Passage
Romans 10
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Doctrine
Evangelism
Evangelism directed at Muslim-background Iranians carries serious real legal and social risk under apostasy norms; language of witness and proclamation must be handled with full awareness of the safety stakes for both speaker and hearer in the underground house-church context.
ROM.10.14-15
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Doctrine
Faith
Persian Shia iman includes belief in the Imamate as a core article; must be anchored as personal trust in Christ specifically, not creedal assent to a succession doctrine.
ROM.10.9-10, ROM.10.17
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Glossary Term
Faith
Shares the same six-pillars creedal-assent structure as Arabic iman, with a further Shia-specific layer: belief in the Imamate (the divinely-appointed succession beginning with Ali) is itself a core article of Shia iman.
ROM.10.9-10, ROM.10.17
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Doctrine
Fulfillment of Prophecy
Naskh (abrogation) doctrine, shared across Sunni and Shia Islam, treats later revelation as superseding earlier revelation; Romans' fulfillment argument needs deliberate framing against this default.
ROM.10.11
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Glossary Term
Gentiles
امتها (ommat-ha) shares the loaded Ummah root; the more neutral descriptive غیریهودیان ('non-Jews') avoids that association.
ROM.10.12
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Doctrine
Gospel
Must be taught as the NT record itself, not conceded as a corrupted successor to a lost original revelation, per the tahrif assumption shared across the Persian-Islamic world.
ROM.10.15-16
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Glossary Term
Gospel
Injil is shared Quranic vocabulary (the revelation given to 'Isa); the same tahrif (corruption) assumption found across the Islamicate world applies in Iran.
ROM.10.15-16
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Glossary Term
Intercession
CRITICAL: shafa'at is far more developed and popularly central in Twelver Shia piety than in Sunni Arabic contexts - entire annual Muharram mourning rituals and shrine pilgrimage practices are built around seeking the Imams', especially Hussein's, intercession.
ROM.10.1
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Glossary Term
Israel
Iran's state ideology maintains an unusually intense, officially propagandized anti-Israel stance as a pillar of foreign policy, arguably even more totalizing for an Iranian audience than the general Arab-world association.
ROM.10.12
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Glossary Term
Jesus
CRITICAL, but for a different reason than Arabic: unlike Arabic, Persian Christian Bible tradition itself (Tarjome Ghadeem, Mojdeh) has always used 'Isa Masih,' with no live, competing 'Yeshua'-style alternative in circulation - there is no naming controversy in Persian the way there is in Arabic.
ROM.10.9, ROM.10.12
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Glossary Term
Justification
CRITICAL: compound phrase required to convey the forensic declaration - 'to be counted/reckoned as righteous' - rather than a process of becoming righteous through deeds.
ROM.10.1, ROM.10.10
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Glossary Term
Law
CRITICAL: some existing Persian Bible translations (Tarjome Ghadeem, Mojdeh) do use شریعت (shari'at) for the Mosaic Law, unlike Arabic Bible tradition's deliberate avoidance of the shari'a-cognate word.
ROM.10.11
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Glossary Term
Lord
CRITICAL: unlike Arabic's al-Rabb, Khodavand derives from a native pre-Islamic Persian word (Middle Persian 'khwatay') rather than a specific Quranic title, so the collision here is less about 'borrowing the Quran's own word' and more about the underlying tawhid objection to ascribing supreme, exclusive Lordship to a human-born man.
ROM.10.9, ROM.10.12
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Doctrine
Lordship of Christ
CRITICAL: Khodavand is a native pre-Islamic word rather than a Quranic title, so the collision is less about borrowing sacred vocabulary and more about the core tawhid objection to ascribing supreme Lordship to a human-born man.
ROM.10.9, ROM.10.12
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Doctrine
Prayer and Intercession
CRITICAL: shafa'at is unusually central and popularly practiced in Twelver Shia devotion (Muharram mourning rituals, shrine pilgrimage seeking the Imams' intercession).
ROM.10.1
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Glossary Term
Prophecy
Low independent risk beyond the prophet entry's own note.
ROM.10.11
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Glossary Term
Righteousness
CRITICAL: پارسایی (parsa'i, piety/virtue) carries a Zoroastrian-inflected ethical-purity connotation, tied to Zoroastrianism's own good-thoughts/good-words/good-deeds ethical triad - an achievement-of-virtue framework.
ROM.10.1, ROM.10.10
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Doctrine
Salvation
CRITICAL: beyond the shared deeds-weighing (mizan) framework, popular Shia piety's Karbala/Hussein martyrdom-intercession devotion offers a superficially similar but categorically distinct pattern (an innocent holy figure's suffering benefiting those who honor it) that must be carefully distinguished from Christ's unique, sufficient atonement.
ROM.10.1, ROM.10.10
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Glossary Term
Salvation
CRITICAL: beyond the shared Islamic deeds-weighing (mizan) framework, Persian/Shia popular piety has an especially developed doctrine of intercession through the martyred Imam Hussein's suffering at Karbala (widely believed to secure forgiveness for those who properly mourn him).
ROM.10.1, ROM.10.10
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Doctrine
Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Requires careful pastoral framing given Iran's officially propagandized anti-Israel political stance; Romans 9-11's redemptive-historical argument must not be flattened into or read as commentary on present state politics.
ROM.10.12
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Doctrine
Universal Scope of the Gospel
Must be framed so as not to be heard as religious pluralism claiming all paths are equally valid, while retaining the full inclusive force of the text.
ROM.10.12-13