The Power of the Gospel

As we will see later in Romans 1, Paul labors the point that God has manifested Himself so clearly to every human being that nobody has an excuse for denying Him. When Jesus is declared to be God’s Son through the power of the resurrection, that declaration may be all that we ever get. We might be like Thomas and say, “Unless I see in His hands the

What are you called to be? To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints (v. 7a). That is your vocation.

Paul moves quickly from his own call as an Apostle to the call shared by every Christian in the church at Rome and by every Christian in every church in every age. The Bible calls them elect, “the called-out ones.”

When Paul and Silas brought the gospel to the Jews in Berea, “they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). The Bereans examined the Scriptures daily to know whether Jesus was indeed the Christ.

In the New Testament, the title “lord” or kurios is used in three ways. There is a simple, common usage, where calling someone kurios is like addressing him as “sir,” a polite form of address. The supreme use of kurios refers to the sovereign God, who rules all things.

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.” Bondservant is an improvement, but I think the proper translation should read, “Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ.” The Greek word that Paul uses here is doulos. A doulos was not a hired servant who could come and go as he pleased. A doulos was a person who had been purchased, and once purchased he became his master’s

Consider the significance of what it means to have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Is this peace something that you experience even when confessing your sin to our loving heavenly Father? Just as Paul extended his greeting of “grace and peace” to the Romans, may our experience of this grace and peace create in us a longing for it to b

Let us walk in humble reliance on the Spirit every day as faithful servants in our freedom from sin.

The word for saint in the New Testament is the word that means “sanctified one,” one who has been set apart by the Holy Spirit and called inwardly by Christ to Himself.

In Old Testament times, the Jews greeted one another the same way they do today: Shalom aleichem, “Peace be unto you.” The response to the greeting was Aleichem shalom, “Peace also to you.”