Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Romans 8:18-30, Groaning and firstfruits
Creation groans as in labor, waiting to be freed from decay, and believers who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan too as they wait for their adoption and the redemption of their bodies.
Romans 8:18-30, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul sets present suffering against the glory still to come and says the two do not compare. He pictures all creation as frustrated and in bondage to decay, groaning like a woman in labor as it waits to be freed, and believers groan with it while they wait for their bodies to be redeemed. In the meantime the Spirit prays for them, and God is working all things toward good for the people who love him.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sacrifice-and-blood\/","n":"Sacrifice and the daily offering","s":"Animals were offered at the temple for sin, for thanks and for cleansing, and blood sealed covenants. Every day a lamb was offered at dawn and again in the afternoon, and Jews everywhere prayed at those hours.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/adoption-and-heirs\/","n":"Adoption, heirs and wills","s":"A family's property passed to its heirs; in Jewish practice the land went to the sons, the eldest with a double share. Roman law also let a man adopt a son, often a grown one, who left his old debts and ties behind and became his heir. A will, sealed before witnesses, settled who inherited and who looked after an heir too young to inherit.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/present-age-and-age-to-come\/","n":"This age and the age to come","s":"Jews divided history into the present age, under the rule of evil nations, and the age to come, when God would rule unchallenged. The sufferings expected before the change were called birth pangs.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/wilderness\/","n":"The wilderness","s":"The dry, empty country beyond the Jordan where John preached, Jesus was tested and a crowd was fed. It was hard ground, and it was where Israel's story with God began.","r":""}
Greek tradition saw the world declining from a golden age, Stoics expected everything to come apart until only the primeval fire remained, and most people of the time believed decay and Fate ruled (Keener). Israel's groaning in Egypt hastened God's redemption (Exodus 2:23), and some Jewish traditions called the time just before the end birth pangs (Keener). Firstfruits were the actual beginning of the harvest (Leviticus 23:10), not simply a promise of it (Keener and his notes). Israel was redeemed from Egypt but entered the land nearly forty years later, and Keener reads Paul's present age as that time in between. The ESV Study Bible notes that adoption is already a legal fact in verse 15 and still awaited in verse 23.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Romans 8:20, 8:22 and 8:23-25
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Romans 8:23
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Romans 8:23
