Letter to the church in Rome
From Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles
Rome was the center of the known world; it was the cradle of civilization, commerce, culture - and home to a military machine under the command of Caesar, the most powerful man in the world. The most influential city on the planet was on the frontier of the Jesus movement, a place where God was bringing together Jews and non-Jews into one community to follow Jesus' teachings. A group of believers was gathering, and a church of great importance was forming from ragamuffin believers who had been touched by the power of the gospel. But they do not appear to have had the leadership of the Lord's emissaries - those who had walked with and had been handpicked by Jesus. The church would become the seedbed for the spread of the gospel across the known world, so Paul recognized the importance of articulating the whole gospel to the body of believers and preparing them for their missional calling in the world.
This letter from Paul, the emissary of Jesus, breaks all the previous molds. He is writing to many people he does not know, is instructing a church he did not plant, and is challenging them to embrace their role in bringing the gospel to the people of Italy and Spain, despite the fact that he has not been able to model the work of missions and church planting in Rome as he had in other places. What would Paul have to say to believers he had never met? How would he proclaim the gospel in a letter? In planting other churches, Paul surely told how the risen Jesus appeared to him. Paul must have preached to them for untold hours (he was known for being quite verbose) about sin, redemption, justification, the cross, adoption, grace, love, life in the Spirit, and the power of the Anointed One to redeem all things.
This letter set the church in Rome on a firm foundation and ultimately became one of the most important pieces of literature ever written. It has influenced some of the greatest minds and agents of change the world has ever known: Augustine, Martin Luther, John Wesley, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Desmond Tutu, just to name a few. It was one of the primary inspirations for the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. But most importantly, this letter written to Christians in an ancient city penetrates our hearts and minds today with a beautiful and pervasive view of the power of the gospel!
[The Voice Bible's introduction to the New Testament book of Romans]
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