As with last week’s exegesis, the length and depth of the assigned epistle text this week is such that we are going to focus on just the final portion of Paul’s great message (vv. 31-39). Here Paul offers a capstone to his argument, begun in chapter 5, that despite any suffering Christians might experience, it is the love and power of God that will ultimately prevail in the lives of the faithful.

Although elsewhere Paul uses the phrase “What then shall we say?” (“ti oun eroumen”) to add “umph” to his arguments in Romans 3:1 and 4:1, here Paul’s query is specifically tied to a question: What are we to say about “these things?” Paul does not here itemize what “these things” include. This has led some scholars to be convinced the apostle refers only to the context of the immediately precedin…