Passage

Romans 15

• Doctrine

  Christ-Centered Ministry

  Ministry done in Christ's name and for his glory; also carries real security considerations for house-church leaders operating outside legal recognition.

  ROM.15.17-21

• Doctrine

  Christian Fellowship

  Shared participation in Christ; note the root-resonance between mosharekat and shirk (idolatrous partnership), inherited into Persian via Arabic.

  ROM.15.24

• Glossary Term

  Church

  امت (ommat) is the loaded pan-Islamic community term and must never substitute.

  ROM.15.26

• Doctrine

  Church as God's People

  New covenant community, not primarily a physical building - Persian-language congregational worship for Muslim-background believers is heavily restricted in Iran, so this doctrine must be taught with the underground house-church reality in view.

  ROM.15.26

• Glossary Term

  Covenant

  Also covers generic pledges and treaties in everyday Persian; retain the relational, unilaterally-initiated biblical covenant sense.

  ROM.15.12

• Glossary Term

  David

  Shared, positively-regarded Quranic prophet-king figure; supply the covenant-king typology pointing to Messiah explicitly, since the Quranic portrayal does not include it.

  ROM.15.12

• Doctrine

  Davidic Covenant

  Davud is a shared, positively-regarded Quranic prophet-king, but without the covenant-king typology pointing forward to a promised messianic heir; this background must be taught, not assumed.

  ROM.15.12

• 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.15.20

• Glossary Term

  Exhort

  Context-sensitive: نصیحت کردن (nasihat kardan, to admonish) for beseeching; تشویق کردن (to encourage) for building up.

  ROM.15.2

• Glossary Term

  Fellowship

  Shares the same ش-ر-ک root as shirk (idolatrous partnership) inherited into Persian via Arabic; the resonance is uncomfortable but the term is established and context disambiguates.

  ROM.15.24

• 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.15.8-12

• Glossary Term

  Gentiles

  امت‌ها (ommat-ha) shares the loaded Ummah root; the more neutral descriptive غیریهودیان ('non-Jews') avoids that association.

  ROM.15.7-12

• 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.15.19-20

• 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.15.19-20

• Glossary Term

  Holy

  Shared root with Arabic; generally safe vocabulary, needs the relational, Spirit-wrought sense reinforced over ritual-observance holiness.

  ROM.15.16

• Glossary Term

  Holy Spirit

  CRITICAL: identical Quranic phrase and identical mainstream tafsir identification with the angel Jibril (Gabriel) as in Arabic - the same created-being-versus-divine-Person distinction must be made explicit at every occurrence.

  ROM.15.16

• Doctrine

  Inspiration of Scripture

  Islamic wahy denotes verbatim divine dictation; biblical inspiration is God moving human authors to write in their own voice.

  ROM.15.4

• 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.15.30-32

• 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.15.7-12

• Doctrine

  Kingdom Mission

  God's spiritual reign advancing through the gospel, distinct from Iran's own explicitly religious-political state structure (Velayat-e Faqih).

  ROM.15.12, ROM.15.18-21

• Glossary Term

  Kingdom Of God

  Distinguish God's present spiritual reign from any political state, given Iran's own explicitly religious-political governing system (Velayat-e Faqih).

  ROM.15.12, ROM.15.18-21

• 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.15.8-12

• Glossary Term

  Messiah

  CRITICAL: carries the same pre-loaded Quranic content as Arabic's al-Masih, with an added Shia displacement: popular messianic expectation centers primarily on the Hidden Twelfth Imam (Mahdi) as the awaited deliverer, with Isa al-Masih in a secondary, supporting role at his return.

  ROM.15.8-12

• Doctrine

  Messianic Promise

  CRITICAL: beyond the shared Quranic Masih content, popular Shia messianic expectation centers on the Hidden Twelfth Imam (Mahdi), with Isa in a secondary role at his return.

  ROM.15.8-12

• Glossary Term

  Mission

  رسالت (resalat) echoes the prophetic-commission vocabulary of Muhammad's own resalat; ماموریت is a more neutral general-purpose word for mission/assignment.

  ROM.15.15-24

• Doctrine

  Mission to the Nations

  Avoid resalat (prophetic-commission) vocabulary that invites comparison to Muhammad's own resalat; open evangelism also carries real legal risk under Iran's restrictions on Muslim-background conversion.

  ROM.15.15-24

• Doctrine

  Mutual Edification

  Building one another up in faith; no significant doctrinal risk.

  ROM.15.2

• 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.15.30-32

• Glossary Term

  Prophecy

  Low independent risk beyond the prophet entry's own note.

  ROM.15.8-12

• Glossary Term

  Prophet

  A native Persian compound ('message' + 'bearer'), not an Arabic loanword.

  ROM.15.4

• Doctrine

  Sanctification

  The Spirit's ongoing work of making believers holy, not ritual purification.

  ROM.15.16

• Glossary Term

  Sanctification

  The Spirit's ongoing work of making believers holy, not ritual purification.

  ROM.15.16

• Glossary Term

  Seed Of David

  Romans 1:3; conveys physical lineage and OT covenant fulfillment.

  ROM.15.12

• Doctrine

  Separation unto God's Service

  Must not be confused with Sufi zuhd (world-renunciation) practiced in Persian mystical tradition; biblical separation is devoted engagement with the world, not withdrawal from it.

  ROM.15.16

• 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.15.7-12