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.

Paul wrote Romans from Corinth while he was living in the house of Gaius, who had a home church.

And Paul expresses the desire that he might come and be with the Romans in Rome.

And if you recall, his letter was written during the time of Nero.

Last week we mentioned this, Nero came to power in AD 54, Nero died in AD 68.

Romans was written in AD 57 during a time of growing ferment and Christian bashing, if you

will, as we might say today, which came to a head in the great Roman

fire. After Rome burned, of course, Nero accused Christians of having set the fire, and so then it

was all over. Full-scale anti-Christian pogroms, if you will. So that's the setting of the book of Romans. Well, we went

through Romans chapter one last time and kind of sped through it with the idea of going back

and looking at it a little more. And we're going to go back and look at Romans 1 from time to

time during this whole study. But in Romans, it's very interesting, and it's hard to get your mind around it,

because this was a time when, if you were an ordinary person, you wouldn't be writing a book

like Romans. Your total preoccupation would be the fact that Nero is now on the throne.

He's a Caesar and he's beginning to persecute Christians.

And so you'd be directing letters to Christians that had something to do with how to function under growing oppression.

You'd think that's what he'd be writing about.

He's not, I mean, far from it.

As far from it as you can possibly get,

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