I once preached in a little church outside Oxford on Romans 4: Paul's long discourse on Abraham the man of faith. One of the congregants was clearly not much grabbed by the passage and afterwards told me of his sadness that Paul had taken the simple message of Jesus and messed it up with unnecessarily complicated theological pronouncements!
It is true that Romans 4 is somewhat parenthetical (ie it could be enclosed within brackets). Paul's argument would proceed perfectly smoothly if 3:28 skipped right over to 5:1. But here I will endeavour to show why Paul's long exploration of Abraham's faith is an important strengthening of his argument in Romans- and that in an Islamic context it makes an important point in correcting the false assumption that Muslims are the true heirs of Abraham's religion.
Much preaching of Romans skates over the historical content of the letter. This is a shame, because understanding the setting helps us to preach the doctrine of Romans as inherently practical. Very evident in Romans are the tensions between Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome. I enjoyed Christopher Ash's brief introduction to the letter, available in this free sample chapter. These were tumultuous times for Jews in Rome; we know that because in Acts 18:2 we read that Priscilla and Aquila were in Corinth, after the Jews were expelled from Rome by the emperor. But a few years later this famed house-church host and hostess were back in Rome (see Romans 16:3).
Put yourself in the shoes of the first-century Jew. They were tremendously proud; they saw themselves as God's chosen people, morally far above the degenerate pagans around them. And then try and imagine the hostility of many Gentiles to these Jews. The Emperor Claudius had seen fit to turf the lot of them out of the capital city. There must have been a simmering dislike of the Jews, or else his decree would have been so unpopular as to weaken his rule. Some 8 years after the expulsion of the Jews, Paul writes Romans. The church was clearly an uneasy mix of Jews and Gentiles; perhaps the first converts in the imperial capital were Jews who had returned, reborn, from the Day of Pentecost, at which we know Romans were present. But during the Jews' exile from Rome, the Gentiles must have gained prominence in the church. Paul is clearly addressing their dismissive or even contemptuous attitude towards Jews in chapter 11: verses 1, 11, and 19-20. 'Do not arrogantly think God has finally rejected the Jews', Paul argues.
Something to underline in Romans is Paul's beautiful prayer in 15:5-6. This shows us how Paul wanted them not just to grasp sound docrine, but to live out that teaching in harmony, as Jew and Gentile together in one church:
5 Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice.
So, how does this help us understand the long excursus Paul makes in Romans 4? Paul is teaching doctrine at great length, with OT backing. The Jews, of course, boasted that they were sons of Abraham, and had circumcision to show their membership of this covenant. The Gentiles were, on the other hand, in their eyes uncircumcised and dirty. If they had been accepted into God's family by faith, which the Jewish believers assented to, it was a stretch for some of them to accept Gentile believers into the inner circle and to think of them as sons of Abraham. This attitude, if left unchallenged, would do great damage to the unity of the church. So, you see, Paul's definition of true Christians - whether Jew or Gentile - as sons of Abraham, was of great pastoral importance.
Now, having gone to Rome, let's zoom to the modern Kurdish context. Is Romans 4 really important for the fellowship of believers here? We believe that all Scripture is God-breathed and useful, but often it takes time and careful reflection to see what precisely its use is.
A Kurdish believer will likely feel very lonely in their new faith; they will be shunned by relatives. This is unlikely to be a showdown between well thought-through doctrinal positions, but there is a deep-seated sense that Kurds have, since time immemorial, been Muslims, and it is a great sin to depart from that faith. That culture, that feeling that Muslims have the pure and simple monotheism that shines a light on pagan idolatry and Christian 'tritheism', owes a lot to beliefs about Abraham. At the very least, every year Abraham is invoked at the Feast of Sacrifice, when his willingness to sacrifice his son is remembered. But also, it is perhaps little known that Abraham is believed to have gone with Ishmael to Mecca to build the Kaaba. So, to be attached to the hajj and the centre-point of Islamic spirituality, the revered city of Mecca, is to stand by the religion that Abraham supposedly founded.
It is not sufficient armoury for believers to embrace Rom 1-3 and argue 'you cannot be saved by works; the only way is by faith in Christ'. Romans 5, too, has tremendous comforts for those who 'have been justified by faith' (v1); even the trial of persecution is for their good (5:3). But in between these vital sections comes a bolstering of Paul's gospel in ch 4, and it comes by way of a long discourse about how both Jewish and Gentile believers are descendants of Abraham.
Evangelical Christianity must be viewed by many in the Middle East as a sort of new-fangled, trendy sect of an ancient faith, a movement that spreads by material and perhaps sexual enticements; it is associated sometimes with guitars and modern praise music, Ultimate Frisbee and English lessons, all offered with alarmingly free mixing of the sexes. So, Romans 4 can help us show how historically-rooted evangelical Christianity is. The gospel goes back (at least) as far as Father Abraham. The evangelicals' controversial claim that you just have to believe and you get free forgiveness actually goes back to Abraham who believed and it was counted to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6).
More could be said from the standpoint of Kurdish patriotism. Abraham travelled to Urfa (Harran- see Gen 11:31), and there there is a huge fishpond which commemorates him there. This is a very Kurdish city, the home town of singers Shivan Perwer and Ibrahim Tatlises and a certain paramilitary leader also... The border crossing between Turkey & Iraqi Kurdistan is called Ibrahim Khalil. It refers to Abraham's title 'Abraham the friend of God'. Believers should know the story of Abraham and be able to defend their belief that they walk in the footsteps of Abraham. Romans 4 helps us greatly in this.
