Through him God gave me is literally “through whom we received.” The plural pronoun “we” may refer to Paul and other apostles (it cannot include the Roman readers), or it may refer only to Paul’s commission (so New English Bible and Moffatt). The phrase “we received” is translated in the Good News Translation as God gave me, to show that it was from God that Paul received his commission. For languages which employ two forms of “we,” inclusive and exclusive, the “we” in this instance should obviously be exclusive. However, Paul’s repeated emphasis upon his particular commission as an apostle to the Gentiles would seem to favor greatly the use of “I” rather than “we” in this passage.
The expression of secondary agency in the phrase through him causes certain difficulties in a number of languages in which the only equivalent is some causative expression—for example, “God caused Christ to give me the privilege” or “God gave me the privilege; Christ did it.”
The privilege of being an apostle is literally “grace and apostleship.” Some understand “grace” and “apostleship” to refer to two separate events, the former to God’s grace in Jesus Christ and the latter to God’s call of Paul to be an apostle. Others take the two as a reference to a single event, that is to God’s call of Paul to be an apostle (Knox “the grace of apostleship”; New English Bible “the privilege of a commission”; Moffatt “the favor of my commission”). Paul looked upon his apostleship as a special gift of God’s grace (1 Corinthians 3.10; 15.10; Galatians 2.9). A similar construction appears in Acts 1.25 (literally “service and apostleship”), in which the second noun is used to qualify the first. There the meaning is “service as an apostle.”
The phrase the privilege of being an apostle is difficult to render in some languages. In some instances the concept must be expressed in a paratactic relationship—for example, “God caused me to be an apostle; this is a privilege.” The concept of privilege may be incorporated into the principal clause as “God gave me the good work of being an apostle.” In other instances privilege is best expressed as “a special task” or even “the important commission” of being an apostle.
For the sake of Christ (literally “in behalf of his name”) appears at the end of the verse in Greek, but it must be related to the whole purpose of Paul’s call as an apostle, and for this reason the Good News Translation places it here (note also the New English Bible). For the sake of Christ is equivalent in some languages to “in order that I might serve Christ,” “in order that I might help Christ,” or “for the benefit of Christ.”
People of all nations refers to peoples from all nations; some take the Greek word in the more restrictive sense of “Gentiles” (Moffatt), “pagan” (Jerusalem Bible), or “heathen” (An American Translation*). Believe and obey translates “obedience of faith.” This is not “obedience to the faith” (Moffatt), but obedience that is caused by faith (New English Bible “to faith and obedience”; An American Translation* “obedience and faith”). Although “obedience” and “faith” are nouns in Greek, they describe events rather than objects, and so are better rendered by verbs.
The last clause in verse 5, introduced by in order to lead, reflects only a preposition in Greek. However, the relationship between the “apostleship” and the “obedience of faith” involves obvious purpose. Furthermore, in most languages one must make explicit the role of Paul with respect to the people of all nations, and for this reason the Good News Translation makes this relationship explicit by means of the somewhat expanded rendering in order to lead people of all nations to believe and obey.
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .