Beginning Romans…

My pastor preached out of Romans yesterday, and I was very quickly reminded of how much I LOVE Romans. There is just so much truth…so much incredible depth of everything Jesus did for us explained in there!

It reminded me that a little while back I had contemplated doing a Bible study on Romans on this blog.

I’m wondering if anyone is interested? I actually have no idea how many people regularly read this blog (can’t tell the real traffic from the spam traffic), but would anyone be interested in going through Romans with me?

I’m not promising it’ll be an every day thing, nor would I be expecting comments on every post or on the same day I post. I’m just thinking I’ll go through it slowly and post what I see and love as I get to it, and readers can comment if and when they want to.

Here’s the background on Romans:

Romans was, as the first verse states, written by Paul, the apostle. This is the same Paul who was originally persecuting, arresting, and killing the disciples and new believers in Christ (when he went by his original name of Saul) before Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and totally changed his life. (See Acts 4:58-9:30) He spent three years in Arabia searching the scriptures as the Holy Spirit revealed to Him the truth of Christ. (He briefly explained this to the Galatian church in Galatians 1:11-24.)

You have to remember that Paul grew up being trained and educated in the Jewish version of Harvard. He knew the Scriptures (meaning the Old Testament) front to back inside and out. He was trained and taught by Gamaliel, the most outstanding rabbi teacher the Jews had (Acts 22:3).  He knew the Scriptures with his brain…but he had no revelation on them. He did not believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah, and so he used the permission he’d been given by the high priest to travel around arresting those “belonging to the Way.” (Acts 9:2)

And then he met Jesus. (Acts 9:5) He was soon filled with the Holy Spirit. (Acts 9:17)

Remember how Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would “teach us all things”? (John 14:26) Well that is exactly what the Holy Spirit did. During those three years in Arabia, Paul searched the scriptures finding what he was blind to before… proof over and over and over again that Jesus WAS the promised Messiah. He then went back to Jerusalem and met with Peter and James.

Seventeen years or so had passed (according to historians) when Paul wrote this letter to the Romans. It was addressed to the believers who lived in Rome, as verse 7 says that this letter is “to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints.” In this letter, Paul goes through, in a step-by-step manner, everything that Jesus accomplished for us through is perfect life and death on the cross.

There is so much truth in there that is applicable to our everyday lives…so much that is life-changing when the Holy Spirit reveals the full truth of it to us, just as it was life-changing for Paul.

And that’s why I’m considering sharing this Bible Study here.  If you’re interested, go ahead and comment. Either way, I’ll still seek God for direction on what and when I post things.

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