Romans (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching)

Paul was on fire to preach the good news of the gracious lordship of God expressed in Jesus Christ, and nowhere more so than in Romans. Because God as creator is Lord over the whole of created reality, reflections on that lordship encompass the full range of human problems, and nowhere is that more the case than in Romans. Paul deals with problems as contemporary as tomorrow's newspaper. They are problems as global as the headlines and as intimate as those discussed in "Dear Abby." The fate and future of the Jewish people, the role of the individual in the total sweep of history, the responsibilities of the citizen to the government of the country with which he or she may not always agree, the morality of actions in which adults engage, sexual and otherwise—all these and more occupy Paul in his letter to the Christians in Rome. It could not have been otherwise, because a letter to Rome was a letter to the political, military, and economic capital of Paul's world; and he could no more avoid such problems than could a Christian author in our day writing to Christians in Washington, D.C. One may come to Paul's letter to the Romans therefore with great expectations.