this mystic reality that we are mystically connected to the body of Christ by His Spirit. So it gets us to anthropological discussions. That's probably beyond one of this podcast. And the Eucharist. Are you more Catholic on that?

I'm talking about the Eucharist. This is for extra Indians. Oh, I got an idea for extra Indians. Become a Patreon supporter and you can hear Dr. Dotson's heresies. I'm loving these extra days, dude. Cause I, as much as I get to see part of the Patreon, I need to know that before as much as I get totally raw and open on my podcast and stuff, there's still like, I always get these thoughts. Like I really want to talk about the, you know, to talk about this. But like, I don't know if they do so just publicly. And so anyway, wait, okay.

We'll see if it goes. What, okay, what about, you mentioned anti-imperial. Is that kind of, is that a separate lens or is that a kind of woven throughout or? Yeah, so those are like the four beaches or the four trails. And then I have kind of like the mega themes or the recurring themes that we see that connect all these trails together. And I have four of those that I bring out as well. One is just stories and scriptures

that are underneath the text. So we look at Romans, we just see prose, but Paul seems to be, and of course the most obvious one is Adam. You mentioned Romans 16, Paul in Romans 16, 20 says, but the God of peace will crush the head of Satan under your feet. And so many of us like, oh, right, that's Genesis chapter three. But it may be that, and we know that in Romans 5, 12,

Paul actually brings up Adam, but you have those scholars like Morgan Hooker that's going to say that, well, in Romans 5, 12, Paul actually brings up Adam, but you have those scholars like Morda Hooker that's going to say that, well, in Romans 1, 18, through following, we often take that as Gentile, but there's a lot of allusions to Adam and Exodus 32 in Israel. And so it may be that throughout, underneath all of the surface,

to bring back Transformers from the 80s, there's more than meets the eye. And so Paul has this fall narrative that's going back to Genesis 3 and 1 118 and following that we haven't seen. He's going to bring Adam back up when we get to chapter five. I argue my Romans seven book that Paul makes allusions to Adam when he says, I was a lie before sin came. Romans chapter eight, creation was subjected to futility against her will. This seems to go back to Genesis chapter three.

And so, like stories along those lines, Eddie Adams is going to come and say, well, Romans one, we read it, but we need to understand that you can't understand Romans one without understanding Romans four. And Abraham becomes the foil for Romans one. And so, looking at those stories and scriptures, how Paul uses the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. So that's one of the recurring themes because Paul's going to quote and use scripture and have these echoes and allusions and summaries of scripture throughout.

And so that's one of the approaches, the vistas that we'll look at Romans through as well to bring out those great things. Like I mentioned before in Romans 9 where Paul seems to be appealing to Moses who is willing to be cursed and cut off for apostate Israel in Exodus. Then later on, he's going to bring up Elijah, remember, where Elijah also goes up onto the mountain and it's like, everyone has denied me. I'm the only one left. One is the loneliest number. God's like, it's like, everyone has denied me, I'm the only one left. One is the loneliest number. And God's like, that's cute, Elijah.

There's thousands who haven't bowed their knee to Baal. And so what Paul does in quoting both of these is that he pointed two times where Israel has been apostate, but God never let them down, He never gave them up, He never ran around or deserted them. And so, if He didn't do it in Exodus, if He didn't do it in Elijah's time in Kings, then He's not going to do it in Paul's time as well. And so, Paul holding out hope for Israel and looking at those stories and scriptures that Paul is using underneath that help us underscore the hope that we have

for those. Okay. So, the anti-imperial then? Is that... Yeah, so I use the pure critical, if you remember. We had this on a previous podcast, one of our previous tens of podcasts that we've done. But yeah, so even at the very beginning, that mentioned that comment that I said, the obedience of faith that Paul is coming to preach. Jason Myers in his book shows how kind of like for hours, One Nation Under God, would might be a US propaganda that the obedience of faith was a statement that was used all throughout Rome.

And he gives in his book just all these ideas. Yeah, so almost like maybe like law and order that we use in the US for good or for bad. Paul is using this idea of the obedience of faith and how obedience was that which came from allegiance. And so bring in Nijay Gupta and Scott McKnight and- Bates. Matthew Bates.

Bates. Thank you. That Bates stuff. That it's idea obedience and faith is allegiance and the outworking of that. And so how we see that go throughout. And so Paul begins with that. Of course, even before that, he's going to talk about the euangelion, the gospel, and Jesus as the Son of God, all of these terms that were used all throughout Romans.

And so you can see this is imperial critical. This is where actually the imperial critical and the stories and scriptures come together because these terms are also some things that we see in Isaiah with the idea of the good news and the gospel. And so sometimes these two come together and kiss, holy kiss that is, but yeah. I'd be curious how that fits in with Romans 13, which seems to be the least counter imperial rating.

But I think that's where people immediately go. But when Paul says that Nero, the Roman Empire and the Roman Emperor are servants of the God of Israel, who's been revealed by a crucified carpenter from the backwaters of Nazareth. That's treasonous, man, to say that. And so, yeah, but, and one thing that we see with the Imperial Critical, that's why I say it's not anti-Imperial, although there may be aspects of that, but Imperial Critical is much more subtle. And so, if you remember from that podcast we had last year or whatever, Revelation's going to be kind of like punching Rome in the throat.

And then you'd have those like Josephus is like, Rome, God, you're the new Israel, God loves you more. And Paul's going to be somewhere in the middle of that. But the idea that creation will be set free when the sons and daughters of God is revealed. If you remember when Augustus Caesar, Octavius out beat the other two guys, the eagle comes down and anoints Augustus Caesar to begin his reign, his rule. And the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome has now been spread throughout. Because why? Mother earth had been set free

from the bondage of the barbarians, the Dodgers fans. But yeah, and so here Paul comes and says, actually, no, creation is still under futility and she's not gonna be set free until you, this motley crew, ragtpton says, actually, no, creation is still under futility and she's not going to be set free until you, this Motley Crue, rag-tag group of church, once you're revealed, then creation will be set free. And so all throughout Romans, you have this imperial critical discussion. Even every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And Romans is at 14 or 15, where he echoes what he did in Philippians chapter 2. So yeah, once you put these lenses on, these little, you begin to see it everywhere, all throughout. And so yeah, the imperial critical,

theodicy is the next one, fancy word for the problems of evil. And so it's interesting because Plato was the New Testament for the Greeks and Plato's Republic would kind of be like the Romans. And Plato's Republic, one of the main questions is, is God just? Is God fair? So it questions the decay of God, his justice and fairness. And what does that look like in a community? How could that lead to a utopia, which kind of gets us back into the 12 through 16 type stuff. But here Paul writes and he's questioning. And so often we, because of the Reformation Trail, we just look at righteousness from one standpoint, but the word decaeosune could also be the word justice. And the word theodicy even comes from Romans when Paul asked the question, is God just? Is God fair? And so Paul in Romans

is going to deal more with the problem of evil than anywhere else on the problems of evil. If God, if we really truly are heirs of Christ, heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, then why does the righteous suffer? If God really is the God of Israel, if he's the Redeemer who's going to come from Zion, then why is most of Israelites not following God and have stumbled? If God is the God of all history, then what's up with the law? And so, Paul's going to deal with these issues. Why is sin and death in the world and what is God going to do about it? And so, the Odyssey goes throughout all of these as well, where Paul addresses these concerns for the local church members and

for us as what's up with evil and why is it still here? If you squeeze Joey, Romans bleeds out. I mean, this dude could just keep going for hours like this. It's crazy, man. Yeah. I don't know if I've seen anybody just be so jam packed full of Romans. Well, let's, let's wrap things up, but I do want to keep you for a few minutes here for extra innings. I would love to know what, what are some things like theological viewpoints that you've changed on say in the last 20 years? Like what are some areas that 20 years ago you were like really believing this and then

now you, you don't believe there or maybe you're questioning it. Like, I'm not sure that's actually true. So let's, we'll close things out here and we'll head over to Extra Innings. Thanks for having me. If you would like to listen to our Extra Innings conversation, then head over to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw to become a member of the theology in the rock community and get access to all the extra innings, conversations, and other premium content. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.