Purpose, Occassion, and Background to the Book of Romans

It’s the winter of AD 57 in a city located on a land bridge between Greece and Peloponnese. A city overwhelmed by heavy Roman commerce due to the shipping industry and tourism. The city’s name: Corinth. Located in Corinth was a wealthy man by the name of Gaius. He was a wealthy man converted under Paul’s preaching and one of the few that Paul baptized (1 Cor. 1:14). Gaius allows Paul and Paul’s secretary, Tertius (as Paul dictated the letter to Rome, Tertius penned it) to lodge in his home while staying in Corinth (Rom. 16:22, 23) as he was on his third missionary journey (Acts 20:2-3). He had hoped to travel to Rome and then to Spain , but he first needed to drop some money off in Jerusalem that had been collected for them (Rom. 15:19-32; Acts 19:21).

It was during this stay that Paul paced the floor in Gaius’ home with much on his mind. Rome had many converts and the amazing thing is Paul played no role in their conversion. This is obvious by his statement in Romans 1:13 where he had often planned to visit them, but was often prevented. Rome had converts either by converted Jews present at Pentecost (Acts 2:10) or the church was founded by both Jew and Gentile Christians who simply traveled to the capital city of the known world and eventually took up residence there. Regardless, there was a church in Rome that met in several houses (Rom. 16). Oh, by the way, Peter seemed to have nothing to do with the founding of the Church in Rome (Catholic Church) since he is neither mentioned by Paul in chapter 16 and by Paul’s statement in 15:20 that there had not been a foundation of the gospel laid in Rome yet…hmmmm!!!!).

So, there was a growing church in Rome that seemed not to have much if any apostolic influence. This must have driven Paul crazy. “Do they believe the essentials of the gospel?” “Who taught them?” “Are the leaders of the church in full agreement to the basic tenants of the gospel?” “Do they really understand that they are a part of a fallen race and in desperate need of the saving grace of God’s Unique Son, Jesus the Messiah?” These are just a few questions that had to be racing through Paul’s mind.

So what does the Apostle Paul do? He pens the first systematic theology of the Christian faith. Basically, it’s the Christian Magna Carta—the believer’s constitution. And what do we get out of this letter? Riches beyond our wildest imagination. A complete theological treatise that gives explanation of the entire gospel---The Creation…The Fall….Redemption…Consummation. In other words, the story of the Bible in 16 chapters entitled, “Romans.

DON’T MISS A SUNDAY AS WE TRAVEL THROUGH THE BOOK OF ROMANS. WE ARE GOING TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THEOLOGY AND THE APPLICATION OF IT THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE….IT’S GOING TO BE AWESOME.