Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: Why a Study on Romans?

I am beginning a series on Romans.  Why?  Good question.  Here’s why.  First, Romans is unique among religious writings that are considered “scripture,” in that it provides a comprehensive overview of basic Christian doctrine (i.e., the gospel message).  It is essentially the foundation of Christian theology.  I can think of no other religion that has anything comparable to it.  The Qur’an contains mostly historical and legal narratives; there is no systematic theology.  The Baghavad Gita is barely historical (and I don’t think many Hindus would consider it a historical text).  Even the Old Testament doesn’t lay out a theology of the Jewish people in quite the same way as Romans.  For that, Romans is worthy of serious study–especially by Christians, but also by those who really want to know what Christians believe.

At the start of this year, I co-led a Sunday School class with one of our elders, Dr. Mike Bossé, on Romans.  Our intention was to go as slowly as necessary, and encourage class discussion on whatever issues of theology and life the class wanted to bring up.  We were (and are) both of the view that theology should be intensely practical, and it was (and is) our hope that through the theology of Romans, we would be encouraged in our faith and would see ways in which the doctrines taught can be applied in life.  I would like to extend that to this blog.  Over the coming weeks, I will post a summary of the things we discussed, and open up the Comments for further discussion.  If you were there and want to add things you remember, feel free to.  If you weren’t but want to share something from the passage under discussion–go ahead!  We only got as far as mid-way through Romans 3, but I intend to carry this series through to the end of Romans.  If Mike and I pick up the Sunday School class again in the Fall, I will post the highlights of the discussion each week so we can carry on the study via the blog.  I don’t know about you, but that sounds like fun to me!

We’ll start the blog proper shortly with an introduction to Romans–where was it written, to whom, and why?