“There is no saying what may happen when people begin to study the letter to the Romans. So let those who have read thus far be prepared for the consequences of reading farther: you have been warned!” – NT Scholar F.F. Bruce

Background of the Book of ROMANS:

PAUL, dictating to his scribe, Tertius (16:22). Paul is in the seaport of Cenchrea (16:1) at Corinth at the end of his third missionary journey (after the writing of 2 Corinthians). He has finished an important stage of his missionary work; “from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ” (15:19). This geography includes all the churches he had planted on his famous mission journeys (Acts 13-20) in south Galatia (Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe), and in the Roman provinces of Asia (Ephesus), Macedonia (Philippi, Thessalonica) and Achaia (Corinth).

· Paul is ready for his next challenge: he plans to go back to Jerusalem to bring a collection for the mother church there (hopefully healing some of the Jew-Gentile divide) and then he has his sights set on church planting in new territory – Spain. But before he goes to Spain, he wants to come to Rome and spend some time encouraging the church there and building support for his mission.

· “What is most significant for our understanding of Romans is the sense that Paul gives us of having reached an important transition point in his missionary career. He has been preaching the gospel for almost 25 years; he has planted thriving churches over much of the northeastern Mediterranean part of the Roman Empire; he has hammered out his theology on the anvil of pastoral problems and debates with opposing factions. He thus writes Romans during a lull in his ministry, at a time when he can reflect on what he has come to believe and what it may mean for the church.” – Douglas Moo, NIV App

· “Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ transformed him. His future lay not in Jerusalem and works of the law, but out among the Gentiles, preaching grace and living by faith. Instead of stamping out Christianity, he would become a tireless apostle, traveling more than 20,000 miles between Jerusalem and Rome and proclaiming the gospel wherever ears had never heard it. Then, near the end of his third missionary journey, after what many would consider a full life in ministry, the apostle looked westward to the frontier beyond Rome (15:24).” – Swindoll, p. 15