I just have a feeling that the word that just blurts itself out here is, it isn't who Paul is.

It's whose Paul is.

You see that in those three phrases? A servant, one, bought by another,

a called one, called by another, a set apart one, set apart by another. There's somebody else in this verse,

right? Paul looks like he's what this verse is about.

This verse is not about Paul.

The one who bought him, the one who called him, the one who set him apart.

There's somebody lurking behind this man.

It's easy to read the opening of Romans and think it's just Paul introducing himself,

but when you slow down like Piper does here, you start to realize that this really isn't

about Paul at all. I'm Dan Kroover. In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper opens Romans 1-1 to help us see the God behind the man.

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

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poet, said,

I think that the epistle to the Romans is the most profound work in existence.

John Knox, not the Scott, but the New Testament scholar, said,

Romans is unquestionably the most important theological work ever written.

So here's the question this morning.

How did that happen?

How did a former Pharisee who hated Christianity with all his might,

breathed out murders against it, according to Romans 9-1,

participated in killing the first Christian martyr, persecuted the church violently.

How did that man come to write a 7,100 word letter about 22 pages long in my Bible, that has changed the face of the world,

...