Sermon Tone Analysis
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If I asked you what the most important letter you ever read, what would you say?
proposal?
Love letter?
birth of a baby?
draft letter?
Sweepstakes letter?
IRS?
Letters can be good or bad.
Maybe you get a job offer…
We are going to study one of my favorite books in the Bible.
Paul’s letter to the Romans.
"If a man understands Romans he has a sure road open to help him understand the entire Bible."
John Calvin
The letter to the Romans has influenced many throughout history.
Martin Luther began the reformation because of the book of Romans.
John Wesley began Methodist Church because of Romans.
Augustine became a Christian because of Romans.
Throughout history God has used the book of Romans in mighty ways.
I want us to think about the Book of Romans as a letter Paul wrote to us…
When you study a book, you always want to ask at least five questions: Who wrote it?
To whom was it written?
When was it written?
Why was it written?
What's the main message?
5 Questions to ask when studying a book of the Bible
1. Who Wrote it?
Paul
The Greeks had a habit of identifying themselves as the writer in the beginning… we ought to, but that makes too much sense.
It would be like a memo… from Paul to you.
It wasn’t written by Paul, but it was authored by Paul.
Paul wrote it but the handwriting was not his.
Tertius was Pauls Secretary.
Paul dictated it to Tertius.
This may explain some of the run-on sentences in the book.
I imagine is might be a little difficult to keep up with Paul and write with the proper periods etc.
Where was it written?
Gaius was a Christian businessman and he lived in Corinth.
This lets us know where the letter was written from.
So the letter was written by Paul in Corinth to the Romans.
Paul poured his heart out.
Who was Paul?
Paul was one of the greatest men to ever live since Jesus… certainly one of the mist influential men.
There are a couple of billion Christians today primarily because Paul went all over the known world starting churches.
Paul was a product of three cultures: Jewish, Roman, Greek
1. Religiously, Paul was a Hebrew.
Paul says he was the ultimate Jew
Before he became a Christian, he was a persecutor of Christians.
He was persecuting the church and stood by while Stephen was stoned -- one of the first martyrs of the church.
In Acts 9, Saul was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians when God spoke to him through a blinding light.
Saul was converted.
2. Paul was by culture, a Greek.
He was born and raised in Tarsus.
Tarsus is a seaport on the coast of Turkey.
On a map find Rome -- that's where Paul wrote the letter to.
When he wrote the letter he was in Corinth.
Corinth is a sea port on the coast of Greece.
Paul was born in Tarsus in Turkey, right where there is a bend before you get down into Syria.
Tarsus was a great university center.
It rivaled Athens.
It had one of the greatest libraries of the world.
Paul was a highly educated man.
He spoke Greek fluently.
Greek was the universal language at this time.
Even though it was the Roman empire, not everybody spoke Latin, they spoke Greek, regardless of what country you were in.
He spoke Greek fluently and that meant he could travel internationally and speak in several different countries.
3. Politically, Paul was a Roman Citizen
This is important to understand because being a Roman citizen gave you a pass to the empire that, if you were not a citizen, you didn't have those privileges.
Only about one in five people in the Roman empire were actually citizens of the empire.
(It's like in Russia.
A very small percentage of Russians are members of the Communist party.
Most of them are not members of the party and are not privileged to be a member of the party.)
Paul was a Roman citizen.
You could get a Roman citizenship by birth, or if you were wealthy enough, you could buy a Roman citizenship.
Paul had a Hebrew, Greek and Roman background.
2. To whom was it written?
He wrote to the followers of Jesus in Rome.
Paul longed to go see them.
At this point in his life he had not been to Rome.
Paul did not start the church in Rome and did not know many people there.
It probably began with converts in Paul’s ministry who were from rome and went back and began churches.
At this time, Nero was the Caesar in Rome and he hated Christians and was killing them.
Even with this, Paul wanted to go to Rome to visit and encourage the Christians there.
Paul’s dream was to go to Rome.
It was the greatest city in the world in the greatest empire of the world.
It was a strategic city.
Paul has started churches in Corinth, Thessolonica, all over Greece and Turkey and the Mediterranean, but he had never made it to Rome.
He was unable to go to Rome, so he wrote this letter.
3. When was it Written?
Paul made three missionary journeys around the Mediterranean starting churches, each of them taking a number of years.
He'd go into an area and spend anywhere between six months and two years starting a church, get it growing, and then move on to a new area.
Paul, on his third journey, had made it all the way to Greece.
He had started in Jerusalem, then he went to Tyre and Sidon and across the Balkan peninsula, and comes all the way down to Corinth.
Paul stayed with Gaius in Corinth and it’s there he wrote the book of Romans.
The book of Romans was the 5th book he wrote… after 1 Thess, 2 thess, 1 CO, 2 CO.
4. Why was it Written?
There are three purposes why Paul wrote the book of Romans.
I think it's important to understand that this letter is different than many of his other letters.
He did not start this church so he had no great knowledge of any specific problems.
Because of this Romans is systematic in presenting Pauls theology.
1.
He wanted to introduce himself to the Romans.
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