Podcast: How to Read 4 Confusing and Controversial Passages in Romans (Brian Rosner)

November 17, 2025 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

How to Read Romans Better

Dr. Brian Rosner discusses how to read Romans as an exposition of the gospel in all its fullness, and the various ways this book strengthens the church for Christian living. Dr. Rosner also takes a closer look at some of the controversial, confusing, and difficult passages in Romans by taking into account the book’s background, context, and purpose.

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Strengthened by the Gospel

Strengthened by the Gospel

Brian S. Rosner

In this volume of the New Testament Theology series, Brian S. Rosner examines the central theology and themes of Paul’s gospel message in Romans to strengthen and encourage disciples of Jesus today.

Topics Addressed in This Interview:

00:32 - Presenting the Gospel

Matt Tully
Brian Rosner lectures a New Testament at Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia. He’s also the author of Strengthened by the Gospel: A Theology of Romans, which is part of the New Testament Theology Series from Crossway. Brian, thanks so much for joining me today on The Crossway Podcast.

Brian Rosner
Thanks, Matt. It’s great to be here.

Matt Tully
Romans has to be one of, if not the most, studied book of the Bible. I think we probably all have a sense for why that might be. There’s just so much packed into this incredible letter that the apostle Paul wrote, but I’d love to hear your explanation. Why is it that you think Romans is so well-studied and so important for us as Christians?

Brian Rosner
I think there are a few reasons. The first would be its influence throughout the centuries, even millennia. Romans has been absolutely fundamental right from the word "go." And in particular, as we all know, the Protestant Reformation found Romans and Galatians to be formative and significant and revolutionary, really. So, that’s the first reason. The second reason is it’s the longest Pauline letter, and it lays out in the most systematic, comprehensive and complete way that Paul understood his gospel. And as Christians, the gospel’s such an important thing. That has meant two things. One, it’s been really helpful, but on the other hand, it’s been really controversial in so many ways. There are so many passages in there that produce enormous debates and sometimes, unfortunately, conflict.

Matt Tully
We’re going to turn to some of those tricky passages here in the conversation today, but that was one of the challenges for me as I was thinking about this conversation. Which passages do I pick? There are so many really important, really foundational doctrines that Paul explains in this book and addresses in this book. It’s kind of hard to know where to start sometimes.

Brian Rosner
Yeah, I think that’s right. And it’s partly, as I said, because Romans is the first letter in the Pauline letter collection in the New Testament. And from the earliest days of the Christian church, that was pretty much the order that the scribes and the church put it in. And I think that’s actually for a reason. It presents Paul’s gospel. And then, if you like, the following letters apply that gospel. Paul takes the gospel and he applies that gospel to the different contexts and problems and settings in which the churches and the individuals to whom he’s writing find themselves. And certainly, the reason he does that (lays out his gospel so helpfully and comprehensively) is he’s never visited Rome. So, whereas usually in the story of the New Testament letters to churches, Paul’s already been there and he’s established the church. So, he is really writing with a lot of knowledge which is assumed by the church, and he is applying that knowledge to a different set of problems or contexts. Whereas in Romans, he’s never been there, so he has to present the gospel in full in order to commend himself to the church.

Matt Tully
Oh, that’s such an interesting insight. That explains the slightly more systematic, and like you said, comprehensive nature to the book of Romans.

Brian Rosner
Yes, I think that’s right. And the purpose of Romans then, once you understand its purpose, it helps us to discern what use to put the book. I think that’s a really significant feature.

Matt Tully
What do we know about when Romans was written, relative to the other Paul epistles?

Brian Rosner
It was probably written somewhere around the mid 50s. So, the chronology of the early church and the documents that make up the New Testament, it’s highly debated, really. But from what we can tell, on one of his missionary journeys, Paul wrote to the Romans. And scholars usually talk about three different reasons he wrote. He wrote with a missionary purpose. In Romans 15 he says that he wants to take the gospel to Spain, where Christ has never been named, and he’d like to use Rome as a base of operations. He wants them to set him off on his way to Spain. And actually, the Greek word, propempo, which basically means he wants them to financially support him. So, that’s a missionary purpose. There’s also an apologetic purpose. He wants to commend his gospel and defend it to the Romans so that they find his apostleship acceptable and they come in his orbit. And then the third reason is a kind of pastoral purpose. But I’ve got a slightly different take than many commentators, actually, on the pastoral purpose of Romans.

Matt Tully
What is that?

Brian Rosner
Oh, glad you asked. Basically, Romans used to be thought of, by the Reformers, as a compendium of Christian doctrine—you go there to find about human depravity, the wrath of God, justification, union with Christ, the place of Israel, sanctification, and so on. Although, I think that’s not really doing the Reformers a good service, but we could talk about that another time.

Matt Tully
That’s our shorthand version of how they read it.

Brian Rosner
Exactly. And then scholars have realized Romans is actually an occasional letter, like all the other Pauline epistles. And many scholars have said that the occasion into which Paul’s writing is revealed to us in chapters 14 and 15. There’s a disagreement between Jewish and Gentile background believers in Rome, and Paul writes Romans right from the start with that in mind, because Jew/Gentile is a big theme throughout. And that’s the reason he wrote Romans. The only problem with that is I disagree with it. One scholar has a book called Reading Romans Backwards, so you basically read the letter in the light of that dispute. However, I actually think there are problems with that scenario. If you do what’s called mirror reading Romans, you kind of wonder, Why does Paul say that that is an issue that’s reflected (mirror) in the church in Rome? And if you do that, then you could imagine just as much divisions in Rome as sexual immorality and all sorts of other problems. So, I think a better way of understanding the purpose of Romans is given to us in what’s called the letter frame—the opening thanksgiving and address and then the closing greetings. So, in Romans 1:11 and 15, we get a clue to the purpose of the letter. Romans 1:11 says, "I want to impart you a spiritual gift, which will strengthen you." And then in Romans 15 he says, "I want to preach the gospel to you in Rome." And then in Romans 16:25 he says, "Now may God strengthen you with my gospel," and I could put in brackets, "which I’ve just preached to you throughout the letter." And it’s fascinating because the verb for "to strengthen" is only used twice, at those points in Romans. And then he only uses that verb elsewhere in the Pauline letters in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, when he writes back to them to strengthen them with the gospel. And then a very similar verb is used by the book of Acts, where Paul has already been to an established church, and he goes back to, you guessed it, strengthen them with the gospel. So, I think that’s really the purpose of Romans. Paul’s writing to the Roman church not just to get them on his side for his mission, but to strengthen them for Christian living, to give them hope, to cope with suffering, to deal with sin and divisions, and all sorts of matters. That makes the letter so helpful for us in our day because, basically, that’s why we should read Romans as well. You could sum up Paul’s career with two verbs: evangelize (or preach the gospel) and strengthen. And he does the same thing with that gospel everywhere we read his letters and in Acts.

Matt Tully
What do we know about the Roman church at this time?

Brian Rosner
Oh, very little, to be honest. What we know is there were house churches. The greetings might clue us into that, in Roman 16. We know that there were both Jewish background and Gentile background believers, just by the way Paul writes to different groups in the letter.

Matt Tully
Because Rome was a very multicultural, very broad city with people from all over the world at the time, gathering there.

Brian Rosner
Yes, exactly. It was a cosmopolitan city, the capital of the empire. There were believers from Rome, we read in Acts 2, at Pentecost, and some may well have become believers then and taken the gospel back to Rome and established churches themselves. As I said earlier, Paul had never been to Rome, so I think that’s quite significant in working out the context and setting of the letter and his purpose in writing.

Matt Tully
One last question before we get into a number of tricky or difficult to understand passages in this book. Obviously, with the whole New Testament, the backdrop for the letters that Paul wrote and the Gospels that the Gospel writers wrote, is the Old Testament—the Old Testament Scriptures. There are so many allusions and quotations from the Old Testament that become really central to how we understand what was going on with Jesus and the gospel. If you had to point to one or two Old Testament books, which ones would be most significant, most foundational for the book of Romans?

Brian Rosner
Yes, a good question. You’re right. Paul opens the book by saying he’s going to tell them about the gospel of God, and then verse two says, "which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures." And then at the end of the book, he says pretty much the same thing. So, yes indeed. There are several books that are really significant for Romans. The Book of Genesis—Genesis 15:6. "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness" is a significant text in his doctrine of justification. The book of Habakkuk, which he quotes in Romans 1:16–17, "The just shall live by faith."

Matt Tully
Not one that we’ve read in our Bible study recently, most likely.

Brian Rosner
Possibly not.

Matt Tully
Maybe we should.

Brian Rosner
Indeed.

Matt Tully
Paul certainly had.

Brian Rosner
And the book of Isaiah is also very important. And all of Paul’s letters are indebted to the Old Testament. The Old Testament’s basically the backstory, if you like, of the gospel. You could read Harry Potter volume four and still make sense of it, but if you really want to get it in full technicolor surround sound, you need to read the first three volumes. So, the best prep for reading Romans is to read the Old Testament.

Matt Tully
It’s such an interesting facet of Paul’s identity and his mission as an apostle is he comes from the ultimate Jewish background. He is like the Jew of all Jews, essentially. And yet he is then sent (commissioned) to go to the Gentiles and bring this gospel to them. But he nevertheless has so much of this understanding of the Old Testament—really rich theology built into his thinking and writing.

Brian Rosner
Absolutely. The study of the Old Testament in the New Testament is the key to biblical theology, and making those links and recognizing those links is fundamental. Now, it is true that Paul was a Jew and very much took that identity, and it remained for him. But on the other hand, he’s also a Roman citizen. In a sense, he was well-equipped. He was fluent in Greek, and he was suited to the task of taking the gospel of God to the Gentile world. He never left behind his passion—the burden of preaching the gospel to his fellow Jews—and that comes through in Romans 9–11, of course, and in other parts of the letter. So, it’s true to say Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, but not exclusively.

12:33 - Romans 5:12–14

Matt Tully
Yeah, absolutely. Let’s turn to some of these tricky passages. The first one I want to talk about is Romans 5:12–14. It is a really important passage that explains how sin and death enter the world and how that entrance of sin parallels, in some ways, Christ and his work of salvation. My first question is, How can we understand the justice of this idea that sin and death spread to all humanity through the disobedience and through the fall of one man, Adam?

Brian Rosner
It’s a good question, and it’s one that Christian scholars have wrestled with throughout the ages. Romans 5:12–21, as you say, makes a comparison between Adam and Christ, or really, a comparison and contrast. That’s important.

Matt Tully
There are similarities and differences.

Brian Rosner
Absolutely. In Paul’s view of the world, there are only two sorts of people—there are those people who are in Adam, and there are those people who are in Christ. Now, we divide the world up in all sorts of ways, as did the ancient world. The ancient world had Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slaves and free, and so on. Paul cuts through all that, and he says the only division that really counts is between those who are in Adam and in Christ.

Matt Tully
That could have been a pretty shocking statement, especially for a Roman citizen but certainly also for a Jew, to kind of downplay all those other cultural distinctives and identities and say it’s really just about these two things.

Brian Rosner
Absolutely. And the radical nature of that statement is that it levels people in society. It makes possible the brilliance of the early church, which was that people of all backgrounds and social statuses were part of one body of Christ on an equal level, which was absolutely revolutionary for the ancient world—and it still is today. The best churches have that varied membership. People don’t come along and the rich get the best seats. When things are working well, they ought not to get the best seats. There’s a sense in which the multi-background and varied nature of the early church is a wonderful gift to the world, because it brings people together who don’t ordinarily belong together and unites them on an equal basis in one body simply by their love of Christ.

Matt Tully
But that’s rooted in this representation issue, or this idea that Paul’s outlining. Go back to how that can make sense. How can that be just?

Brian Rosner
The best way to understand it is through the word you just mentioned—representation. So Adam represents everyone on his team, if you like. Team sports might be a helpful analogy. And because of his sin, all of us get condemned to death. Now, that does sound unjust. One little note there is that we also are condemned to death clearly and justly through our own sin. Elsewhere in Romans, you’ve got that affirmed—"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The first three chapters make that point. But the good news about the fact that we all die in Adam—that we die through a representative—is that we can also rise through a representative. And that’s the beautiful thing about the analogy that Paul paints here for us. Therefore, as he says in verse 18, just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness—that’s Christ’s act of righteousness in his life and death—leads to justification and life for all men. So, there’s this wonderful truth that our completely hopeless condition of being dead in sin before God can be rectified through the death and resurrection of our representative head, namely, Christ.

Matt Tully
That verse you just quoted, some people will point to that and say for the parallelism to hold true, then if literally all of humanity is counted sinful in Adam, then likewise, all of humanity will ultimately be saved and be declared righteous in Christ. How do you respond to that? That seems to be what the parallelism would indicate.

Brian Rosner
You’ve got to let Paul say one thing at a time. That’s the best way to understand that. The previous verse, verse 17, makes it clear that those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness will reign through Jesus Christ. The statement in verse 18 that we just read is to be understood in light of that condition. So, even though Paul says "the many will be made righteous," "the many" is to be understood in the context of Romans 5 and elsewhere in Romans, as those who’ve responded in faith.

Matt Tully
And clearly, Paul makes it very clear that faith is the key that unlocks justification.

Brian Rosner
Absolutely. Yes. As I said, you’ve got to allow Paul to say one thing at a time. He’s a very forceful communicator sometimes. I love this part of Romans because, as I said, it gives us, at the deepest level, an understanding of how we can be raised to life, namely, through our representative, Christ. We died with Christ in union with him, and we can also rise with him.

Matt Tully
Last question about Romans five. Going back to verse 13, what does it mean when Paul says that sin was not counted before the law, and what law is he even referring to in this passage?

Brian Rosner
Basically, he’s talking about sin as trespass, which is when you break a law. And between Adam, he says, and Moses, there wasn’t a law to be broken. It doesn’t mean no one sinned, but there isn’t a trespass, a breaking of the law. So you have to ask yourself, Well, why is it that people died between Adam and Moses? And the answer’s right there. It’s because we died in Adam. Adam was our representative head, and his sin is counted against us. And for that reason, we die even though we haven’t sinned ourselves, let’s say. But as I said, the rest of Romans makes clear that our condemnation is just, even on the basis of our individual sin.

Matt Tully
Is Paul just acknowledging the fact that between Adam and Moses there was no divine law, like Israel got from Moses?

Brian Rosner
There was no Mosaic covenant. There were no Ten Commandments.

Matt Tully
But he’s not denying that humanity was sinful and rebellious and that, therefore, they were deserving of death.

Brian Rosner
Absolutely not. If you read the opening chapters of Genesis, it’s just terrible. Mm-hmm. You’ve got the violence, for example, that led to the flood, that judgment. And Adam did commit a trespass, because he did have a law—he was not to eat of the tree—and that’s the reason he died, because he broke a law. So, Paul’s trying to make his comparison—his analogy between Adam and Christ—work, and there’s a problem for him, because if we all die because of Adam’s trespass, then how come the people between Adam and Moses didn’t die? It’s clear why people died since Moses, we all break laws. How come the people between Adam and Moses didn’t die? The answer is because Adam was their representative and we die in him.

20:24 - Romans 7

Matt Tully
Let’s move on to Romans 7, another really important, debated passage when it comes to how Paul is speaking about his own life and his decisions, his will, and the power of the law over him. Let’s dive into Romans 7:8, where Paul says that "sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, through the law, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died." What is he saying? Maybe this is similar to what we just talked about, but how does he understand the law and sin in our own life?

Brian Rosner
Romans 7 is one of the more controversial passages. And just to paint the big picture, the question is, When Paul describes this situation where this indwelling sin is causing him to be, let’s say, enslaved to sin (to use the strongest language), how could that be a Christian’s experience? Is it just a carnal Christian’s experience, a kind of subpar Christian experience, or is Paul talking about his non-Christian experience before he came to Christ as a Jew? My sense is quite a bit of that debate is exaggerated, because the people who think Romans 7 is about Paul’s pre-Christian experience, they’re not saying that there’s no conflict in the Christian life. Because Romans 8 has conflict. It’s got conflict between the flesh and the Spirit (Gal. 5, Eph. 6, the spiritual warfare). And those who see Romans 7 about Christian experience would say that Romans 8 compliments, or supplements, or gives the fuller picture of what it is to be in Christ. So I think this passage is a realistic account of the struggles of the Christian life, but it doesn’t leave us despairing because, as I said, when you get to the end of the chapter and then on into Romans 8, the solution is there for us, namely, the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, which enables us to put sin to death and not have sin have mastery over us.

Matt Tully
How do we understand what he’s saying though about the effect of the law on sin in us? He talks about how, again, apart from the law, sin lies dead. What’s he getting at there?

Brian Rosner
One of the big issues Paul has to struggle with and has to explain is the role of Torah, the Law of Moses. As a good Jew, he regarded the law as a good thing. In fact, in verse 12, a few verses later, he says exactly that—"the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good." But the question comes up, If God gave us the law, how come it didn’t lead to salvation? And his answer is that it’s not the law’s problem; it’s our problem. And the fact is, the law, ironically, in the end stirred up sin because the commandment came, and human nature is such that when we’re given a commandment, it’s almost as if it stirs up disobedience.

Matt Tully
A desire to disobey.

Brian Rosner
I don’t know if you are like this, Matt, but if you’re walking past something that says "Wet paint. Don’t touch," it’s very tempting just to touch it.

Matt Tully
"Wet concrete"—you just want to stick your little footprint in there just to see what happens. When he says, "for apart from the law, sin lies dead, " he’s not saying that, again, that sin isn’t a problem without the formal written law.

Brian Rosner
No. Absolutely not. In the opening chapters of Romans, Romans 1:18–32, he’s talking about people without God’s written revelation and all sorts of evil behavior. It’s a really ugly chapter in many ways. You’ve got idolatry, you’ve got sexual immorality, and then at the end of the chapter, you’ve got this terrible vice list about disobedience to parents and rage and foul language and so on.

Matt Tully
And it strikes me as another good example—and there are so many of these throughout Scripture, particularly in Paul’s writings—where if we just take one verse, or even a couple of verses, out of context, we can understand Paul to be saying something very different from what I think he’s actually saying, as we read him in the fuller context of his own writings but even of the whole Bible. Speak to that a little bit—the importance of reading with a slightly broader view when it comes to interpreting some of these difficult passages.

Brian Rosner
I think, as I said earlier, the backstory is important—understanding why Paul is, in this case in Roman 7, needing to deal with the law of Moses? What’s the big deal? And the answer is that one of the big problems for the early church was that it was to include both Jews and Gentiles. The other issue is simply the literary context of the book itself. And the way I would explain it is we tend to read books like a bowling ball. You kind of knock over one verse after another, whereas we should read them like a snowball. So, there should be a cumulative effect of our reading. So, you’ve got both prospective and retrospective reading. Retrospective reading would be looking back at the argument up to this point in the letter, and on subsequent readings of the letter, you’ve also got in mind what’s following. To get the full picture, you’ve really got to read the whole book. That’s why I advocate both fast reading and slow reading.

Matt Tully
That just speaks to, even as Christians in our normal day-to-day lives, the importance and the value of reading and probably rereading passages in books of the Bible, not just kind of giving it one pass and thinking we’ve kind of got it. Most of these books, certainly a Pauline letter, can really demand repeated readings, as we understand the flow of his argument.

Brian Rosner
And the truth is, too, when you read something, you bring your own circumstances and background to it. For example, if you’re not suffering, you’d barely notice what the book of Romans teaches us about suffering. But if you’re really struggling with something in your life, suddenly, these quite familiar passages pop out at you and bring great comfort. Another example would be that in our day, personal identity has become a really important hot button topic, and the Bible says so many amazing things. Roman 6 is such a classic passage on this and gives us this idea that the defining moment of our lives isn’t something we achieve in our life; it’s that we died with Christ. And we also have a defining destiny, that we’ll rise with him. Yeah, I recommend rereading the Bible.

27:13 - Romans 11

Matt Tully
Let's go ahead to Romans 11, another one of these somewhat controversial chapters where Paul speaks a lot about Israel—this idea of Israel, the people of Israel. He has some interesting comments. In verses 25 and 26, he speaks of this partial hardening that has come upon national Israel until "the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way, all Israel will be saved." And obviously, there are Christians throughout the decades who have disagreed and debated about what he means by "all Israel;" what he means when he says, "all Israel will be saved;" and what the hardening is that he references. What’s your take on this passage?

Brian Rosner
I think it’s good to read it in context, believe it or not. The immediately preceding context is quite surprising because at the end of this profound discussion of the place of Israel in God’s plans, election, reprobation—all those big topics in Romans 9–11—at the end of chapter 11, he says, "Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and inscrutable his ways! Who has known the mind of the Lord?" No one.

Matt Tully
The implied answer is no one.

Brian Rosner
So there’s a sense we should approach some passages, let’s say, with humility and some modesty. Now, it doesn’t mean we don’t really know God, but we don’t know the depths of God. When we come to this passage, I think that’s a good way to set up the discussion. So, the big question here is, Who is Israel? The two options are that Israel is really another name for the church. The church is the new Israel. The problem with that is Paul doesn’t use the word "Israel" for anything other than national or ethnic Israel. That’s debated, of course. One of the key texts there is Galatians 6:16, where Paul says that he gives a blessing to the Israel of God. But here, if all Israel is ethnic Israel, the questions then are, When will this happen? When will it be that the deliverer will come from Zion and banish ungodliness from Jacob? When will it be that all Israel will be saved? What does it mean all Israel will be saved? So, I’m of the view, and as I said just tentatively along with those who understand that at the end time, for Israel (referring to ethnic Israel) there’s a future salvation promise to them. This salvation’s a future of event that will become a reality when Jesus returns. So, the deliverer will come from Zion. All Israel is actually a phrase from the Old Testament. It doesn’t mean every Israelite; it means a remnant of Israelites. So, all Israel needs to be interpreted as well. I think this is somewhat of a mystery, but it does seem that God’s historic people will eventually, a great many of them at the return of Christ, acknowledge that their Messiah has come and be saved.

30:24 - Romans 14

Matt Tully
Maybe as a last passage to talk about, let’s turn to Romans 14. And you already said that some people view Romans 14 as an important insight into some of the issues that Paul was trying to address in this letter to the Romans.

Brian Rosner
It’s a wonderful passage. Romans 14 and 15 deals with how Christians are to disagree agreeably, if you like. There’s some real emotional intelligence insights here because he talks about not condemning and not despising one another. And sadly, of course, the church falls into those traps. People of a more conservative background often despise those of less conservative background and condemn them and vice versa. So, what’s happening in Romans 14 is—and I don’t think it’s necessarily the reason for the letter, but I think this is teaching that Paul found important wherever he went, because he was bringing Jews and Gentiles together. People from a Jewish background wanted perhaps to keep the laws to do with diet and calendar. He talks about days and food. And people from a Gentile background said, "No, we’re not under the law. Paul himself teaches us that earlier in the letter and says we don’t have to do that." So there were disputes in churches like Rome, in all likelihood, and in other parts of the Roman Empire where Paul taught. And what’s so remarkable about the passage is what we open with, this idea that the gospel strengthens us. Paul doesn’t just say they need to stop squabbling because it’s a bad look, or for pragmatic reasons. It’s for deeply theological reason. It’s because of the gospel. He says that the lordship of Christ is the important thing here, that each person is accountable directly to the Lord Christ, and must give an account. And he also says that God is able to make each one of us stand, so the gospel of justification is there. At another point, he says the kingdom of God is not about eating and drinking, not about these disputable matters; it’s about righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. The kingdom of God is a big theme there. And then the glory of God comes in at the end of the passage. So, it’s remarkably theologically grounded, but it’s also extraordinary, as you opened with, that Paul thinks some matters can legitimately be those which Christians come to a different position on, according to your cultural background. One of the wonderful things about the Christian faith is it doesn’t impose a culture; it comes into a culture and contextualizes the gospel into that culture. Some of the Christians in Rome wanted to keep Sabbath the food laws, and Paul says that’s fine, as long as everything you do is of faith, because whatever’s not of faith is of sin. Faith there means something like "whatever isn’t of confident assurance in your walk with God." In different cultures, disputable matters might be all sorts of different things. Asking ourselves what’s a matter that’s disputable and what’s beyond dispute, of course, is a tough one. Sometimes people talk about gospel issues and non-gospel issues, or primary issues and secondary issues. The secondary issues are not secondary for the people who hold those convictions. So we’ve got to be careful in the language we use. But it’s a wonderful passage which demonstrates the way in which the gospel can lead to a harmonious, edifying Christian community. And then ultimately, he goes on in the rest of chapter 15 talking about his gospel message and his mission work. And he wants them to praise God with one heart, mind, and voice, so that the gospel can succeed. What’s at stake when we disagree badly is not just the harm and pain that causes; it actually impedes the progress of the gospel, because our reputation as the church is inextricably linked to the gospel and to God’s own reputation. It’s really a sobering thought. So, how we behave will either adorn the gospel or it’ll bring disrepute to the gospel.

Matt Tully
As you said already, it can be so hard to know which disagreements fall into this kind of category. One of the main ways that I’ve heard people interpret this passage is they’ll kind of say that these weak Christians who think they can only eat vegetables, in this case, or think they must observe certain holy days, that Paul ultimately would disagree with them. He says they’re wrong, but because they have this erroneous or immature conviction, they shouldn’t go against it because that would be, in their mind, intentionally disobeying or dishonoring the Lord, and that would be a sin. Do you take that view? When it comes to people who have these convictional restrictions, are they inherently always kind of immature in their thinking? Or do you think that there are certain convictions that could be God-given that might differ from person to person?

Brian Rosner
I think verse 14 is really helpful here in chapter 14, where Paul says, "I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself." So there’s a sense in which Paul actually does identify with the strong. In a sense, what he’s doing there is he’s doing some teaching. So it may be that the weak Christians (the weakened conscience) will read that and hear that and think, I’m not really under the law, so I don’t need to keep these laws anymore. But Paul doesn’t insist on it. So there’s a sense in which Paul says each person should be convinced in their own mind. And as I said earlier, whatever is not of faith is sin for that person. So I think, yes, we need to teach on disputable matters, but we ought not to exaggerate their significance. We ought not to teach insistently on disputable matters. And my view would be we only really need to teach on disputable matters when they concern our behavior. If we have to have a policy at the local church level on certain disputable matters, that’s fine. But we shouldn’t give the impression that anyone who disagrees with us is disobeying God or is to be despised. That’s when the challenge comes. So it’s remarkable that the apostle Paul, who’s known as the head kicker—"Whoever doesn’t believe the gospel I’m preaching, let them be accursed," he says in Galatians 1—but in other parts of Romans, he’s much more insistent. But on disputable matters, he’s not. My criterion for determining if something is disputable would be are there faithful Bible teachers who hold to a different view on these matters? And we ought not to impugn other people’s motives. It’s very easy for us to say, "Well, that person holds that view because of this, that, and the other." But the truth is, we don’t know their motives. And most of our motives are mixed anyway. So we should ask ourselves, Is this really an issue that we should be dividing over? Is it an issue that should cause the body of Christ to be rent asunder? Romans 14 is a wonderful call to, as he puts it in verse 19, for pursuing what makes for peace and mutual edification.

Matt Tully
Maybe as we wrap up our conversation today, is there any other passage or verse or two in this book that you feel just captures the essence of what Paul’s trying to do? And what should we take away from this incredible letter?

Brian Rosner
I think reading Romans as an exposition of the gospel in all its fullness and its implications for Christian living is the best way to read the letter. And when you do that, Romans 15:13 is fulfilled. Paul’s got this beautiful benediction there. He says, "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope." Joy, peace, and hope—they are three such attractive things, aren’t they? And they’re certainly three things I want in my life. And the way to find them is to be strengthened by the gospel.

Matt Tully
So good. You also have faith in there, joy and peace in believing, through the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s just incredible. Brian, thank you so much for walking us through some of these tricky passages in Romans, helping us perhaps even to have a better understanding of what Paul’s doing, big picture, in a book that I’m sure we’ve all spent a lot of time in. We appreciate it.

Brian Rosner
Thanks, Matt.

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