Conclusion - 1

I have come to the final passage in my study through the book of Romans that has taken me somewhere around two years. And as I meditate on these last few verses I am once again a bit overwhelmed trying to unpack the way Paul sometimes expresses himself. Paul is known for writing extremely long sentences at times and this is one of those that spans several verses.

Long sentence structure can present a real challenge as to how to understand just how all the pieces within it relate to each other. I have been looking at this passage for several days, exploring various ways of viewing it and even seeking advice from a professor who taught Hebrew and Greek in a seminary. I can see that this is going to be one of those times when I will have to spend more effort in trying to understand and listen to what God has compressed in this part of His Word.

The more I read these verses and ponder various ways of putting the pieces together, the more I sense that there may be a number of correct ways of viewing this, not just one and only one right interpretation. I am sure there are those who would differ with that conclusion but right now it seems to fit what I have been seeing here.

There is so much condensed into these last few verses that I suspect they may actually be a summary of most everything else that Paul presented in this letter to the Romans. If so, the only way to really decompress it effectively would be to review everything else covered previously. That would certainly take a great deal of time and I'm not sure how much of that I will do. But I do know that it will take much more than one day to explore what is contained here to my satisfaction.

Here are the verses I am currently trying to unravel.

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen. (Romans 16:25-27)

For this time I am going to just lay out one possibility of how these various words and phrases might fit together and how they relate to each other. What I am seeing here is a chiastic structure in the language, but trying to figure out just which parts fit where is what is confusing. As I said previously, I think there may be several potential realistic possibilities that may all be viable.

Here is the first option that I want to consider of how this may be put together.

Now to Him

.....able to establish you

..........according to my gospel

..........the preaching of Jesus Christ

..........according to the revelation of the mystery

...............which has been kept secret

....................for long ages past

....................but now

...............is manifested

..........by the Scriptures of the prophets

...............according to the commandment of the eternal God

...............has been made known to all the nations

....................leading to obedience of faith

To the only wise God

.....through Jesus Christ

..........be the glory

...............forever.

Amen.

(Evidently there is a problem publishing tabs here. I will have to work on figuring out how to show this structure graphically in HTML like I am able to do more easily in a normal word processor. If anyone knows how to insert tabs in HTML I would appreciate some help here.)

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