Reader-Directed or Writer-Directed: The Question of Paul's Audience
by Verlyn D. Verbrugge
In 1977, Karl Donfried edited a book entitled The Romans Debate (a second
edition came out in 1991), in which he stated two methodological principles for the study
of Paul's letter to the Romans. Principle one states:
Any study of Romans should proceed on the initial assumption that this
letter was written by Paul to deal with a concrete situation in Rome. The
support for such an assumption is the fact that every other authentic
Pauline writing, without exception [italics in original], is addressed to the
specific situations of the churches or persons involved. To argue that
Romans is an exception to the Pauline pattern is certainly possible, but the
burden of proof rests with those exegetes who wish to demonstrate that it
is impossible, or at least not likely, that Romans addresses a concrete set
of problems in the life of the Christians at Rome.
Doug Moo, in his New International Greek Testament Commentary on Romans, mildly
takes issue with Donfried when he points out that the complete omission of any direct
reference to the Roman Christians after the introduction until 11:13 makes it difficult to
argue that issues with the Christians in Rome are uppermost in Paul's mind. Moo goes on
to suggest, however, that Romans 14
15, the section on the exercise of Christian
freedom, is too specific to be merely general paranesis.
In this paper I want to suggest an alternative view to that of Donfried and even
Moo. I will argue for the possibility that in various places in Paul's letters, the things he
writes about are not directed to specific issues in the church being addressed; rather, Paul
will occasionally write about items he has been encountering with church X, let's say, to
church Y, either because he wants to warn church Y of something they may encounter or