The Pauline letter which is used during the first weeks after Pentecost for our Epistle reading is the Letter to the Romans. In addition to introducing Paul to Christians in Rome, this letter has another primary purpose, namely explicating its central theme of the relationship between Jew and Gentile in the context of God’s covenant with Israel. The first verse of the letter   announces it by Paul saying that he has been called to be an apostle, and set apart to proclaim the gospel of God which He promised long ago through His prophets. The gospel – Good News – is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith. In chapters 9-11, the theme of God’s covenant with Israel, including Jews who had not become followers of Jesus, is explicit. Some scholars think these chapters are the climax and heart of the letter.

Why this emphasis is so strong in the letter to the Romans is explained by the historical context of the Christ-communities in Rome. There is much that we do not know about them. We do not know who founded them. Were they established by followers of Jesus who came to Rome from the   Jewish homeland? Or were they founded by Jewish pilgrims from Rome to Jerusalem who had encountered followers there? We do not know exactly when they were founded, though we do know that there were Christ-communities in Rome by the mid-40s at the latest. Some in them would have been Christian Jews, and some would have been Christian Gentiles, most of them “God-lovers”.

In the year 49 CE, the emperor Claudius ordered the expulsion of Jews from Rome. Christian Jews, of course, were also expelled. The report of the Roman historian Suetonius is confirmed in Acts 18:2, which tells the story of Paul meeting Aquila and Priscilla, Christian Jews expelled from Rome under Claudius.

Thus, from roughly 49 or 50 CE on, the Christ-communities in Rome would have become primarily and perhaps completely Gentile. The Christian Jews were gone. Then, in 54 CE, Claudius’ edict was rescinded. How many Jews returned and how quickly they did so are unknown. But the process was under way in the years immediately before and as Paul wrote this letter.

Though we can only imagine some of the issues, it is not difficult to do so. Would the Christian Gentile communities have welcomed Christian Jews back? During the years that Christian Jews had been gone, positions of leadership (however informal) would have been filled by Christian Gentiles. Might these Gentiles even have seen the returned Christian Jews as relative outsiders? And would Christian Jews have felt like outsiders? Might they have formed their own communities so that there would have been separate kinds of Christ-communities in Rome? This is the historical context in which this letter was written.