The Prophet Isaiah, Benedetto Gennari, 17th century, Burghley collection

Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.
(Isaiah 7:14)

Fr. Smith’s Commentary on the Second Reading
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Romans 1:1–7
December 18, 2022

After a week with St. James, we return to Paul’s “Letter to the Romans,” indeed to its opening. As we have seen before Paul is writing to a community he did not found nor one in which he has many friends. He also has a very clear motive for making a good impression. Paul is going to Rome as a prisoner to be tried by the emperor. This will not be immediate, and he will need to be housed and fed. He wishes the Roman Church to pay for a good jailor and a decent room where he can still speak with others and write. Paul, however, has a problematic reputation. Some people are still suspicious of him because he once persecuted the church, others because of his occasional intemperance. They most likely read the letter to the Galatians. He needed to be very careful to make a good impression on the Roman Christians. Further details can be found here.

Besides the political, there is a theological issue. Paul is an apostle. An apostle is literally one who is sent. Yet the early church gave apostle a fuller meaning. An apostle required that one have seen the risen Lord, been commissioned by him to preach the gospel and, for Paul at least, to found churches. This is wider than the 12 and Paul goes to great lengths to show that on the road to Damascus he had an encounter with the risen Lord who commissioned him to preach to the Gentiles. We see in the “Acts of the Apostles” that Paul’s apostleship was widely accepted, at least in the generation after his death. So as an apostle he had the right to demand to be housed and protected but he had no means to command them. This would be difficult for the most experienced diplomat, which is not a word that comes to mind with Paul. He will need to set both the mood and his terms in this introduction.

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