Book Review: Romans,by Frank Thielman

The new contribution of Frank Thielman to the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series enters an already crowded field of recent major Romans commentaries. Thielman serves as Presbyterian Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School. His previous work includes From Plight to Solution: A Jewish Framework for Understanding Paul's View of the Law in Galatians and Romans (Brill, 1989), Paul and the Law: A Contextual Approach (Inter-Varsity, 1994), and Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach (Zondervan, 2005). With respect to traditional introductory questions, the Letter to the Romans was written from Corinth about A.D. 57 and delivered by Phoebe to ethnically diverse but mostly Gentile churches in Rome. Phoebe may have been a woman of wealth and high social status. Thielman thinks she held the position of deacon. The role of deacon, however, “involved a lot of running around” as was considered lowly service by Greco-Roman standards.

The thirty-one page introduction is quite different from the average exegetical commentary on Romans. Thielman begins with a brief synopsis of state of the Roman Empire in ad 57 followed by an account of how Christians first reached Rome. The purpose of both sections is to place the reader into the world of Rome in the mid-first century. He draws attention to the social problems of slavery, infanticide, and the despair of people living in abject poverty. As for the purpose of the letter, Thielman observes there are several reasons Paul wrote to a congregation he did not yet know. Paul says his desire is to visit them in order to preach the gospel (Rom 1:13). The rest of Romans describes Paul's gospel and its implications for Christian living. Since the Roman churches were predominately Gentile, Thielman suggests Paul may have considered the Roman Christians part of his apostolic responsibility. But Paul also needed the support of the Roman congregations if he was to continue his mission by preaching the gospel in Spain (Rom 15:28–29).

Each chapter in the body of the commentary begins with the literary context of the section of Romans under examination. This is more than a summary of the section since Thielman connects the smaller unit with the larger aims of the letter. Following this is a clip of the detailed outline of Romans in a faux computer window graphic. Thielman then offers a concise main idea for the section to be studied in the chapter. Like other volumes in this series, the English translation of the different sections is presented in a graphical layout marked with interpretive labels for each clause. The series introduction indicates these labels are “informed by discourse analysis and narrative criticism,” but the editors have also attempted to avoid technical jargon. To help the reader follow the flow of Paul's argument, main clauses appear in bold print, and subordinate clauses are indented.

Putting the context in several different ways, Thielman moves on to the commentary proper under the heading “Explanation of the Text.” Here the style of the commentary breaks up into two columns. The commentary proceeds phrase-by-phrase, with the English text in bold followed by the Greek text in parenthesis. Since key Greek words are repeated in the commentary, printing the full Greek text may not be necessary. Thielman does not often comment on the syntax in the body of the commentary, but there are ample footnotes directing readers to Wallace, Zerwick, Moule and other advanced Greek grammars. The same is true for lexical issues. He often comments on the use of a word elsewhere in the Septuagint or Greek New Testament and uses the footnotes to point readers to lexicons and theological dictionaries. This makes the body of the commentary uncluttered and easy to read. Thielman interacts with secondary literature in the footnotes, pointing interested readers to a wide range of literature on Romans, both classic and modern. The final section in each chapter is identified as “Theology in Application.” Here Thielman offers two or three points of contact with Pauline theology or contemporary church issues which arise from his exegesis. For example, commenting on honor and shame in Romans 12:1–8, Thielman says “competition and seeking honor for one's self are no less a part of modern human societies than they were of ancient Roman society. Paul's call upon believers to be vigilant against allowing this spirit to infect the church is as relevant now as it was in his own time” (p. 581).

Thielman covers technical details inexcurses scattered throughout the commentary. These sidebars are labeled “In Depth” and are printed in a sans-serif font and a grey background. Like most excurses, the reader may skip over them thinking they are not very important. This is not the case. Thielman uses these sidebars to deal with a few important issues for the study of Romans. The result of this well-conceived and well-organized commentary is that one comes to recognize the good job done by Thielman and the editorial team of Zondervan. Written by notable evangelical scholars, each volume treats the literary context and structure of the passage. This commentary is valuable, not because it is a fundamentally different approach. It offers the careful reader an excellent explanation of the main theological issue on the letter to the Romans.