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Eastern Hills Bible Church
Doug Bullock
“Why Read Romans?”
March 4, 2007
Today I want to start a study in the book of Romans.
You might be wondering, “Why should we read the book of Romans?”
Perhaps it will help to tell you a little about myself.
I left high school in Cazenovia in 1975 and went to Bucknell University to study engineering.
During my first year on the 3rd floor of Tax Hall I was surrounded by the expected amount of revelry and debauchery.
But it was not huge much of a draw to me.
In fact it seemed rather childish and pointless.
Because I was on a spiritual quest.
I had grown up here at EHBC and came to know Christ as my Savior at a very young age.
I grew up in Cazenovia and it was a wonderful and very fun high school experience.
But, when I went to college I had this desire to get serious.
I really wanted to figure out what was wrong with the world and how to fix it.
So the revelry and debauchery seemed pointless.
So in this quest I had this compulsion to try all kinds of things.
I tried rock climbing, spelunking and winter camping.
I worked at a Rescue Mission camp one summer, and then hitchhiked all across the country with my good friend Dale Marris.
I left Bucknell for a semester and went to study international development at American University in Washington DC.
There I was exposed to exiled political leaders from the Philippines and from Africans who specialized in development.
When I walked off the American University campus and went into the city of DC it was quite a shock.
I remember meeting my first homeless woman, lying on a bench covered over with old dirty clothes, with a shawl over her face.
I thought, “It is too hot for such clothes; this person must be hurt.”
I tired to help her, waking her up.
She looked out from her hiding place and then covered her face back up.
I continued to prod her “are you okay?’
She then let out a scream that must have caused the nearby Washington Monument to quake, saying “leave me alone.”
Eventually I got hocked up with a group in DC known as the *Community for Creative Non- Violence*, a community of leftist Christian anti- war socialists.
Their most famous participant was an advocate for the homeless by the name of Mitch Snyder, who eventually after a number of hunger strikes took his own life.
I did a little protesting with them, I specifically remember one march against the impending B-1 bomber.
But for the most part I lived in this community, in the middle of a DC Ghetto and ran a soup kitchen for homeless and indigent men.
I was doing all of this to figure out “what is wrong with the world?
What is the answer?”
I was willing to try anything.
In fact it got kind of crazy, because one summer I went to 6 weeks of Marine boot camp at Quantico, Virginia for office training.
When I got out, I finished the summer working at the community for Creative Non-Violence and living in the inner city.
I was in search of answers.
I was deeply impacted by Ron Sider, a Christian social activist.
To many he is a little bit to the right of Fidel Casrtro, especially by his book “Rich Christians in an age of Hunger,” I was serous considering committing my life to World Impact, a Christian inner city mission.
The next summer I had plans to work with Habitat for Humanity, an organization which produced housing for the inner city and rural poor.
One day as I was reviewing my summer plans an possibilities I felt God very strongly lead me to give up this planned work with Habitat.
Instead I went on an overseas summer missions trip, working maintenance in a large Belgium Bible school.
Two things happened to me there that changed my world
First I met my incredible wife, Laurel, from Berkeley California.
She became interested in me because her summer ?homework?
(roommate?)from
Wichita, Kansas developed a quick crush on me and kept talking about me.
Soon Laurel was interested as well.
We were married within the year.
The second thing that happened is that I had large chunks of time to study.
The summer trip was from June- August, but I had a serious leading from God to drop out of school and to stay in Belgium for a period of time.
So for 3 months I worked at a Belgium Bible school doing maintenance, with Dutch and Belgium Bible school students.
For the most part I was the only person who spoke English except for my 82 year old co worker Pat Logershultz.
This gave me every evening to read.
One of the things I read was the book of Romans.
I studied it.
I labored over it.
I tried to dig into every word.
When I got finished my spiritual quest was over.
I had been striving to discover what was wrong with the world.
I wanted to know what the key problems in the world were and what the solution was.
Romans settled that issue for me.
This book was used by God to change my life.
I am not the only person who has been changed by Romans.
One of the early church leaders was a man named Augustine, or Augustine of Hippo.
His early life was characterized by loose living and a search for answers to life's basic questions.
He would follow various philosophers, only to become disillusioned with their teachings.
Some time in the year 386, Augustine, and his mother Monica, were spending time in a small village near Milan.
While outdoors, Augustine heard the voice of a child singing a song, the words of which were, "Pick it up and read it.
Pick it up and read it."
He thought at first that the song was related to some kind of children's game, but could not remember ever having heard such a song before.
Then, realizing that this song might be a command from God to open and read the Scriptures, he located a Bible.
He picked it up, opened it and read the first passage he saw.
It was from the Letter of Paul to the Romans.
Reading this scripture, Augustine felt as if his heart were flooded with light.
Later, reflecting on this experience, Augustine wrote his famous prayer: “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.”
It was in reading and studying the book of Romans that Martin Luther came to understand Christ/.
“Here I felt that I …had entered paradise itself through open gates.
There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me/”.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was reading Luther’s commentary on Romans and became a Christian.
On May 24, 1738, on Aldersgate Street, John Wesley's heart awakened to embrace salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
Excerpt from Wesley's May 24, 1738, Journal Entry
/“In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans.
About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.
I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death/.”
Samuel Coleridge, speaking for many, said, "/I think that the Epistle to the Romans is the most profound work in existence/"(Table Talk [Oxford: Oxford university Press, nod.], p. 232).
And John Knox (not the Scot) said that it is "/unquestionably the most important theological work ever written" /(The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9 [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1954], p. 355).
John Calvin said /“if we understand this epistle, we have a passage opened to us to understanding the whole of Scripture/.”
I want us to study this book because I believe that if we understand this book, we will understand the Christian life.
Let me read the first 17 verses and make a view comments.
First, who is the writer of this letter?
This was written by the apostle Paul.
/Romans 1:1-16 “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God/—“
What was Paul set apart for?
The gospel!
What did he dedicate his life to?
The gospel.
Now he will tell us that this letter is about the gospel and that the gospel is about Christ.
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