Welcome to Studies with Stearman.

Join us as we look deeper into the Bible.

Strengthen your faith with us, even as we see the day approaching.

And now, here's Gary.

Well, as promised, we are going to finish Romans this morning, and we left off in

chapter 15 last week.

I was thinking, driving here this morning, I wasn't planning on doing this, but it really

illustrates what it's like to study the Bible.

If you look at patterns in the Bible,

large-scale patterns in the Bible repeat themselves over and over and over again.

And the Bible always begins with a macrocosmic view of things, and it ends on a personal note. For example, Genesis,

chapter 1, verse 1, in the beginning, God created the heaven of the earth. The earth was without form

and void, darkness was upon the face of the deep, the spirit of God moved upon the face of the

waters, and God said, let there be light, and there was light. So that's the way the Bible

opens in Genesis. But if you go to the end of Genesis, Genesis 50, verse 26, which is the

very last verse in Genesis, it says, so Joseph died, being 110 years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin

in Egypt.

Genesis begins with, in the beginning God created the heavens of the earth, and it ends

with, so Joseph died.

There's a lot between those pages.

But that's the way the Bible works.

It always begins with a macrocosmic view, and it ends on a very personal note at the human level with human struggle.

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