Yesterday I promised that this week on Things Unseen, we'd take a quick overview of Paul's

letter to the Romans and I said it divides fairly neatly into four sections. Well, the letter

can be divided in different ways, but this is a simple division that may be helpful to us.

The first section of the letter goes from chapter 1, verse 1, to chapter 3, verse 20.

Chapter 1, verses 1 to 15, is an introduction. Paul had never been to Rome, but he'd long

wanted to go. In fact, by the end of the letter, he indicates he's hoping to come soon.

He felt his ministry from Jerusalem all the way round to Elyricum, was now drawing to

a close, and that God was calling him to go west, to Spain, and who knows where else.

And he hoped to get to Rome on route, and it looks like he was hoping that the churches

in Rome might help him support him in his new mission, maybe the way the church in

Antioch and some of the other churches had helped him. So one of his reasons for writing

Romans was to present his credentials as it were, to say, this is the gospel I preach.

He knew that what he had taught had sometimes been twisted by people, and he wanted to set

the record straight. And in addition, this is clear from chapter 16. He seems to have

known a remarkable number of church members in Rome, and he'd probably heard from them

of some of the issues facing the church, and he wanted to help them. So there's quite

a lot going on in Romans. In chapter 1, verses 16 to 17, he begins his

exposition of what he calls my gospel. He's not ashamed of it, because it's the good

news of God's saving righteousness. Sinners can be justified by faith in Christ, and

by faith alone. In other words, the gospel answers the question, how can a sinful man

be righteous before a holy God? And then from chapter 1, verse 18 to chapter 3,

verse 20, Paul presents a massive argument to demonstrate the sinful and lost condition

...