Romans 1 - Paul's Letter to the Church in Rome

 

Romans 1 – Paul’s Letter to the Church in Rome.

Paul wrote this during his three months stay in Corinth during his third missionary journey, According to Don Dewelt this is not the first letter written by Paul but the sixth. It comes after Acts logically because it contains a discussion of a sinner being justified before God. In Acts we were told what to do to be justified; in Romans we are told the how and they why of justification. Paul wrote this letter because he was delayed in his visit to Rome. Being delivered by Phoebe to the church, it would serve as a personal introduction of Paul. It also confirms Paul’s apostleship. It was written to teach and instruct all Christians. First to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. Both of that day and also for the present day. This letter deals directly with the basic issues in human experience. First in coming into the right relationship with God, Secondly how to obtain inner peace and experience moral victory. Third to give meaning to life in the midst of suffering and to give cerainty to faith in a world of evil. What is man’s duty to his fellow man? What is his responsibility for the life of the world? This letter will give us the answers we are searching. Paul’s message of good news is that the “gospel of Christ is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” Paul saw life on every moral, intellectual and social level changed by the message of the cross and the resurrection. With overpowering compassion for his own people, he longed for their salvation. This letter shows that he yearned to proclaim the gospel in Rome and the the farthest limits of the Empire in Spain. This first chapeter is his salutation to the Romans. It is the Gospel of God. It is from God and about God and for God. It is the good news that Paul’s hope rested upon. The truth about the gospel is that Jesus Christ is God’s son and our Lord. He revelaed Christ through His life, death, and resurrection. He states that Jesus was both human and divine. He was the seed of David according to the flesh, but was declared to be the Son of God.. by the resurrection from the dead. This church that Paul wrote to had been established prior to this letter but Paul knew of them because of their faith that had been proclaimed throughout the whole world. Paul felt that they needed his ministry and in turn he needed their encouragment and stimulation. Paul had a sense of obligation to all men, both wise and unwise, to the highly cultured and the illiterate, to the well-to-do and the underprivileged. He believed in the worth of every individual and believed that the gospel of Christ was meant for all men. Paul knows the opposition of the Gospel when it came to Christ and His resurrection. He firmly stated that “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.” The gospel he shared won many converts. Men were saved from moral ruin and brought down from intellectual pride to find in Christ freedom from sin and peace with God. There is no other power on earth like the power of the Gospel.