Invitation to Romans

Fourteen years ago, I set out to seek the kingdom of God, the centre of Jesus’ teaching and mission. Nine years ago, I launched this blog to share the results. Now I’m ready to apply this research to the book of Romans.

The kingdom perspective brings freshness and depth to familiar words like gospel, faith, righteousness, and salvation. These life-giving words restore relationship between heaven and earth, revealing how our heavenly sovereign, out of faithfulness to us has done right by us in providing his Christ as our Lord. This gospel calls for us to respond with faithfulness to him, so his life in us results in us being right with him and doing right by him in response, so earth is restored as a mirror of heaven’s faithfulness and righteousness to us. That’s the impact of the gospel we see in Romans.

I’ll be blogging and podcasting sessions from Romans 1–8 over the next six weeks:

• Week 1 (14 May 2025): God’s people in Rome (Rom. 1:1-17). Notes for Week 1. Podcast to follow.
• Week 2 (21 May): Human unfaithfulness (Rom. 1:17–2:29)
• Week 3 (28 May): God’s faithfulness (Romans 3)
• Week 4 (4 June): Undoing unfaithfulness (Romans 4–5)
• Week 5 (11 June): Journey to God’s reign (Romans 6–7)
• Week 6 (19 June): Life with God (Romans 8)

Notes will be live before each session, and the podcasts will follow. If you’re in Perth (Western Australia), you can register to attend live at Riverview Church. After a mid-year break, we’re planning another 6-week series to complete Romans 9–16 in August/September.

A Sample

Romans 1:16-17 (NIV)
¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. ¹⁷ For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed — a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” [Habakkuk 2:4]

The keywords of the letter are all here: gospel, salvation, righteousness (justification) and faith[fulness], and what all of this means for the Jew/gentile relationship. This is the essence of the letter.

But why does Paul say he’s not ashamed of the gospel? He alluded to the Greek’s view that this message is foolish (verse 14, compare 1 Corinthians 1:18-25). It’s also a crazy message to try to promote in Rome: “You’re trying to tell me that a dead man — someone Caesar put to death through his agents in Jerusalem — is the true ruler of the world that Caesar rules?”

Caesar’s wars were legendary. There was no question that Caesar was in power; he killed anyone mad enough to fight him. The whole city of Rome was testament to Caesar’s power. Paul identifies with how God’s people were made to feel in Caesar’s city as they promoted their “shameful” message of a crucified king.

So Paul sets the example. He’s not ashamed of the good news that God’s man is ruling the world because the power of God is not exercised like the power of Caesar.

Caesar’s power was brutal, subjugating nations by force like the beasts who ruled the empires before him (Daniel 7:1-7). That’s not how God uses his power. God’s goal is not to enslave the world but to save it. God saves all who give him their allegiance, their trust. That’s what verse 16 says.

The good news of Messiah Jesus rescues the Jewish people, those who’d been God’s people for centuries, though crushed by the nations. The good news rescues the people of other nations who are also being called to give their allegiance to Messiah Jesus. The war is over: the conflicts of nations fighting each other for power and fighting for control of God’s nation cease as Christ receives their loyalty (faith).

The gospel calls all the nations into the obedience that comes from allegiance to the Messiah’s name (verse 5). The nations are also called to belong to Messiah Jesus (verse 6). God has extended the boundaries of his chosen and holy people to all who are loved by God and called his holy people (verse 7).

That’s why the Jewish and gentile believers in Rome must together offer themselves to God as living sacrifices, the community expressing God’s love (Romans 12), even while they live under Caesar’s government (Romans 13). They’re called to live together as a community where the weak and the strong love each other as the expression of the Messiah’s love (Romans 14-15). They’re to embody God’s rescue of all peoples through the gospel, his proclamation of Jesus Christ as Lord of all.

Related posts

The Formed in God’s Story series has previously covered:

• Genesis – Esther (six sessions)
• Genesis 1–12 (six sessions)
• Psalms (six sessions)
• Old Testament Prophets (six sessions)
• Matthew 1–14 and 15–28 (twelve sessions)
• Acts (seven sessions)
• Revelation (six sessions)