What does Romans 3:2 mean?

Paul is asking a series of questions, ones to be expected from an opponent to his teaching in Romans chapter 2. There, he wrote that individual Jewish people will stand before God's judgment for their sins. This will happen even though the people of Israel had been given the law, and even if they have been circumcised. This is because each of the Jews—individually—have broken God's law, just as every Gentile has also sinned. So Paul raises the logical question in the previous verse: What's the point, then, of being a Jew? Is there any advantage? Does it matter that they are circumcised?

Now he answers that question with a definite "yes." There is "much advantage in every way." God's chosen people benefit in many ways, starting with this one: They were entrusted with the "oracles of God." In other words, the Jewish people were given the enormous privilege of receiving and handing down the very words of God to all people.

Paul's point in Romans 2 was not that belonging to Israel was of no value at all. His point was simply that Jewishness, itself, would not keep any person from answering to God's judgment for his or her sin. Paul will list more of the benefits that come with being of the Jewish people in Romans 9:1–5.