Discovery BoxRomans 2:1 
Context2:1 1 Therefore 2 you are without excuse, 3 whoever you are, 4 when you judge someone else. 5 For on whatever grounds 6 you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.
Romans 2:29
Context2:29 but someone is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart 7 by the Spirit 8 and not by the written code. 9 This person’s 10 praise is not from people but from God.
Romans 10:14
Context10:14 How are they to call on one they have not believed in? And how are they to believe in one they have not heard of? And how are they to hear without someone preaching to them 11 ?
Romans 14:15
Context14:15 For if your brother or sister 12 is distressed because of what you eat, 13 you are no longer walking in love. 14 Do not destroy by your food someone for whom Christ died.
1 sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).
2 tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.
3 tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).
4 tn Grk “O man.”
5 tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”
6 tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”
7 sn On circumcision is of the heart see Lev 26:41; Deut 10:16; Jer 4:4; Ezek 44:9.
8 tn Some have taken the phrase ἐν πνεύματι (en pneumati, “by/in [the] S/spirit”) not as a reference to the Holy Spirit, but referring to circumcision as “spiritual and not literal” (RSV).
9 tn Grk “letter.”
10 tn Grk “whose.” The relative pronoun has been replaced by the phrase “this person’s” and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started in the translation.
11 tn Grk “preaching”; the words “to them” are supplied for clarification.
12 tn Grk “brother.”
13 tn Grk “on account of food.”
14 tn Grk “according to love.”
