Gentiles Rhetorical Analysis

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Romans was Paul’s letter to the followers of Christ in Rome. Paul used “Greco-Roman rhetoric in addressing his Gentile communities” who he had never met before. When Paul was spreading the good news of Jesus, instead of his own people Jews, he mainly concerned about the Gentiles followers of Jesus who were not the chosen people in the old covenant God made with Abraham. Paul thought that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, a new covenant was brought to everyone, not only Jews but also the Gentiles. Paul felt the urgent to preach to gospel to the Gentiles so that they could be saved since “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonian 5:2).
The reason that Paul did not choose Jews as his main audiences
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In order to explain the salvation to the Gentiles, Paul used the descendants of Abraham as an example to show how the new covenant was fulfilled. The covenant God made with Abraham was not to all Abraham’s descendants, but only Isaac who was the promised one; it is not to all Isaac’s descendants, but only Jacob who was the chosen one. As it is written in Romans 9: 8, “it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.” It was not about whom was the first-born child, but God’s choice. It was not about a person’s good work, but God’s blessings. Jesus’ obedience fulfilled God’s salvation to all the people: Jews and the Gentiles. Paul, as a Jew, was a follower of Christ, had received this kind of blessings. Gentiles who were followers of Christ could gain the name of descendants by their faith as well. Only those who were faithful to this blessing would be called the descendants of God. Hodge supported this idea by saying: “It is not the believer's faith that makes gentiles right with the God of Israel, but Christ's faithful obedience to God's plan.” Though people in the Roman church were Gentiles, their faith to Jesus made them become the descendants of