Deleted Scenes: Why Paul wrote a letter to a church he didn’t know

On Sunday, we began our journey through the New Testament letter from Paul to the Christians in Rome. I did a semi-deep dive into the context of the letter, which I know is not something everybody loves. However, I do love that kind of thing. I love it so much I’m going to lean into it just a little bit more for this week’s post. 

I mentioned a little fact on Sunday: that Paul had never visited the church in Rome prior to writing this letter. That doesn’t mean he was unfamiliar with the church. In Romans 16, Paul gives us a long list of people in Rome he wants to greet personally. Depending on how you count it, there’s something like 25 names there. Those were people in the Roman church Paul knows from his other travels. However, many did not know him. That gives rise to another interesting fact that one commentator highlights. Romans is the only letter Paul writes to a church that he has no established pastoral responsibility for. In every other case where he writes to a church, Paul had either planted the church or had sent or discipled the person planting the church. Romans is the only letter where that’s not the case.

One of the things that gets me thinking about is Paul’s mindset about the church as a whole. Despite not technically having any responsibility for the church in Rome, Paul devoted time and energy to seeing this church built up in the Gospel. He wasn’t just about “his” churches, he was about the church. Now obviously, in the first century, you didn’t have the multitude of denominations that we have now. There were no Baptists, Catholics, Pentecostals, or Presbyterians. In those early years, all the believers would have been connected through a network of house churches in any given city, and they would have been connected to the church in other nearby cities. 

Interestingly, that kind of thing still happens on occasion in our world. I recently lent out one of my favourite books to someone in our church. It’s called The Heavenly Man, by Brother Yun. This friend and I were talking about some of the memorable aspects of Brother Yun’s story. For me, something that stood out was how unified the underground church in China was for many years. They didn’t have much in terms of theological literature or training, but they had the Bible. They hungered for the word of God. Sometimes they’d receive covert shipments of Bibles from the West, which was the greatest gift they could ask for. However, before long, some of these denominations also began sending literature with the Bibles about their particular viewpoints. For example, you’d have one denomination sending books about one set of beliefs about the end-times, and another denomination sending out books about their opposing view. As these Chinese believers read these books, they became embroiled in the same kinds of divisions and disagreements that have plagued some of their Western counterparts. For Brother Yun, this was tragic.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying theological reflection is a no-no. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have conversations we disagree with about topics like the end-times, or spiritual gifts, or women in ministry. In terms of denominations, I also understand why at various points in church history and in various places, there’s been a dramatic need for spiritual renewal or for theological truth to be upheld again. Many Protestant denominations have formed because that renewal or restoration wasn’t welcomed by a “fossilized” host church, and thus needed to be expressed elsewhere. In other words, I don’t believe denominationalism is inherently evil. 

What I am saying is that we need to have a bigger vision of what the church is (this is true in all kinds of ways). The church is not just the one group of believers I’m connected with- in our case, The Bridge. It is the composite community of those who follow Jesus. If I understand that I am connected to every disciple of Jesus, regardless of what church they call home, then I will want to be praying for every church body that meets in Jesus’ name in our city. As Paul says in his analogy of the church as a body in 1 Corinthians 12:26, “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” I will want to see renewal not just in my church, but in every church, and in fact in the church as a whole. That’s why I love the North Shore Nights of Worship we’ve participated in a few times recently, because it hammers this home. It’s why I find it so encouraging to go to a worship concert at Rogers Arena (like Natalie and I did last week) and see 10,000 other believers in our area come together in Jesus’ name. I’m reminded of this larger body that I’m a part of, and that The Bridge is part of.

I encourage us to learn from Paul’s mindset and guard against a kind of competitive spirit with other churches. By God’s grace, let’s train ourselves to understand that even if we don’t have any direct responsibility for this or that church, we still want to do what I can to encourage and build up every part of Christ’s body.