Today we begin our winter teaching series on the New Testament book of Romans. Andrew Ollerton as he begins his exploration of this letter remarks, “It has been said that if the New Testament were the Himalayas, Romans would be Mount Everest.” J. I Packer strikes a similar note when he says, “Paul's letter to the Romans is the high peak of Scripture… all roads in the Bible lead to Romans and all views afforded by the Bible are seem most clearly from Romans.” So Paul's letter to the Romans is clearly a very important work and yet at the same time it is also a very intimidating part of scripture to gets to grips with. Where do we begin when it comes to studying such a large and rich theological work? We will follow the same principle that applies when answering the question - How do you eat an elephant? The answer is that there is only one way to eat an elephant - a bite at a time!”
So today we take our first bite as we look at Paul's introduction to this letter in chapter 1 verses 1-7. Here we find Paul's answer to what seems to be the most important and divisive question in western society today - 'Who am I?'
- Who Is Paul?
- What is the Gospel?
- Who Are We?