Hello and welcome to this new series of Word Online. We are now moving into the very exciting book of Romans. We studied the Gospels, the Life of Jesus and the book of Acts, The Spreading Flame. Some of you will be familiar with that material and now we are moving into the letters of Paul.

The Impact of the Book of Romans

The first book, Romans, is an amazing book. It has had an incredible impact in the Church. It has influenced the shape of the Church in many powerful ways; the Reformation that took place in Europe led by Martin Luther, and others, was profoundly influenced by the teaching of Paul in Romans. On the 24th of May 1738, a man called John Wesley - a religious man who was looking for peace in his heart - entered a church in London as a troubled man. He heard someone preaching about the book of Romans and quoting the words from the book of Romans, talking about how we can have peace with God, justification by faith and start a new life. He said that on that day his heart was strangely warmed. He became the leader of an incredible revival for the next 50 years. He travelled all the way around Great Britain and North America preaching the gospel. He travelled 250,000 miles mostly on horseback to preach the gospel because of the incredible impact of the book of Romans, and the power of the gospel that got hold of him. He founded the Methodist Church which spread all over the world as a great church in the Modern Age. This is an example of the power of the book of Romans.

Letters in the New Testament

There are 27 books in the New Testament. Four of them tell the life of Jesus. One of them, the book of Acts, tells us the story of the Early Church. Revelation, is a book of prophecy about the future. Everything else is letters. Letters are what we are going to study now - somebody writing to a church, an individual, or a group of churches. Of these 21 letters, Paul wrote 13. They are some of the most important documents in the New Testament.

Letter Writing

In the days of the New Testament, how did people communicate with each other if they weren’t able to speak to each other face to face? They didn’t have telephones, modern communication, television, media, or social media. People wrote letters. There wasn’t a postal service in that period in the Roman Empire. You had to get somebody to act as a courier, to take the letter for you from one place to another. Letters were important for communication. If you wanted to write a letter, only 10 or 20 percent of people could even write, and only 10 or 20 percent of people could read. Communication was a big challenge. Paul had a great need to communicate his message to churches and people who were far away from him.

What did he have to do in order to write a letter? He had to buy some writing material. They didn’t have paper in those days; they had something called parchment - dried animal skin - or alternatively there was another method, using a plant called papyrus where the inner parts of the tree could be taken, dried out, compressed, and turned into a writing material. You could go to the shop and buy some papyrus parchment but it was expensive. You had to decide how much you were going to buy. In other words, how long is the letter going to be? People tried to put it all on one piece of writing material. Then, in order to write your letter, you needed the feather of a large bird, sharpened at the end, turning it into a quill. You needed some ink which came in the form of dyes that were used for clothing and for other materials. All this cost money.

Most people writing letters hired a scribe to write for them. They spoke the words and somebody else wrote it down. They also got somebody else to be the courier - to take it safely from place to place. In the case of Romans, we know who the scribe is and we know who the courier is because they both appear in the letter. In Romans 16, at the end, we see Paul giving greetings to all sorts of people in Rome and we find the scribe mentioned, Romans 16:22 says, ‘I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord.’ Tertius wrote the letter of Romans. Paul was by his side dictating and Tertius patiently writing down. I think after about 16 chapters, he decided he would quite like to have a say and so he wrote down ‘I Tertius, who wrote this letter, send you my greeting.’ He didn’t want to be totally anonymous. But also in Romans 16: 1, we find the person who was almost certainly the courier, “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church, and I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been a benefactor of many people including me.’ Paul says, ‘Please receive her when she comes to you.’ Paul is writing from Greece, probably from the city of Cenchrea which is the next city to Corinth, and he is writing to Rome in Italy, The journey that the courier had to make would be by sea. Phoebe was probably a rich lady. She was a benefactor. In other words, she gave money to help the church. So she probably carried the letter of Romans by sea, with a guard, and delivered it personally to the church in Rome.

We can imagine Paul writing. This letter is one of the longest letters ever discovered from the Ancient World. It is immensely long and it is the longest letter in the New Testament. When Paul was writing this letter, he knew he had a lot to say. He got a good scribe and a good courier. He bought a large piece of writing material, either parchment or papyrus. Then he spoke, Tertius wrote, and the result is the letter to the Romans. Thank God Phoebe had a good journey and got there safely, and the letter to the Romans has come down to us.

The Writer, Paul

We have divided these studies into four series. The first series will cover the first four chapters and talks about the salvation gospel. Here in the first episode, we are going to talk about Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles.

If you have studied the book of Acts, or you have been through ‘The Spreading Flame’ in Word Online, you will know the story of Paul because so much of it is written in the book of Acts. It is a dramatic story. Paul, the writer, grew up in a city called Tarsus in what we now call Southern Turkey. He was a Jew living in a non-Jewish community - a rich, educated community. He was very interested in Judaism and the Jewish faith. He studied the Old Testament books and as a young boy, or as a teenager, he was considered to be very capable, by his parents and his educators and they decided to send him off for some special education in Jerusalem. He arrived in Jerusalem and was educated under the leadership of a man called Gamaliel, a well-known teacher. Paul became a Pharisee. The Pharisees were a very extreme group amongst the Jews, who obeyed so many different rules - some of which they created, and some came out of the Old Testament. They opposed Jesus. Paul was in the country when Jesus was preaching, and he opposed the Early Church. But, as we found out in the book of Acts, he had a remarkable and miraculous encounter with Jesus when travelling to the city of Damascus, when a blinding light came from the sky and a voice spoke to him saying, ‘Saul, Saul’. Saul was his other name. He had a Hebrew name and a Latin name. ‘Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me?’ He suddenly realised that Jesus was alive - he had risen from the dead. Paul was converted and he was called to become a missionary to all the non-Jewish people who we call the Gentiles.

The Importance of Jesus’ Resurrection

Romans 1: 1 - 5

“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God, the gospel he promised beforehand through His prophets, in the Holy scriptures, regarding his son who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power, by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ Our Lord. Through him, we receive grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith, for his name’s sake.”

Romans 1:1-5, NIV

Paul here summarises the gospel which had been promised beforehand through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures. He points out that in the Old Testament there were many indicators and prophecies that indicated the coming of a Jewish saviour, who they called the Messiah, a descendant of King David, who as Paul says in verse 4 was raised from the dead. In his resurrection, he was demonstrated to be the Son of God. The resurrection meant an enormous amount to Paul because he suddenly realised on the Damascus road that Jesus had risen from the dead. Up until that point he had sincerely believed that when Jesus had been crucified, and had never came out of the tomb. Paul was in Jerusalem at the time and he thought it was a complete hallucination - an imaginary propaganda exercise by Jesus’ past followers. But on the Damascus Road he encountered and saw Christ before him, risen from the dead in glory and power. So when he speaks about the resurrection here, he is basically saying this is the defining reality that makes Jesus different from anybody else. He rose again from the dead. He met Paul.

Apostleship

Then Paul speaks about the fact that he is called to the Gentiles, verse 5, “Through him we received grace and apostleship.” This is very important. What does Paul mean by ‘apostleship’? In Acts 9: 15, on the Damascus road, these words come for Paul, “This man is my chosen instrument, to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.” He was called and the word ‘apostle’ means someone who is sent with the authority of the sender. The nearest equivalent we can think of in our modern culture is the ambassador of a country, representing that government in another country.

Many years ago, when I was in Romania, I happened to be in the British Ambassador’s office. I had a meeting with him for particular reasons and as he sat at his desk, a portrait of the then Queen of Great Britain, Elizabeth II, was above him. He was in another country and he was representing her and her government to the Romanian people. That was his job. That is what ambassadors for your country do when they go to other countries. They are representing your government. An apostle was a representative of Jesus Christ - somebody who did not have just an opinion about him, nor somebody who had studied him, but somebody who had been commissioned by him personally, to say, "In my name you can go and speak and preach and send my message out.”

The New Testament Apostles were first of all the twelve who Jesus called in his life. One of them betrayed him - Judas Iscariot. Another was added into his place - a man by the name of Matthias, in Acts 1. That is twelve, but we know, from the book of Acts, that a few others were added into that group: James the half-brother of Jesus, Barnabas, and Paul himself. We can be fairly clear about these three, and there were probably a few others who were added in during the 40 days, when Jesus was raised from the dead but still ministering and calling people. Paul knew about this group and he was added about a year or two later, after Jesus had ascended to heaven. He describes this in 1 Corinthians 15, in a very interesting passage. 1 Corinthians 15:5, “He appeared to Peter that is Cephas and to the twelve” (the twelve Apostles). “Then after that he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James” (a reference to James the half-brother of Jesus) “then to all the Apostles.” Jesus appeared to the whole group of Apostles, the twelve, plus a few others, and then interestingly, Paul adds, “And last of all, he appeared to me also as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle…” What does he mean by this last appearance? He means the Damascus road appearance which took place a year or two after Jesus had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven. Paul said the timing meant that he shouldn’t really be in the group because he was too late but was added in last. So, he felt that he had the same authority of an Apostle that Peter, and all the twelve had. Jesus had added him in and made him an official ambassador - an apostle of Jesus Christ.

By the time he wrote Romans, he had been travelling with his calling for about 20 years. Sometimes churches use the term ‘apostle’ to refer to people sent out from churches, like messengers of the churches, or missionaries. They are apostles of the churches but what Paul is talking about here is the Apostle of Jesus Christ. The great qualification they needed to become an apostle was to have witnessed his resurrection. That was essential. Paul witnessed his resurrection in a unique and unorthodox way on the Damascus road.

Rome

Romans 1: 6 - 7

“And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, to all In Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Romans 1:6-7, NIV

Our attention turns to the people receiving the letter. We haven’t said very much about them yet. Who are they? What is going on in their situation? First of all let us think about the city of Rome. I want you to imagine a huge mega city. We have mega cities in our world in many different African nations, in Asia - particularly in China, a few in Europe like London, some in Latin America and a few in North America - cities with millions and millions of people in them. The population of the world was much smaller then but by the standards of the day Rome was a mega city. The population was potentially in the region of one million people. It was a huge city. It was an important city. It was the capital of the Roman Empire, the biggest empire that existed in the known world from the Jewish point of view at that time. The Romans ruled at this time all the way around the Mediterranean Sea, all across North Africa, through Spain, France, Italy, the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt. The Romans ruled all these countries as we would name them today and all the way up to Britain that they were just about to invade, within a few years of Jesus’ death and had just been invaded by the time Paul was writing this letter. Rome was immensely powerful and in the city was the legal authority, the civil service and the heads of the army. It was a powerful place. But most of all the Emperor was there. When Paul was writing to Romans, the emperor was Nero. Nero was unpredictable, inexperienced, unpopular, and very suspicious of the Jews and the Early Church. Later on, he took action against the Early Churches. Nero had his palace right there in the city. There were also many temples because the Romans had many gods whom they worshiped. They had their own system of religion - a pagan religion which stood firmly opposed to the Christian message. There was a conflict between Roman religion and the gospel.

The Roman Church

The Church had started at the time of the Day of Pentecost. You can find more details about the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 in my teaching on The Spreading Flame. We notice that the people who were attending Jerusalem at that particular Jewish Festival included what is described as ‘visitors from Rome’. Jewish visitors from Rome were there when the Holy Spirit fell on the Early Church gathered together. Peter preached the opening message and thousands of people believed on that day. Shortly after that some of those visitors from Rome would have gone back to the city, and undoubtedly they would have started a church. The church continued for many years but Paul had not visited it. He didn’t found it; he had never been to Rome before. As he is writing to a church that he has not visited before, he introduces himself very fully in this passage. I wonder if that is what people do in your culture, when you meet somebody for the first time particularly. For example, in some African cultures or Asian cultures, it is very appropriate to give a full introduction, to explain about your family, your background, your work, where you live and all sorts of important things like that. Paul was doing something of that here because most of the Christians in the Roman church had never met him before. He had some friends there, who probably moved from other places. We find them in chapter 16.

A Blessing

Paul gives his blessing at the end of verse 7 “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a phrase that we can pass over very easily but what did Paul mean by the word ‘grace’? When Paul uses the word ‘grace’, he usually means the blessings of the gospel: forgiveness, peace with God, Christian community, certainty of eternal life, God’s interest in your life, grace. He wants all the blessings of the gospel for that church.

Then he says ‘Peace’- a very popular word these days. What did the word ‘peace’ mean to Paul? The Greek word is linked to a Hebrew word ‘shalom’ which means well-being. He wanted well-being for the church. He comes in such a friendly and warm way to a church he has never met before. He wants them to be blessed by God with all the blessings of the gospel; and he wants well-being for their people. He greets them warmly.

We are coming to the end of our first episode. What a fascinating background to this book. We are setting the scene. I hope it is going to help you to get into the way Paul is thinking; what he is trying to do as he writes this long, fascinating and sometimes quite complicated book.

Reflections

Three things for you to think about. First of all, this book is a good example of how the authority of the early Apostles comes to us. Jesus sent out his Apostles in the first generation but that didn’t last for very long. They died. Many of them were martyred, including Paul. How does their teaching come to us? It comes to us through the written word. Every book in the New Testament is written either by an Apostle or by one of their close associates, commissioned by the Apostles to write on their behalf. Paul wrote all his letters; the Apostle Matthew wrote Matthew’s Gospel; John the Apostle wrote John’s Gospel; Luke wrote Luke’s Gospel on behalf of Paul who was his associate; Mark wrote his Gospel on behalf of Peter, who was his mentor and who gave him his memoirs. We can trace the authorship to that apostolic group and through them comes the authority of Christ’s teaching and the work of the Holy Spirit to us today. The book of Romans is a key example of that.

The second reflection I have is that the mission of the Church carries on. Here we are two thousand years later and still the call to the Gentiles, to all the nations of the earth, is being carried out by the Church. It didn’t end in Paul’s day. Paul started this process, along with the other Apostles, but Paul, more than anyone else, exploded into life, travelled to many places, took many risks, created many teams, went into all sorts of different contexts to preach the gospel. And it is still our job today. It is your job where you live. It is my job where I live. Some of us are called to be missionaries and move from one place to another.

My final thoughts, as we conclude this episode, are about church leadership. Paul’s life gives an example of the four things that are required for people to enter into genuine church leadership. They all happen to Paul.

Number one. A person needs to hear that inner voice of the Holy Spirit calling them to be a leader. We need to have an inner conviction. It is no good somebody saying you need to be a leader because you are good at such and such a skill but you haven’t got any calling from God.

Secondly, with Paul his call was confirmed by other people. The other Apostles shook him by the hand and said, ‘Paul come and join our team.’ We see that in the book of Galatians.

Thirdly, he was willing to accept God’s timing. He didn’t rush off and do things immediately. He waited quite a long time until he was sent off on his mission. You can find that story in the book of Acts, very clearly demonstrated.

And fourthly, he got on with the job. Here he is 20 years on from the Damascus road, and his plan is ‘I need to get to Rome, I want to see these people in Rome. I have never been there before but I want to build a connection with that church. Maybe they can help me start a mission to another country'. He was thinking of going to Spain for the first time and he thought maybe the Roman church could give him an interpreter, or some traveling companions, or a translator, because Greek wasn’t so well spoken in Spain. He is on the move with his mission. This is a dynamic book. Thank you for starting the journey with me today. I really hope to see you again for future episodes.