ROMANS -- INTRO

Methodology

I will take a section of text and work through it following this approach.

1. Discover what the text meant to the original audience.
2. examine any differences between the original audience and us living today.
3. Discover timeless principles from the text that apply to any people at any time living in any culture.
4. Apply the principle to life so that it transforms the individual more into the image of Jesus Christ and impacts not only his life but the way he interacts with his world.

 

I will first deal with the text before consulting any outside sources such as commentaries.  I want to understand the text uninfluenced by others.  After I have gone through the above process I will consult commentaries. 

 

Commentaries

I will start using these six commentaries and add others as needed.  I will, when coming to chapters 9-11 find dispensational viewpoints.

• Leon Morris:  Romans (Pillar New Testament Commentary)
• Donald Grey Barnhouse:  Expositions of Bible Doctrines: Taking the Epistle to the Romans as a Point of Departure
• John Stott:  The Message of Romans

• Everett F. Harrison:  Expositor's Bible Commentary: Romans

• James D. G. Dunn:  Word biblical commentary, Romans

• Douglas Moo:  NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Romans

    

On page 2 in the first volume of Barnhouse's commentary on Romans he writes:

Luther wrote: "The epistle to the Romans is the true masterpiece of the New Testament and the very purest gospel, which is well worth and deserving that a Christian man should not only learn it by heart, word for word, but also that he should daily deal with it as the daily bread of men's souls. It can never be too much or too well read or studied, and the more it is handled the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes."

One of the greatest fathers of the church, Chrysostom, had it read to him twice a week. Coleridge said that the epistle to the Romans is "the most profound writing that exists." The latter thought must not frighten the reader, for it is most certain that the truths of this epistle are those which have entered into the hearts of many simple men and given them a light and a life which was utterly beyond their natural capacities.

 

So with that said, we begin.