Here is a little something.
One of my favourite reference books is the old
Dummelow Commentary on the Bible. I find he gives 11 pages of introduction to
the book of Romans.
Interlude here: The frontispiece of Dummelow
explains it:
A commentary on The Holy Bible
by various writers
Edited by
The Rev. J.R. Dummelow M.A.
Queen’s College, Cambridge
Complete in one volume
with general articles
Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
New York
I think that makes him English,
being at Cambridge University, England. First printing of the book 1908.
Hear this from the ‘b’ portion of his The
Epistle as a whole:
Style. On page 857
Like
St. Paul’s other letters it was dictated to an amanuensis (16.22), a fact which
helps to explain the irregularities of the language and the thought as it
flowed on in a rushing broken torrent from the passionate soul of the Apostle.
It continues,
The
tentmaker and the organiser of the Churches had scant leisure to polish his
sentences and ponder his phrases. It may be that his hand was nimbler with the
needle than the pen. His style is a mirror of himself. Not the letter, but the
spirit; not the seen and the superficial, but the unseen and the underlying;
not the part, but the whole; not the nice details of argument, but the broad
sweep of truth, is his concern. Doubtless these dictated letters preserve for
us, even better than his reported speeches in the book of Acts, the form and
manner of his preaching, as well as the vehemence of its intellectual, moral,
and spiritual power.
The thing about reading about Paul’s conversion is the immediate evidence that he “got it” that Jesus was the embodiment of the
Christ, Truth, of which the Old Testament has a “silver thread” throughout. He
was intimately familiar with the whole of the Old Testament. That instant
recognition can be a source of wonder to the student, who lacks that
familiarity. Dummelow says, “The stricken conscience of the Hebrew under law is
healed by the hope of Israel realised in Jesus Christ.”
A thought came here, “Do people not wish to accept
Christian Science as the saving Truth because it requires repentance?”
Joyce Voysey
2 comments:
The tentmaker and the organiser of the Churches had scant leisure to polish his sentences and ponder his phrases. It may be that his hand was nimbler with the needle than the pen. His style is a mirror of himself. Not the letter, but the spirit;
This is so helpful! Thank you.
Thank you Marie. I too found this really helpful. Paul was so focussed on his task of spreading the gospel, he didn't let anything hold him back.
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