Bible Study Romans Part 1-Introduction

Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel.

God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries.

We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God.

We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day.

The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold, and we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture.

Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible.

It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision.

Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us.

It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word.

We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death.

In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death.

Never treat what God has said lightly.

There's truly nothing more important to you.

Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

When the German army was gaining victory after victory, the then Russian commander-in-chief, Joseph Stalin, begged his allies for help.

He desperately wanted to staunch the bleeding of Soviet territory to the Nazis.

Hitler's armies were fast approaching the Russian capital of Moscow.

Stalin's strategy convinced Churchill to open a second front in Europe in order to place a strain on Germans, Germany's war machine.

What does that have to do with Bible study?

Sometimes in war, it becomes necessary to attack from two sides in order to achieve your overall victory, and that's what this is all about.

Okay, I'm being a little dramatic, but as we've been traveling through Genesis, it became apparent to me that we might need to spend some time talking about the actual work and person of Christ a little more often.

Of course, the book of Genesis, like most of the Old Testament, contains many types and shadows of our Lord, and they're useful and instructive and thrilling, but nothing quite makes those things come alive like knowing intimately the real thing.

Types and shadows are only useful if you're familiar with what those types and shadows are types and shadows of.

If I drew you a picture of a universal Kishke, you wouldn't appreciate it as much if you had no idea what a universal Kishke was.

It would just look like a bunch of squiggly lines.

Most of the people who follow this ministry are either brand new Christians or people who say they're Christians but really aren't sure why.

In other words, we're teaching people who are frankly not very familiar with our Lord and what he's actually done for us.

Listen, anyone can join us, but for the most part, these lessons focus on the foundations of Christianity.

That's not to say we don't get beyond the basics.

Of course, we do, but we make sure the basics are covered before stretching forward.

So we're going back to the New Testament ahead of schedule while continuing to work our way through the old.

And in particular, we're going to look from beginning to end at Paul's letter to the Romans.

It's going to be a lot of work.

It's going to take a lot of focus on both of our parts, but I'm certain it is going to pay huge dividends.

So we're going to begin with some introductory material.

We'll start with the author.

If you've spent any time on in-depth scriptural study, and I hope you have, then you will have noticed that one of the most important facts to get right at the outset when undertaking an examination of any book of the Bible is the identity of the one who wrote it.

In fact, this is something you want to get right no matter what you're studying.

I mean, if I wanted to get a clear and accurate understanding of the reign of Great Britain's King Henry VIII, then I should make sure to pick up a book written by an expert.

Listen, not just any book will do.

I want to be confident that the facts that I'm reading can be counted on.

I want to ensure that what I'm being told is reflective of what really happened.

Probably better to not cite a high school junior's AP history final book report.

Might want to reach a little higher.

Someone is almost always going to criticize any statement from any Bible scholar.

And so the best way to combat that is to make sure that you consult good sources, reliable, trustworthy, knowledgeable, et cetera.

So one of the first things one must be able to do when suggesting that a book of the Bible is accurate and dependable, is to present a convincing case that the author thereof knew what he was talking about, that he was an expert or otherwise qualified to write on the topics contained within the piece attributed to him.

Again, no different than any other book, scriptural or not.

Well, the author of the letter to the Romans, the person who wrote that letter to the church at Rome was the Apostle Paul.

Paul is a known historical person and a historically verified founding member of the Christian church.

And by that I mean it is universally agreed, both inside and outside the church, that this man lived in the first century AD and is known to have been an important member of the early church.

And part of his profile, his historical profile, is that he is considered, for lack of a better term, an expert on Christian doctrine.

He was there in the beginning.

He's been a trusted and respected authority in Christianity all the way back to the start of the Christian religion.

You find a book written by him, you can rely on it.

Anything verified to be from the pen of Paul written on this topic is considered reliable.

For those reasons, biblical scholars who wish to prove the trustworthiness of any New Testament book will actively attempt to connect it to Paul's teaching.

Now, with that said, let me repeat, all the experts agree with near unanimity that Paul was the true author of the epistle to the Romans, and therefore all that is contained therein is considered trustworthy and accurate.

Now, as a side note, this go around, I won't be spending much time talking about Paul prior to his conversion.

We will, of course, touch on some of that as it relates directly to this letter, but not much more than that.

When we taught on the letter to the Ephesians, we did a more or less detailed study of this man's background with a fairly comprehensive look at his life before he became an apostle.

If you're interested in hearing that again or you weren't around at the time, please go to our Bible study website, studyinthechapel.com, and find the recordings of our lessons on that topic.

The first few installments in that series contain information about this early giant of the church.

Back to Romans.

So we've covered the fact that Paul was indeed the author of this letter.

No one has ever argued against that.

Frankly, that's not such a difficult thing to believe in the letter.

Paul introduces himself and gives us specific details throughout that make it clear that he was authentically the one who wrote this letter.

So what's next?

One of the more interesting facts about this epistle is that it was written not in Latin as one might expect of a letter to Roman citizens, but instead it was written in Greek.

Now, though that may seem a little surprising to us, there are more than a few good reasons as to why it is so.

First of all, the most basic reason I believe is the fact that Paul himself was likely far more comfortable with Greek than he was with Latin.

Now, if you are even only a little familiar with the writings of this man, you're probably quite aware that precision is the goal of his communications.

Along with that, he is obviously committed to thoroughness.

Being both exact and comprehensive requires significant resources.

Paul needed the largest pool of words and grammatical concepts he could find.

His knowledge of Greek allowed him to take advantage of the superior set of tools that this language contains.

But that's not all.

Greek was the perfect language for this letter because, well, at the time far more people spoke it than Latin.

The very famous Roman statesman Cicero even once said, quote, the Greek language is spoken in almost all nations.

The Latin is confined to our comparatively narrow borders, unquote.

Of course, that would change in about five or six hundred years, but if you wanted to pull in the largest possible audience with your writing during the first and second centuries, your best bet was Greek.

And yes, that was also the case, believe it or not, in the city of Rome itself.

Not only was Rome very cosmopolitan, but it still also revered the Greek culture.

Juvenal, the a well-known Roman poet, once said that being acquainted with the Greek language was an indispensable part of polite education.

And also let me state that it's likely that this letter was never intended solely for the church at Rome.

Just like the letter to the Ephesians and probably several of the others, it's quite possible that this epistle was from the beginning meant to circulate around the entire Christian world.

If that is the case, then again, Greek was the right choice in order to reach the largest audience.

So it would seem logical that Greek would be Paul's preferences.

It had its advantages.

The point this letter, just like all of the New Testament, was well thought out and designed to spread the gospel far and wide.

And indeed it did.

This was no random effort.

This wasn't the ramblings of a few cavemen.

This was a strategic document.

Well, so far we know that Paul was the author of the letter and that he purposely wrote it in Greek rather than Latin.

Now, another important fact to determine about this letter is when it was written, which again, generally speaking, with any piece of ancient literature, is an important bit of information to ascertain, particularly with something that has a historical element to it or is somehow important historically.

The key factor here is proximity.

The closer to the events reported, the greater the perception of accuracy.

Now that doesn't always ring true, but your chances are better that way.

Going back to my earlier illustration, documents describing the character of Henry VIII that date closer to his reign will generally be more reliable, and especially so if written by a contemporary, and to an even greater extent if the source is an actual eyewitness.

Being alive at the time is good.

Being present at the time is even better.

The letter to the Romans, the epistle to the Romans, has been dated to around 58 AD.

Now, that's significant for two reasons.

Number one, that's only about 25 years after our Lord's life.

Without a doubt, the nearer to the time of Christ, the better for a number of reasons, but we won't dive into all of them at this time.

But perhaps chief among them is in reference to that battle of legitimacy I mentioned earlier.

Over the past two centuries, there has been a tremendous effort put forth to say that the New Testament documents were written too far after the life of Christ to be accurate.

And you know, if that were the case, I more or less agree.

If too much time elapses, then many of the facts would be lost or mishandled without correction.

However, being able to accurately place this letter so near to the end of Jesus' life goes a long way to establishing its credibility.

This letter being published within three decades of the life of our Lord makes it a very reliable piece of literature indeed.

Now there's another reason that this 58 AD date is significant.

Somewhere between 52 and 54, the Roman Emperor Claudius banished Jews from the city of Rome.

Well, it's generally agreed, and once we get into the content of the letter, you'll see why, and we'll bring it up again later.

But it is generally agreed that part of the reason Paul wrote this letter was to address certain issues that existed between the Gentile converts and the Jewish converts in the church.

The Jews, by the way, were allowed to return to Rome only a few years after the decree of Claudius.

Therefore, this letter addressed to some Jews in the Roman church, the Christian church at Rome, accurately matches the accepted history timeline of the imperial city.

More clues to its authenticity, more marks of its reliability.

So Romans was written by Paul in Greek somewhere around 58 AD when the Jews were allowed to come back to Rome.

He probably wrote it while he was at Corinth, preparing to make a journey to Jerusalem to deliver an offering for the poor there.

So, why did Paul write to the church at Rome?

He hadn't been the one who founded it.

There are some who claim that the church at Rome was Paul's, but in the strictest sense, it was not.

We'll talk a little bit about that also later.

In fact, when Paul was writing this letter, he hadn't ever even been to Rome, so he couldn't have been its founder.

Of course, he does eventually visit there, but that is sometime later and not under the most ideal circumstances.

In fact, it is in Rome that tradition tells us Paul met his end at the hands of the executioner.

And by the way, just so you know this, the original church at Rome wasn't Peter's either, but I don't want to wade into that minefield at the moment.

By the tenor of the letter, it doesn't appear that he needed to write to them like he did some of the other churches around the world, like, for example, the church at Corinth.

The Corinthian Christians were in a mess, and Paul needed to straighten them out, and so he sent them at least two letters.

The Galatians letter, likewise, was sent as a corrective.

Not long after he left Galatia, the church he founded there had begun to drift away from the gospel.

In fact, Paul makes mention in that letter of how surprised he was at their sudden descent toward apostasy.

He had to write them a rather scathing letter in order to stop the bleeding.

By all accounts, the church at Rome was actually rather exceptional.

They seemed to be conducting themselves within the acceptable boundaries, for the most part, of good sound doctrine.

In fact, early in this letter, Paul commends them and thanks God for their faithful reputation known throughout the church world.

So again, your question is why?

Why does Paul write to the Christians there?

Well, I think first and foremost, we must recognize that the Holy Spirit wanted him to write this letter.

But it's the funny thing about the Holy Spirit.

He doesn't call us into his office and lay out in detail what he wants us to do.

He doesn't overly share his plans for us.

He doesn't write it on a whiteboard somewhere.

He doesn't give us some prepared documents.

He instead relies on pointing us in the right direction through his influence in our lives.

I think Paul liked the idea of Rome.

I think the Holy Spirit put that in his heart.

He liked the city.

After all, he was a Roman citizen, not because he was a resident, but probably because his father before him was a Roman citizen, though we don't know why.

Paul was born in a relatively important Roman provincial city known as Tarsus.

The apostle, it would appear, recognized the importance of firming up, so to speak, the Christian presence in the capital of the powerful empire.

Empire.

We do know that he had planned to travel, or at least he wanted to travel to Rome for the glory of the gospel.

In the opening verses, he writes the following, verse 11, for I long to see you of chapter one, for I long to see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established.

He was, Paul was keenly interested in making sure the church there in Rome was strengthened with sound teaching.

Verse 15.

So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.

He wanted to preach to them in person, but he had not yet been able to do so.

Therefore, this letter was the next best thing.

He wrote this letter in anticipation of a visit.

Now, despite the fact that, as I said a moment ago, a moment ago, that the church at Rome didn't have any glaring doctrinal issues, it still seemed that there were some problems the apostle had to address.

One in particular was brought on in large part by the physical makeup of the congregation.

But there again, God is entering into a very real situation and creating for us all down to our day a very important point of discussion.

I've said to you many times that we, the Christian church, are very much in the same position as the Jews at that time.

We are now the accepted leadership in the church and we need to be straightened out, much like the Jews did in the beginning.

Now, just quickly, I don't want to go into this too deeply because, of course, we'll cover these things when we come to them.

But by the time this letter was written, the Christian church was still very much in its infancy, so much, so much so that most of the larger congregations were made up of both Jews and Gentiles.

Now, if you're unfamiliar with the apostolic age, you may find that hard to believe.

In the very beginning, the Christian church overall was made up almost entirely of Jews.

All of the apostles were Jews, a very large segment of church leadership were Jewish.

Heck, the church itself was born in Jerusalem on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which we know today as Pentecost.

The book of the Acts of the Apostles records this historic day, and it's there that we learn that the very first 3,000 members of the Christian church were actually devout Jews.

As the church began to expand beyond the borders of Judah and Palestine, that started to change rather rapidly.

But still by 58 AD, when the church at Rome received this letter, there were still quite a few Jewish converts worshiping the Lord Jesus, who, by the way, was also Jewish.

Well, the changing dynamic within the church, the transition from a church consisting of mostly Jewish converts to one that was quickly embracing many Gentiles was causing some struggles.

This transition was causing some struggles.

The transition from mostly Jews to mostly Gentiles was causing problems within the church.

Spiritual pushing and shoving was going on in Rome, and there was some misunderstanding of the nature of the Christian message.

No specifics yet, but Paul found it necessary to clarify basic truths in this letter, and the church has been blessed with its guidance ever since.

Paul writing to straighten things out has been our blessing.

That's why we study the book of Romans.

We learn so much about how to be Christians.

Clearly, Paul was motivated to steer his fellow Jews to a proper shift in the practice and doctrines of the faith.

He makes extensive use of themes and concepts that resonate with those raised in the Jewish religion, but who are now seeing the arrival of the long-promised new covenant.

In this letter, Paul refers to such important Old Testament figures as Abraham, Sarah, David, Adam, and Rebekah.

One of Paul's most effective analogies involves speaking about the Hebrew Bible's most famous twins, Jacob and Esau.

Throughout much of this letter, he cleverly speaks of the history of his people in order to illustrate that the coming of Jesus as the Messiah and his status as the Son of God had long been anticipated in their sacred writings.

Speaking of the day of Pentecost, it is entirely possible that the very founders of the church at Rome, the first century church, not the Roman Catholic Church, the first church at Rome, the one we know of today as the Roman Catholic Church, that's not what we're talking about.

The first century church, that one.

The account of the mass conversion of the 3,000 on the day of Pentecost mentions that among that crowd, there were what was referred to as, quote, strangers from Rome.

In the Acts of the Apostles, we find that in that account on Pentecost were some that were called strangers from Rome among the converts.

And since there is no record of an apostolic founder of that Roman congregation, some scholars believe it was one of these converts or a few of these converts from the day of Pentecost who were responsible for establishing the Christian presence in the capital of the empire.

And of course, because the capital of the empire was vastly Gentile, many Gentile believers also came in and mixed with the Romans.

And that's where some of the problems came up.

Now, the reason that is significant is because a lack, the reason why it's significant to know that it was some of these converts that established that church and not an apostle.

The reason why that's important is because a lack of learned leadership, the type of leadership that would have been provided by the by an apostle, because that didn't exist there.

That may have been the impetus for Paul to contact them.

As we said, he wanted to visit them, probably for the same reason.

Also, just so you know, it was Paul's personal policy, as he's told us in other places, that he would not become involved in a church that another Christian leader had founded.

So this would explain, there was, since there was no apostle there that we know of, this would explain why he would send this in-depth doctrine-heavy letter to the Roman church.

If there had been an apostle in charge, he would not have done that because that was his personal preference.

If another man had founded the church, he would not have become involved and did not become involved.

Therefore, we can be relatively certain that there were no apostles or any leaders whatsoever of the church involved at Rome.

And this precipitated the sending of this letter.

He must have seen the need to preserve and build up a rudderless yet strategically important church.

Failure in Rome would have had far-reaching implications in the still emerging Christianization efforts.

Now, just a few more points and we'll wrap up this introduction.

The letter to the Romans is of vital importance to the Christian church because it articulates the unique aspects of our faith.

Studying this book in depth gives the distinct impression that Christianity is like no other movement mankind has ever seen.

The themes contained herein and described as essential to the Christian faith separate it from even the accepted practice of the Hebrew people.

Here in this letter, Paul talks about righteousness as a gift from God alone, the fact that it is God's plan that sinners be justified through faith in the work and sacrifice of Christ.

Here, Paul emphasizes the concept of salvation by grace alone.

And the heavily controversial topics that are covered here, the also covered here the heavily controversial topics of election and predestination.

We will spend some time there.

Now, a thorough understanding of what it means to be a Christian, I believe, is impossible without having a detailed understanding of Paul's letter to the Romans, and that's why we're teaching it.

So many experts have characterized this letter as the very foundation of Christianity, and I want you to get to know it.

The letter to the Romans is often called Paul's Magnum Opus, his great work.

And indeed it is great, as you will see, no doubt, even after just shortly beginning our deep dive into it, which we will do next time.

See you then.

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