Cross-Reference Analysis

Several Romans doctrines only make full sense read against specific Old Testament passages. Korean’s comparatively high biblical literacy narrows this gap relative to other languages in this pipeline, but several passages still need explicit surfacing given Korea’s specific cultural pressure points.

Key cross-references this curriculum must surface explicitly

• Romans 1:3–4 (Davidic Covenant, Messianic Promise) ↔ 2 Samuel 7:12–16. The “seed of David” (다윗의 혈통) language depends on the covenant promise behind it; Korean’s clean 언약/계약 distinction helps readers grasp this is a relational promise rather than a business contract once the background is supplied.
• Romans 1:17 (“the righteous will live by faith”) ↔ Habakkuk 2:4. This is the thesis-statement quotation for the whole letter; the curriculum should make the Habakkuk source explicit.
• Romans 4 (Abraham, faith credited as righteousness) ↔ Genesis 15:6. Paul’s argument for justification by faith apart from works depends on this verse; without it, “reckoned righteousness” (의로 여기심) risks being read through the loyalty-ethics sense of 의 (의리) instead.
• Romans 9–11 (Israel, election) ↔ the Old Testament election narrative broadly. Without this background, readers risk hearing election through a saju-paljja birth-chart-fate lens (팔자) rather than as an argument grounded in Israel’s actual history.

Implication for this Language Package

Cross-references remain important even for a comparatively biblically literate audience: the risk in Korean is less that readers lack any framework at all (as in Japan) and more that they substitute a nearby, superficially compatible framework (astrological fate, loyalty ethics) for the actual Old Testament background. The bible-reference auto-linker (scripts/inject-bible-links.js) should be applied to every OT citation in translated Romans lessons.