Status Updates From Romans (Shorter Commentary)

p289 Paul has certainly not provided neat answers to the baffling questions which arise....He has...not swept away all the difficulties. But...we may well feel that he has given us enough to [know]...that the deep mystery p290 which surrounds us is neither a nightmare mystery of meaninglessness nor a dark mystery of arbitrary omnipotence but the mystery...of the altogether good and merciful and faithful God.

p146 [about verse 6:23] "God...does not pay wages, since no man can put Him in his debt."

p89cont'd"Since the objection to the presence of this Greek word on the ground of the sense of the passage is thus confirmed by the thoroughly objective fact of its inconsistency with the grammar of the sentence (a point not often noticed), it would seem that we are justified in regarding it as a simple mistake,whether of a very early copyist or of Tertius or of Paul himself, and ignoring it in translation."

p89"A puzzling feature of v.[4:]12 is...the definite article before the Greek word...[for] 'walk', which has the effect of implying a different group of people altogether from that just mentioned is intended. But this in not only contrary to...the clear sense of the sentence; it is also ruled out grammatically by the position of the previous definite article...in relation to the words represented by 'not' and 'only'.