Question

choose one of Paul's letters from your Bible and read its introduction.

If you were to introduce Paul's work and this letter to a student or colleague, what would you say/write? How would you characterize the importance of Paul in his context and in the location where the letter was written, and in what ways is this letter of importance? In other words, think about Author, Audience, Opponents, and Occasion.

Answer 1

St. Paul or Saul of Tarsus is one of the apostles who at the beginning set off to torture the early Christians and on his way to Damascus, he was knocked down by God. He lost his eye sight was lost for three days and he didn’t take any food or water during those three days. Most of the New Testament books are letters that was written by Paul to the new Christian communities and they are 14 in total.

During that time Paul had never visited Rome and he was new to that community but he had some acquaintances in Rome. He wrote the letter to Romans introducing himself as a servant of Christ. He was in Corinth a city in Greece during 57 to 58 AD. This is considered to be the longest letter by Paul.

He wrote the letter to strengthen the early Christians in Rome as they were persecuted by the other Romans and most of them had to live in hidden places. One of the famous verse ‘If God is for us, who can be against us’ is one of the most famous versus in the Bible that strengthened the Roman Christians to a great extent in withstanding the persecutions.