Session 1 – Romans; Introduction into the book of Romans: Mark Lanier, 03/30/25

Session 1 - Romans; Introduction into the book of Romans Mark Lanier, 03 30 25
===

[00:00:00] So I am excited to be here, but as I told you last Sunday, last Sunday morning. After three days of labor and hospital, we welcomed into the world our newest grandbaby, aria Jane Navid. And I had texted my daughter and I said, can I show pictures in class? And she said, dad, please wait. And baby was just born like it, 1:07 AM Please wait.

Because I want to tell my friends first. And I thought, well, okay. But it turns out, so I just announced it. Well, it turns out she meant [00:01:00] don't even announce it. So I take back everything I said last Sunday about that new grandbaby. And today I'd like to tell you I have a new grandbaby, Becky, and I do. I sent a a, a text to Rebecca and said, if I can finally show a picture, would you please send me a picture?

And she said, would you like a family photo? I said, that sounds great. Now, what does this say about my daughter? That the family photo does not include her husband, but it includes her dog.

It says Daniel was taking the picture. But, uh, Becky sends her love. She is doing early morning shift with that baby and having a ball, and I'll be joining 'em here shortly after class. Uh, so, uh, thank you for your love prayer concerns, aria Jane Navid. [00:02:00] Practically perfect in every way. Today we began a study of Romans, and what I thought I would do is merge it a little bit with the study we've done the last two weeks.

If you've not been with us the last two weeks. We've talked about how to study the Bible, and I gave you this slide last week and said The Bible is a collection of 66 different books. And these books are different types of books, different genres of writing. And so because you have different genres, you study them differently.

And so in the Old Testament, you'll have Old Testament narratives and you study those differently than you do Old Testament Psalms and poetry or Old Testament wisdom literature like Proverbs, uh, things, uh, of that nature or Old Testament law. Uh, the books, especially of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy have a lot of that intense law.

You've got Old Testament prophets. [00:03:00] All of these are studied with different approaches and techniques because they're different kinds of literature. Similarly, in the New Testament, we have gospels, and you read the gospels and study them a little differently than you do. For example, the Book of Acts.

You'd read that differently than you do New Testament epistles. You read that differently than you do the Book of Revelation. And so each of these you study differently. And last Saturday or Sunday, I taught about how to look at Psalms and poetry in some detail. I would like, as I merge us into a study of Romans to consider this, first of all, an example of how to study New Testament epistle.

Because Romans is a New Testament epistle. Now why do we pick Romans to study? What is it about Romans that should draw us and that makes it such a [00:04:00] valuable study. I would suggest to you that perhaps, certainly more than any of the other epistles. But in some regards, more than many portions of the Bible, the impact that Romans has had on history has been incredibly profound, very large.

One of the foundational people in the development of the church and church thinking and church theology. Was a a, a gentleman from way back ago named Saint Augustine. Saint Augustine lived between 3 54 and four 30. He was not born a Christian. He didn't come to faith in Christ until, uh, later in his life.

And [00:05:00] he wrote a book that we've still got that's very worth reading. It's called his confessions. Augustine's Confessions tell the story of his conversion and in book eight of the Confessions, he talks about when he was in a garden and, and he had a copy of Romans. And he had set it down and gone to do something else.

And here it is, in his words, he says, eagerly, I returned to the place where Oly was sitting for there I had laid the volume of the apostle. When I arose fence, I seized, opened, and in silence. Read that section on which my eyes first fell. It's Romans 13. As he's quoting part of it, he [00:06:00] says, no further would I read nor needed I for instantly at the end of this sentence by a light as it were of s serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt.

It vanished away. That alone should draw us to study Romans, but let's propel forward and we'll go from St. Augustine, who was a thwart in the church, a foundational thinker for the church who helped steer the church in good doctrine and good understanding. Let's go forward. A thousand years to Martin Luther.

Martin Luther, the, perhaps the, the, the [00:07:00] single most propelling force behind the reformation movement as the, the church sought to reform itself. Martin Luther said of Romans. This is in his introduction to his commentary on Romans. He said, this letter is truly the most important peace in the New Testament.

It is purist gospel. Romans is worthy. Not only that, every Christian should know it word for word by heart, but occupy himself with it every day as the daily bread for the soul. It can never be read or pondered too much. [00:08:00] And the more it is dealt with, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.

That's the way he starts his, his preface to his commentary. Um, you know, I could say, do you know anybody who's memorized Romans word for word? But we actually have somebody in our class who has, um, uh. And, uh, we, we may get Dieter up here to do it at some point if we have time. It's, it's pretty impressive.

So we've got Augustine, we've got Martin Luther. How about within the English movement of the church? The founder of what's become Methodism, John Wesley, 1703 to 1791. Wesley kept a journal of his life and in that journal. He talks about reading [00:09:00] Luther's commentary on Romans and he says the following, he says, about a quarter before nine.

While Luther was describing the change, which God works in the heart, through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone. For salvation and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death, and I could go on and on, but I will add my story to theirs and tell you, I grew up in a Christian home.

I grew up in the church. But I grew up by what we would call, um, uh, I grew up to be what we would call a [00:10:00] legalist. I figured God loved me because I was earning my way into his good grace. I was a good kid, and if you ask me, well, did you know I can remember? In my arrogance and unknowingness going to sleep at night praying, Lord, forgive me on my sins today.

I don't really think I committed any, but I probably did and just don't, didn't realize it. So I'll ask for forgiveness anyway 'cause it seems appropriate to do so.

And then I reached a point in my life where I realized. That I actually was sinner before a holy God. And that's a problem for a legalist. [00:11:00] See if, if you've got to earn God's love, then one of two things is either gonna happen. If you've got to earn his love, you're either gonna think you're good enough to do it, at which point your arrogance and haughtiness is destructive.

Or you're gonna be crushed under the weight of his holiness because you're not good enough. And you'll wonder if he ever really does love you if you ever really are saved because you're thinking it's based upon what you do. And it wasn't until I was studying Romans in the Greek that like scales from my eyes came off.

And I understood what it was that he has saved me by the finished work of Christ on the Cross, not because I deserve it, not because I earn it, but because he loves [00:12:00] me and this book transformed my life. So I'm excited to share it with you. Here's the way we're gonna approach class today. We're gonna start out with how to study an epistle.

And I'm gonna go through it very briefly because I don't wanna spend our time there too much, but I'm gonna give you some extra material. Then we're gonna talk about the occasion. Why did Paul write this letter? And then we're gonna deal with the opening of the letter. So that's our goal before us today.

Uh, let's see if we can get this done as, as rapidly as we can. Now, when I talk about how to study the epistles, I'm gonna talk about how to do it in eight basic steps. This is not. Magic if, uh, David Capes, Dr. David Capes were up here. Where were you? There you are teaching this class. He might have a different way to do this.

Uh, Charles Mickey, who, who's taught this [00:13:00] stuff, uh, he might have a different way to, to do this. This is just mine. Okay. And it's mine, not because I dreamed it up. It's mine because this is the way I was taught and, and it's always served me well. And I think it would serve you well. So the first thing you do is you try to understand the historical context around the letter.

And a lot of that's just good history you need to know. But you can also get good Bible dictionaries and look up like Rome. Or, or, or Romans and, and you can learn about the place where the letter's being written. You can get good historical context from different sources. And then the second step that you want to do is consider the literary context.

What do you know about this from a literature perspective? The third, you began to look through the text. [00:14:00] And try to understand the text itself. And the fourth, and this by the way, includes read the whole letter at once.

Make notes when you read it. Then when you begin to take it apart, don't think I'm gonna take it apart, verse by verse, think I'm gonna take it apart. Paragraph by p. Yeah, and that's gonna help you keep it in context. Then you want to analyze it based upon good sound theology. In other words, what do we know about God and what do we know about theology from the entirety of the Bible?

Because it will help us better understand what we're studying here. And then for me, step six is to, to apply it. How does this apply to me today? [00:15:00] And somewhere in the midst of this is step seven, where you say, okay, let's see what other people have said about this. You can read some commentaries, you can read some books, you can read some sermons, or you listen to some sermons, but you want to get some other input from others.

And then the final step for me is a constant. Ongoing reflection. As you think through what it is you're studying and you're reading, if you follow those eight basic steps, you can greatly understand any of the epistles in the New Testament. It's a good step. It, it's a good process and, and it works well.

Now, if we go back to the start of this, the historical setting for the, the book of Romans is. The city of Rome. Now the ancient city of [00:16:00] Rome was the largest city in the world at the time. Um, we know that Paul is writing this letter, so Paul is our author. He's probably writing it sometime. It's not 54.

It's probably, if it's 54, it's very late 54, but more realistically it's 55, 56, something in that time range. In October of 54, emperor Nero took the throne in Rome, so he is the emperor there. That becomes important. The church at Rome is both Jewish and Gentile. That becomes important as well. And I've got more to say about this, but I'm gonna move it over into the second point.

But these are just some of the historical context that you need for this book, the literary context. [00:17:00] Let's talk about that for a moment. I would suggest that you should read this through in one sitting and when you read through, like, like I would suggest for any epistle. And when you read it through, you should do it trying to follow the flow of thought and look for the structure that's contained within the letter.

And just keep a notepad with you and make notes. Make notes as you read through it in one fell swoop. And look for repeating words. Look for ideas. Look for. Themes that just seem to reverberate constantly. Now, if we had time, I would get several of you up on this stage and we would play Family Feud. I would do my best, uh, with a Steve Harvey imitation.[00:18:00]

What words appear most often in the book of Romans? Gospel? Gospel? I'm hearing grace. The most common word is God 153 times more than any other book in the New Testament. I think ratio wise, one Peter is close. God, 153 times second most common word, anybody guess. Jesus. Jesus. Good. Guess it's wrong. Paul. No sin.

Sin no. Who? Club. Love. Love oh, love club. Deanie. Uh, no. Uh, no. No [00:19:00] Law. 72 times no. Most law is used Next. Christ 65 times next sin 48 times next Lord, 43 times. And the only other word used north of 40, 40 or more is Faith and it's used 40 times. So if you were reading through and you're making notes, these words would jump out at you when you're reading through the whole book in one session.

Now, part of literary context also is to understand, we call this an epistle or a a letter, but this is an unusual [00:20:00] epistle. It's an unusual letter. Lemme tell you why. We have a lot of letters from that time in history. We have somewhere between 14 and 15,000 ancient letters, and if we categorize them as those letters that are private, the private letters, we've got range in word count from 18 words.

To 209 words. Now, in addition to the private letters, there are letters that we would call literary letters where they're, they're written with a literary purpose in mind. And the most prolific author we have now is who we would call Cicero, but the Latins would've called them Kicker row 'cause they had a hard C, not a soft one kicker row.[00:21:00]

And we have 796 letters of kick row. Now kick row lived, uh, uh, he died right about the time. Jesus was just a, a, a boy. So he predates Paul, but not by much. And of his 796 letters that are literary works. The smallest has 22 words, and the largest has about 2,530 words. That's the longest he wrote.

There is a contemporary of Paul, who is a literary letter writer, and his name is Seneca. We have 124 of his letters and they are from 149 words. To 4,134 words. That's one of the longest letters of antiquity we have.[00:22:00]

I, I deal with email all day long. I write emails and I read emails from early in the morning till late at night, actually from early in the morning till early in the morning,

and, and I. I try to read through my own emails. I don't have someone who filters them for me, but I do have people who do various jobs for me, and one of my lawyers, wonderful fella, loved this fella to death. He was concerned that I needed to send a letter in one of the cases we were handling that he was.

Doing work on, and he said, I need to send this letter, but Mark, I'd like it to come out under your signature to the other side. And so would you send this email? I gotta tell you, this email was like a monster [00:23:00] email. My emails are like, Chiquita, this email was gargantuan. And I thought, well, good thing I trust him 'cause I can't read this thing.

This thing's too long. So I just. Copied it, sent it out to the other side. The lawyer on the other side saw me in court a few days later. He said, I will never be your pen pal. I said, why? He said, I don't read emails that are that long. I said, well, I don't write 'em. Well, you wrote that? I said, no, I didn't. I just sent it under my name.

I will never be your pen pal. He said, so Seneca, he wrote a ma. He wrote a hunker at 4,134 words. Now, let's put this into perspective with Paul's letter to the Romans. First of all, we have multiple letters from Paul, and his letters on average have about 1300 [00:24:00] words. Pretty substantive Romans. 7,100 words.

He makes Seneca look lazy. I mean he, this is a monstrously big letter for its day and that should tell us something. Paul had a lot to say and he crammed a lot in there. And it should drive us to realize this is not only important in the lives of Augustine or or Luther or Wesley, or me and you, but this is important to Paul.

He's going outside the norm way, outside the norm in writing this letter, and all of this comes in under that idea of the literary context. [00:25:00] Now, if we had time, we would do textual analysis, but we're gonna work on that as we go through. We'll work on paragraph exegesis as we go through. We'll do theological analysis as we go through.

We'll do application as we go through. We'll mix in what others have to say, and we'll continue with ongoing reflection. I don't have time to break those down in more details with you right now because we need to get to the epistle. And before we get to the epistle, I really want us to understand what is called, the occasion of the letter letters are not written for no reason at all.

Letters are written for purposes. Scholars in biblical studies will call this the occasion. Of the letter, what is the reason why this letter was being written? [00:26:00] What was it that, that, that brought forth from the pen of Paul? This long letter? This in part comes back to the historical context that I mentioned to you before.

So I talked to you about Rome and the church being Jewish and Gentile, and I told you there was more to come. Well, there's more to come, and here's where I put it. The, the church in Rome began as a Jewish church. If you go back to where the church began, the, the start of the church is reported. In the book of Acts, in Acts chapter one and two, we have the start of the church.

And in Acts chapter two, we read that there [00:27:00] were dwelling in Jerusalem. Jews catto cones is, is dwelling. Um, it means that, that this was their residence. This is where they were living. But these, these devout Jews living in Jerusalem had come from all these different nations and Luke records in, in the second chapter of Acts in the Succeeding verses a number of different places where they had come from to live there.

And we'll pick back up with some of that in verse nine. There were Ians and Meads. And Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, residents of Judea who had migrated into Jerusalem, residents of Cappadocia, residents of Pontus and Asia, FIA and Paraphilia. There were [00:28:00] residents of Egypt and parts of Libya that belonged to Cyrene.

And then he says there were visitors.

From Rome, that Greek word is reference is, is, is referencing someone who's truly there for a visit, like a tourist or someone there to visit relatives or someone there for a festival or a religious holiday or someone there for, um, a pilgrimage. But there were Jews from Rome who were simply visiting and they are converted to Jesus Christ as Messiah or recognize Jesus Christ as Messiah.

Might be a more accurate way to say it on the day of Pentecost, when Peter [00:29:00] preaches that inspired sermon in the Holy Spirit, dissents. Alright. Well, what happens when your visit's over? Where do you go home

and what do you do as a church member when you go home with your friends who have pledged their lives to Jesus? The Messiah. You go home to church, and the church in Rome begins with these Jewish. Converts who were visiting Jerusalem. Now, over time, the church adds Gentiles into the mix. We know by the time Paul's writing, which is 24 plus years later, 23, 24.

We know by the time [00:30:00] he's writing Romans that he says, uh, uh, he makes a reference in verses five and six through whom we have received grace in apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations that's in Possen choice,

that is eth nascent, the ethnics, the the Greeks, the Gentiles. So they're in the church at that point. They're part of this nation. And if we go back, historically, Rome as a city has somewhere around 750,000 to over a million citizens, or not citizens, people population. And of that Jews made up somewhere.

Scholars estimate between 40. To 60,000 of the population. [00:31:00] That figure is based upon synagogues, uh, uh, and, and what we know from those and, and the way we can do population estimates. The Jewish, uh, community was basically in two different areas of ancient Rome. So you've got a huge Jewish presence and now you've got a growing Christian presence.

Of Jews and Gentiles, but basically a Jewish church with some gentiles who've come in. You got the scene because trouble happens in 49 AD and they start fighting in Rome, and the emperor does not like fighting and riots. The PS Romana begins in Rome, the peace of Rome. If the, if the emperor can't make ke [00:32:00] keep the peace in his own city, how's he gonna keep peace in his empire?

And so the Emperor Claudius, who reigned from 41 to 54 AD according to Suetonius, who wrote of the Lives of the Caesars, just a generation later, maybe two, he said.

Pulit, or as we would say, he expelled from Rome, the Jews who were constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Cresto.

Well, now scholars can debate who Cresto [00:33:00] was, but I'm here to tell you Cresto was not a common name in Latin or in Greek. Cresto is perhaps an improper spelling of the word anointed in Greek, which is Christos.

If instead of an E in Cresto, it had an I, it would be clearer, but Suetonius is doing the best he can. They're fighting over Jesus in the Jewish community in Rome, and so. Claudius just says, all Jews, you're gone. And he kicks 'em out.

We know about this, [00:34:00] not just from Pius, a secular writer. We know about it because it's referenced in the Book of Acts. In the book of Acts in chapter 18, Paul says, Luke says, after this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, Italy.

Where's, what's the capital of Italy? Roma. He recently came from Italy because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. They all got booted out.

Claudius dies October 13th, 54 AD and the Jews return.

In fact, when Paul writes Romans, Paul even says, at the end of Romans, greet, Prisca and Aquila, my fellow [00:35:00] workers in Christ Jesus who risked their nexts for my life. Now, I want you to think through the implications of this. Think through this. The church starts as a Jewish congregation, and the Jewish people are a very tight knit family.

They are all descended from Abraham. They have been through persecution. Together. They have celebrated the law together. They've celebrated the festivals together. They have a commonality that is genetic, but it's also deeply ingrained culturally for 2000 years,

Jesus is Jewish. The apostles are Jewish. The church is [00:36:00] Jewish until Cornelius comes in.

The Jewish church in Rome is doing all of the ancient equivalents of pastoring the church, deacons for the church, handling the church budget, handling the church contributions, handling the Sunday schools and the life groups. I mean, this is a Jewish church. And all of a sudden the Jews are booted out and for five years the Gentiles are running the church.

Now you get a Gentile preacher. Now you get Gentile Life group leaders. You got a gentile deacon board figuring out where the money. You get the finance committee. They're a bunch of Gentiles. The personnel committee's, a bunch of Gentiles,[00:37:00]

and for five years the Gentiles run the church. And then what happens? The Jews come back. Now people are people and the church is full of them. And you know, when those gentiles or when those Jews came back, what they said to the Gentiles, you guys did great. Good job. We're back. I'll be taken back over my position and if anything happens to us again, you'll be the first one in.

And the Gentiles are saying, well, actually, you know, it's going pretty good without you. I've kind of settled in. I'm in a routine. The administration's been good for the last five years.

The implications are ones that beg for someone like Paul, [00:38:00] who has not only a Jewish background and understanding, but someone who is the principle apostle to the Gentiles to step in and to say, let's get good theology down so that we can better understand how to live and work together as a church.

Let's look at what it means to be a Jew and a believer in Christ, and look at what it means to be a Gentile and a believer in Christ. And so you've got this letter that puts this together. By the way, those of you who spoiler alert, want to know what I think about Romans nine, 10, and 11. I'm gonna warn you now, that's a microcosm where Paul says, what?

God has worked in Rome, pulling the Jews and then bringing the Jews back is gonna happen in history on another scale, [00:39:00] but that's for another day. Now, this isn't the only reason he's writing this letter, but this is certainly, in my opinion, one of the greatest backstories that we need to understand to the letter because it's gonna make a lot more sense of this letter when we do.

But I mean, we know, for example, he's writing this letter from Corinth, you know, in, in Romans 16. At the end of the letter he'll say, gay us, who's host to me and the whole church greets you, RAs, us, the city treasurer brother Ti they greet you. All of those are people from Corinth. So Paul's writing it from Corinth and, and he's getting ready to take a contribution from the Gentile church in Corinth.

By and large, Gentiles got some Jews, but taking a contribution from the Corinthian church and other churches in the Gentile world back to Jerusalem. And you can almost see that Paul seems to be [00:40:00] rehearsing his theology and his positions before he delivers that Gentile money. And so we've got that as well.

Now that's some of the occasion of the letter, but I don't want class to leave without us looking. Some at the opening of the letter. And I told you part of the literary context is to try to understand the flow of thought and structure behind, uh, uh, Romans. Uh, I'm gonna give you the structure that, that makes most sense to me.

And we'll go through it and we'll break it apart and look at it in different parts. But there's this introduction with greetings and an overarching theme that are in the first 17 verses of the book. And then after that you've got this section where Paul talks about the reign of sin and the condemnation that's over the Gentile and the Jew.

And that's verse [00:41:00] 18 of chapter one to chapter three, verse 20. And then after that you've got, um, move, move, move. Thank you. Salvation of the cross through faith. One of those big, but now verses 3 21 through 5 21. Then you've got the struggles in the fruit of salvation. Six one through 8 39. The problem of Israel that I was referencing before in chapters nine, 10, and 11.

And then in chapter 12, Paul starts talking about Christian conduct and it ends in 1514 through the end of the book with Paul putting, closing, and talking about his plans and things like that. So within the framework of that, we began with this introduction, and I want you to see the way Paul starts this letter out, Paul.[00:42:00]

A servant of Christ Jesus. Now pause for a moment. Normally in an ancient letter, you identified yourself as the author, and then you identified the recipients and you greeted them. That's a normal letter. Lemme give you some examples so that you can see what a normal letter looks like. We will just start, uh, with the next one.

Next one's, one Corinthians

and one Corinthians

Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Hanes to the church of God. That's in Corinth. Said, grace and peace to you. A [00:43:00] greeting. See you. Got it. Go to the next book. Next letter. We have second Corinthians. What do you see in second Corinthians?

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus, by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, two Church of God. That's at Corinth. Grace to you and peace. A greeting. Go to the next one. Galatians

Paul, an apostle, not from men or through men, but through Jesus Christ and all the brothers who are with me. To the churches in Galatia, grace and peace. Galatians, what's the next one? Ephesians. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus, [00:44:00] grace to you and peace. The greeting from God our father, Philippians, Paul and Timothy to the Saints in Philippi.

Grace and peace to you. Colossians. You get an idea Paul. An apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. Two, the saints and brothers, grace to you and peace from God, our Father. And then I could keep going. First Thessalonians, second Thessalonians, one Timothy, et cetera. I'll go to Romans.

He starts out good. Paul. A servant of Christ. Jesus called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his son, who is descendant from David, according to the flesh, was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, our Lord, through whom we've received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Christ Jesus.

[00:45:00] Two, all those who are in Rome, loved by God and called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our father. He inserts this monster sentence. That's huge. That is so unlike anything he had done before or would do after. And that's one of these things that just ought to make us go, huh? We can speculate on the whys, but it certainly should draw our attention to look carefully at what he did say.

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus. Now, duos, he doesn't call himself a servant much. He does it here and he does it in Philippians. But a servant of Christ Jesus is unusual for him in the, in this genre of literature. And there, there, there's, um, a hebrewism [00:46:00] in the Old Testament. There's a common phrase used of holy people, eai.

It means a servant of the Lord. Abraham was an eai. Um, uh, David was an eai. Moses was an eai. He's using some Jewish language here, but he's saying that the Lord is Christ Jesus. He is a servant of Christ Jesus. And this word servant duos in the Greek, it really emphasizes your dependence and commitment, not simply ownership, not simply, I'm owned by Christ.

It's rather I am dependent. The slave was dependent upon the household for sustenance, for for security. For a place to dwell a roof over the head for [00:47:00] purpose, a servant assumed the religion of the household

and a servant was committed to the good of the household. And so when Paul says he's a servant of Christ Jesus, the Romans knew what a servant was. The slave population in Rome was the largest percentage of of, of, of people there. Paul is a servant of Christ Jesus. He is called to be an apostle. Now, this word called.

Whoops, is not dolos. That's a typo. That's called four in the morning. It's Platos. This word called is used when you invite someone in for a meal is used when you single someone out for a [00:48:00] job. Paul says, I was called. To be an apostle. If you were listening to Jared's sermon this morning, he talked about how we need to know our calling.

Paul had a very specific call on his life. God never calls people to simply be Christians. He calls you with purpose. He's got good works that he's already prepared for you to do. You are called, Paul was called to be an apostle. And he set apart for the gospel of God. Now, this is a Paul word. Paul uses the word gospel by far more than any other writer in the Bible, but he uses it and it means good news, but he uses it in a unique way.

And I'll pick up on this more next week. [00:49:00] Um. I, it, it is, it is. I don't have time to do it today, but I'm gonna tell you this is one of the most important words that we can understand from Paul's mindset because of the unique way that Paul uses this word. Um, okay, I've gotta figure this out now. Um, we are.

Getting close to being out of time. Let me give you a view of what's to come. Let's do that. Okay. We're gonna deal with this word gospel and, and it's gonna be eyeopening for some of us. And then after we deal with this word gospel, we're going to continue to take these verses apart and, and these verses will include a number of you were interested in the Psalms that we discussed last week.

Paul will continue saying concerning his son who was descended from David according to the flesh, and then was declared to be the son of God in [00:50:00] power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead Christ Jesus our Lord. This is actually a song most likely that Paul is quoting from see by 50, mid fifties ad.

20 years after the resurrection of Christ, there are already common creeds or songs that are being sung about who Jesus was. And if you look at Romans one, three, and four, it's got many of the parallelisms that we talked about in the Psalms, in the poetry from last week. Jesus was descended from David according to the flesh.

Uh, the Greek he was. In parallel declared to be the son of God in power according to the Spirit. And these are are parallel statements. So we're gonna talk a little bit about this song. Next week. We're going to talk about, uh, um, much, much more. [00:51:00] But for now, we're out of time. So here's what I've got for you to take home today.

One, God works through history. This always amazes me. He works through history on the world stage. I mean, think about it. Claudius commanded all the Jews to leave Rome, but for that, I'm not sure Paul had the compelling need to write this letter,

but for that, I'm not sure Paul would've met Priscilla and Aquila. But for that, I mean, that is such a divergent road in history that created so many opportunities and, and events that deviate from that road. And it's the hand of God in history. But God, what God, I'm talking about on a macro scale, he does on a [00:52:00] micro scale with you and me.

He can take all of your history. The good and the bad and use it to uniquely use you to transform the lives of the people around you. He can take the tragic loss of a spouse and use it to mold your heart into some, some way to serve and minister to other people that you may not realize for a decade. Or two, or maybe you don't realize it, this side of glory, until someone says, Hey, what you went through and the way you you testified to it, help me meant something to me.

God works through history. And when something horrible happens to you, you can lament and you can cry, you can complain to God. He's good with all of that, [00:53:00] but at some point recognize God will work through that to at least find some measure of good and redemption, even if what happened was tragic and, and brings God to weep

next. We will discuss this later, but good news, almost gospel doesn't almost do it. I think amazing news comes better, and when Paul speaks of the gospel, he's thinking of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus because that says you are loved. That says you are called and that says you are forgiven to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called.

To be Saints. We'll get to that next week. As you come back, I hope and hear this most important letter, the letter to [00:54:00] the Romans. So that's our introduction class next week. We're gonna dive in in great depth, and I hope you will be back and I hope you will bring a friend. Let me bless you. Um, father, in the name of Jesus, we ask your blessing upon all who hear this word.

Let 'em hear your call. Let 'em know they are loved. Know that they are chosen by you. Know that you call them by name and call them to a higher purpose and to know your forgiveness through the death and the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord whom we serve. And through whom we pray, amen.