What God said in a sentence over and over again, long about October, November, is this,

I the God of Romans 9 will be heralded and not just analyzed or explained.

I, the God of Romans 9, John Piper, will be proclaimed and heralded, not just analyzed and explained.

I think there's a real danger here, especially for those of us who love theology, of analyzing God more than we stand in awe of him.

I'm Dan Kroover. In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper turns to Romans 1-1 to reflect on how God must not merely be studied. He must be proclaimed.

This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on April 26, 1998.

Well, almost 18 years ago. Church on April 26, 1998.

Well, almost 18 years now, I have been ministering the Word here at Bethlehem, and again and again I have waited wondering when the time would be

for preaching through the book of Romans.

I have considered it over and over.

I've walked up to the mountain and looked up into the clouds that surround the peak of this

Everest and walked away to lower heights and contented myself with other things

because it is absolutely daunting to stand before these 16 chapters that have been so unbelievably

used of God in the history of the church and think that God would give me grace and life to preach through

this book.

But in God's patience and grace, it seems to me that the time is right.

We're at the end of a millennium, and I am well into the second half of what God willing will be a 30-year

pastorate at this church, if you will have me. And at age 52, the pace of time seems quicker than it did when I came at age 34. And the gospel of the

glory of God in the face of Christ is more bright to me now.

It's brighter with every precious saint who dies.

And this book is the place where the gospel of Christ shines most brightly and most thoroughly in all the Bible, the book of Romans.

I'm not as moved today as I once was by the tyranny of the urgent

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