Romans: An Orthodox Commentary

by Patrick Henry Reardon

God seems to have chosen the Apostle Paul to demonstrate arguably more than in any other person in Christian history how the life in Christ arrives at insight through experience. If this is the case of Paul more than any other person in Christian history, the reason may be simply that Paul s words are the Word of God. His epistles stand forever as the divinely chosen model of how the Christian arrives at truth through experience. Unlike so many theologians of later times, Paul did not inherit a Christian worldview. His vocation, rather, was to create such a thing from his own experience. For this reason, Paul s thought ever remains the Church s cutting blade, the biting edge of her apologetics and evangelism. To affirm, as everyone does, that Romans is unique in the Pauline corpus should serve to indicate the necessity of caution in using it as a guide to the other epistles. But in recent centuries the Christological and ecclesiological core of Paul s thought has been displaced by a preoccupation with religious and moral psychology; all the epistles were interpreted through a Romans lens. This is a false turn, which runs the risk of reducing salvation itself to a sub-division of religious anthropology. To misinterpret Paul is to misunderstand the Gospel itself. Fr Patrick Henry Reardon guards against this error and offers a fuller and more balanced picture of the Letter to the Romans, reading it in the context of the entire Pauline corpus and relying upon the best ancient sources, the Apostle s earliest disciples and defenders, those Christians in the churches that Paul had a hand in founding. These churches, closely associated with the composition and copying of the epistles rightly enjoyed a recognized authority in the determination of early Christian doctrine.

Genres: Christian, Theology, Nonfiction

172 pages, Paperback

Published October 22, 2018

About the author

Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor of All Saints' Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and a senior editor of Touchstone magazine.

Father Patrick was educated at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), St. Anselm's College (Rome), The Pontifical Biblical Institute (Rome), and St. Tikhon's Orthodox Seminary (South Canaan, PA).

He has authored many books including: Christ in the Psalms, Christ in His Saints, The Trial of Job: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Job, Chronicles of History and Worship: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Books of Chronicles, and Creation and the Patriarchal Histories: Orthodox Reflections on the Book of Genesis.

In addition, Father Patrick has published over a thousand articles, editorials, and reviews, in "Books and Culture", "Touchstone", "The Scottish Journal of Theology", "The Catholic Biblical Quarterly", "Pro Ecclesia", "St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly", and other journals on three continents over the past forty-plus years.

Reviews

[Melinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent commentary, and one from a different theological perspective than what I'm used to. Was eye-opening in many places, and provided great insights.

Very worthwhile to read, I would recommend it!

[Tony Lee Ross Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much an introductory commentary, though you may think how could someone write almost 200 pages on a book that is far smaller? Still, Reardon is fair throughout and only very rarely talks about Orthodox distinctions in interpretation.

[Farhad Akhavan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great commentary

Great commentary to use alongside reading of Romans in a multi week Bible Study. Commentary captures chapter by chapter the development of the Epistle as it happened in its own time. Worthy of reading more than ones.

[Christian Proano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and sweet, the author gives enough basic information to become a "thought starter."

[Michael Landsman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, punchy, and insightful commentary on Romans that can be read reasonably quickly. The only way it suffers is that it seems to be meant for just that and not as a deep study commentary.

[Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review

Very good. Loved the orthodox insight into this book. It really shows the unity and distinctions of different branches of Christianity.