Select Studies in Romans

Paul has just shared how people descend into a dark, sinful and debased state when they reject the righteousness of God.  He then declares how the Gospel is Good news because God offers that righteousness to unrighteous  people people who accept it solely by faith. Paige made an interesting statement in that often for us today, the good news for us about the gospel is the usefulness of God and not so much the righteousness of God.  That gave me pause, and quickly I recognized the truth in that for myself.  So, I wanted to have some discussion about one of the reflection questions  -- even though it may be uncomfortable strive to be as honest with your answers as possible: Can you detect in yourself any "tonic" approach to Jesus? What do you most readily look to Christ for? What are you most eager for Him to do for you? What needs prompt your immediate prayers?  Is there anything wrong with the "tonic" approach? If so, what?  MY ANSWER TO THESE QUESTIONS: I am guilty

Thank you all for joining our blog and Sunday School class. We're going to do our best here to study and understand Paul's letter to the Romans.  Please feel free to comment, or to ask questions!  And please be sure to READ the chapters! This will help us all to explore some pretty complex theological ideas.  For this first week, we covered the first four chapters which were pretty heavy.  So let's spend time this week looking at the chapters one by one, and dialing into some of the themes that were presented in the outline. Today's post is going to concentrate on Paul's understanding of the gospel. He uses the gospel as the central hub of his letter.  It's the theme to the whole letter, and sovereignly the theme to the entire message of the bible.  His theme is, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from