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The speaker discusses the similarities between the Jerusalem and Roman churches and the historical context of the Roman church. He explains the complex relationship between Rome and the Jews, as well as the significance of the book of Romans in Christian history. The speaker also mentions influential figures who were converted through reading Romans. Overall, the main focus is on the importance and depth of the book of Romans. So anyway, appreciate all right. Well, thank you. Don't forget. He had 67 years on Friday. That's right. Very to the same. That is right. Second best thing that ever happened to you. That's right. Well, she's the best earthly thing that ever happened. Anyway, it's great to see you all. Now, I want you to think about two cities, Jerusalem and Rome. We know quite a bit about the Jerusalem church, many things we don't know about them. We don't know near as much about the Roman church. I told Brother Jack that I found at least 15 things that we do know about the Roman church. But I want you to think about them because they're very similar. The Jerusalem church was a Jewish church. The Roman church was a Jewish church. Now, just think of how the Jews reacted to the crucifixion, the resurrection, the hostility. Saul of Tarsus was the one who began the persecution. It was all because of Jesus Christ. There was a large Jewish population in Rome, and it goes back at least to 161 B.C. Think about that. 161 B.C. There were 50,000 to 60,000 Jews in Rome at that time when Paul wrote this letter. The problem was that the Jews didn't fare well with the Romans, which is really strange until you get a little bit deeper into it. Rome usually left other religions alone. They practiced the live and let live type thing. They didn't care how many gods you served, how many gods you worshipped. They just wanted to be sure you worshipped the emperor. And so as long as you didn't matter what else you worshipped, but if you worshipped the emperor, you were okay. And so there were a number of cults, Christianity itself was called a cult at that time, that offered other opportunities to worship. But both Jews and Christians were unique in the ancient world. They believed in one god. Rome could never accept that. Rome didn't care who you worshipped, but they wanted you to worship the emperor. So the Jews, all the way back into 161 B.C., their situation with the Roman Empire was tenuous at best, cautious perhaps, often bitter in opposition. Sometimes they were left alone, but it was an up and down affair over all of history. There were at least five times that the Roman Empire kicked them out of the empire. And we'll get to that in a minute. Let me start talking a little bit about the book of Romans itself. The book of Romans is the greatest doctrinal book in the Bible. It gives us the most complete biblical reference to the sinfulness of man and the most glorious statement of justification by faith apart from works of the law. Now, it's been used greatly to be an instrument in the conversion of many of the famous Christian leaders over the centuries. Augustine, Augustine of Hippo, you've probably not heard him called Augustine of Hippo, but Augustine of the fourth century was converted reading Romans. That's how he got saved. John Chrysostom, who was a great preacher and orator, one of the greatest church fathers, had Romans read to him twice a week in the process of his salvation. Martin Luther was converted studying Romans, particularly Romans 117 that says that the just shall live by faith. John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, spent much of his life in Bedford Jail in London, was converted through the reading of the book of Romans while he was in prison. John Wesley's conversion, which you can read a little bit about that in my new book I'm going to give you when it comes out, because he was saved after preaching the gospel for a number of years and he wasn't saved. But it was the book of Romans that triggered his actual conversion experience. So we're looking at one of the most influential books that you could find anywhere in the Bible. Coleridge, or Coleridge, however you want to pronounce it, said that Romans is the most profound writing that exists. It is very, very significant. Leon Morris, who wrote a great commentary on Romans, said this was different than anything else I could find and I thought this was interesting. He said one point that is often overlooked and should be stressed is that Romans is fundamentally a book about God. The word God appears 153 times in the book of Romans, which is one every 46 words. Amazing. Acts has the word 166 times, but it is much longer and it works out to mentioning God only once every 110 verses. God is the most dominant theme of the book of Romans. So whatever we're talking about, chances are it has something to do with the grace of God, the love of God, the redemption of God, and all of that comes through that book of Romans. The 19th century Swiss theologian, Godet, wrote the Reformation was certainly the work of the epistle to the Romans and to the Galatians and probably every great spiritual renewal in the church will always be linked to a deeper knowledge of the book of Romans. I want you to realize that this is a very, very significant book. It's not an easy book. Jack and I still kind of struggle. How far are we going to go each day? You can't go chapter at a time. There's too much in doctrine and deep theological truth for us to go that fast. So we may do a tag team thing where wherever he stops, I'll start the next time if I'm coming next and wherever I stop, he'll start. But we are going to try to avoid that because I like to be able to study a little bit ahead. I had this study ready last Sunday so I could send it to the guys to print for you today on Monday. But we're going to try to figure out a way to do it. But this is not an easy book because of the depth of the doctrine that we have. Now, some of you have been doing some study on your own about the church you're on. I'm glad you did. You probably came across a pastor by the name of Ambrosiaster. Now, he wrote a commentary on the epistles of Paul between 366 and 384 A.D. anonymously. Nobody knows who Ambrosiaster. Nobody knew who wrote it, but they gave him that name. So that's the name of whoever wrote that commentary. But he indicated that the church in Rome came from Jewish believers who were already living in Rome. Well, that's certainly possible, but there are other suggestions we'll make here in a moment. Paul does state that the gospel was for the Jew first and then to the Gentiles or to the Greeks. So the first roots in Rome were most likely Christian-Jewish roots, more Jewish than Christian. Later, we saw a Gentile-dominated congregation rise from that church. But much of what we know about the church, we learn from Cicero and Philo. Now, I got to thinking, since I don't know who those guys are, you probably don't know. I remember the names, but I said, I wonder who these guys were. So I'm technologically challenged, but with my limited technology skills, I went online and I checked out these guys. Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and writer, particularly during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. He was a big deal. He was one of Rome's greatest orators. Brother Jack talked about councils last week. Do you remember that? Councils, not senators. Now, senators were the ones that passed the laws, but the council was something else. Among their responsibilities was military commanders. Well, Cicero was a council back in 63 B.C. Very, very influential. So historian, statesman, council, Cicero, very significant. Philo came from Alexandria in Egypt, and he wrote in Koine Greek. Now, you may not know what Koine Greek is. It's just the language of the street in the New Testament time. That's what was spoken, Koine Greek, just common Greek. Put it this way. If you talk to someone from South Texas, they'll talk like this. If you talk to someone from Britain, it'll be more proper and much more stately, and you're just impressed to listen to them say it. You don't even know what they're talking about, maybe, but you like to hear them talk. Accent's different. Well, Koine Greek was different from other kinds of Greek, but it was the language of the people, and that's the language that Philo wrote in, and it was the common language in the Greek world. Cicero traces the presence of Jews in Rome back to 59 B.C., and this is what he said. You know what a big crowd it is, how they stick together, how influential they are in informal assemblies. Every year it was customary to send gold to Jerusalem on the order of the Jews from Italy and from also our provinces. Now, that was back to 59 B.C., but the earliest references to Jews living in Rome are recorded by Valerius Maximus. Now, I only mention that because I'm intrigued by the fact that Constantine, when he was the emperor, added a name to his official name, and it was the name Valerius. In fact, he sent me on a wild goose chase yesterday because I picked that up somehow online, and it said that that was in the 4th century, and then I read this. Well, he wrote about the time, you know, and earlier than that, so how could he be in the 4th? Well, it was Constantine that had the same first name, so I don't know whether it's a common name. I don't know what the tie is. I just thought it was kind of interesting, but Maximus recorded the history of what happened in 139 B.C. That was when the edict was given to expel the Jews from Rome the first time, and so though he wrote much later, he did keep for history the record of the 139 B.C. date, and like I said, the relationship between Rome and the Jews in Rome and the Roman Empire itself was very tenuous. There were five expulsions, 139 B.C., 59 B.C., and 19 A.D. Our friend Tiberius kicked the Jews out in 19 A.D., and then Claudius, Emperor Claudius in 41 and 49, five times, and much of it probably was because of the belief in only one God, which the Jews found that the Roman Empire did not find that palatable, and so there was always the suspicion. But I would say again, probably there's a lot of mystery that surrounds the cause of all of those expulsions, but it's more than likely that the conflict within the church itself between the born Jews who now were in the church as believers and the Christians who were in the church, they doubtless had the same squabbles in Rome that they had in Jerusalem, and they also had great persecution. Acts 8 tells us that Saul of Tarsus had been so effective in his persecution of the church that in Acts 8 they were scattered abroad. Remember the passage? They were scattered abroad, and everyone who was scattered, they all went preaching the gospel. So Saul of Tarsus in the Christian era was pretty much the one who drove the Christians out of Jerusalem because of his persecution. Well, they had the same experience in Rome. Now, we won't dwell on it, probably because we don't want to dwell on it. The persecution of the Christians was absolutely brutal. I mean, one of the emperors, Nero for instance, he would capture Christians, pin them to a pole in his garden, and light them on fire for light in his garden. I mean, he was a perverted, brutal, evil man. That's what the Christians faced. Now, in studying, not only writing the book that dealt with a lot of the persecution that I was telling you about, but just in looking at and studying this in Rome, there's just no way to describe the evil nature and the painful, brutal violence that Christians faced. Now, I grew up in a time, I know none of you are as old as I am. Well, you said you're 87? Their brother and I went to Baylor together, so that's a long time. Well, I'm 87. Two more months. But I grew up in a time where it was to your advantage to be a member of a church. I mean, when a new manager of a business in town came, what did he do? First thing, he would begin to look for a church to join, because that was good for business. It's not really that way much anymore, but the truth is, what did it cost you to be a believer? Is it any wonder that the consistent mood of American churches is apathy? Because what on earth did we suffer to get to faith in Christ? Truth is, whatever it was, was nothing compared to what the early church did. Listen, the early church, it was illegal. Until 313 A.D., it was illegal to worship as a Christian in the Roman Empire. In 313, they issued the first edict, Constantine did, giving some freedom to the cults and to Christianity where they could worship. They did not embrace Christianity as the official religion until about 381, 380 or 381. And that's a whole other story. That was one of the worst things that ever happened to believers. But it was illegal at this time. These people could not worship unless, if the government wanted to, they could do all kinds of things to them. Imagine going out visiting and saying, we'd sure like you to join our church. Trust our Lord. Now, it may cost you your life. They may throw you to the lions. They may behead you. They may do all kinds of terrible things. But we want you to join our church. That would seem to be kind of a hard way to evangelize, wouldn't it? And yet, and yet, the church flourished in the midst of it. Oh, the church in China today, illegal, severe consequences if believers are caught. Some of our mission board personnel were meeting with some of the pastors in China and said, we're praying that God will ease the persecution. They said, don't do that. They said, we are under persecution. But God is blessing us and we're flourishing because of it. In fact, the growth of the church in China is phenomenal. When communism took over China, there were less than 2 or 3 million Christians in China. Today, there are over 110 million in China. China may well be the most Christian nation in the world. But it costs something to be a believer. I'm preaching to myself. I mean, I go home in my air-conditioned car and sit in my air-conditioned home and sleep on my comfortable bed with soft pillows and watch television if I want to or turn on our little, what do we call it, Hey Google? Hey Google. And it'll play the Imperials or play the Collingsworth family and they'll come up with Christian music and I'll sit in my air-conditioned office in my very comfortable chair writing lessons like this. And it didn't cost me much to be a believer. I've never been persecuted for it. I like to think that maybe somehow I've had prejudice against me because I'm a believer. But this period of time is just absolutely terrible. And so I've already spent half my time and I didn't want to do that. But anyway, this is written. The Apostle Paul wrote this. He had a ministry in the East that was completed in the East of the Roman Empire and he had concentrated for about ten years on the countries around the Aegean Sea. He planted churches in Iconium and Philippi and Thessalonica and Corinth and Ephesus and other cities in the area. And in the winter of A.D. 57 he stayed in Corinth with his friend Gaius whom he had led to the Lord. Now he was planning to go to Spain and he knew he could visit the church in Rome on the way. If you've looked where Corinth is, it's down there on the Aegean Sea. And to get to Spain without getting in a boat you've got to go through Rome. And so he knew he could easily stop by Rome as he was on his way to Spain. And so he'd never been to Rome. He'd heard about it a lot, heard about it for years. And by the way, his introduction to the book of Romans is longer than most of the introduction of all of his epistles. There are a number of reasons for that. One was that obviously the church was a well-established church and was highly respected, highly regarded. After all, it was the church in the empire city of Rome itself. It probably, now what I'm going to tell you is speculation, but it probably was the second largest church in Christianity at that time. Jerusalem still probably had the most people in it, but in Rome. And that is deduced from the fact that it had such enormous respect from all the churches. They all were impressed with the way that the church at Rome had come through all the challenges and the obstacles and everything that the emperors could throw at them. And it was flourishing. It was established. It was consistent. It was a church that you could, and I'm going to read you a quote in a minute that you almost won't believe, that was written in 125 A.D. about this church. Well, anyway, during that winter of 1557, he dictated the letter, according to the book, to his friend Tertius to prepare the way for his visit to Rome and to the church. Now, we don't know how, when, or by whom the church of Rome was established. The Roman Catholic Church tells us that Peter established that church and was the bishop of Rome. Only problem with that is that there's not one shred of historical or biblical evidence that Peter was ever in Rome before the church was founded. Neither was Paul. Oh, neither were any of the apostles. This church wasn't established by one of the big guys. Listen carefully, because this is us. It was started by just common Jews, believers, who weren't anybody in particular. They're kind of like, there are several instances in the Bible where God's revealing certain things and then he comes to something and he just says, and many others, and others. We don't have any idea who the others and the many others were. That's kind of the group that founded the church. So, we do know in the closing chapter that Paul mentioned that there were some people in the church of Rome that were saved before he was. So that meant that the church had been established for a long time and some of the leaders of the city of Rome were believers. In fact, in Mark, I believe it is, in Romans 16, he mentions Erastus and says he was a city treasurer. Oh, and in Philippi, when he wrote to the Philippians in 422, toward the end, there's just a little verse that you probably hadn't noticed. All the saints in Caesar's household salute you. Who are those saints in Caesar's household? Well, when Paul finally got to Rome, he was under house arrest, which means he was chained to a Roman soldier 24-7. And he was free to have guests and to propagate the gospel and all of this, but he had a Roman soldier there. Can't you imagine some of those Roman soldiers got saved? Certainly they did. Imagine being chained to the bus stop two hours a day. And so, doubtless, some of the soldiers that were saved during Paul's time when he was under house arrest were part of the church. So this was a church that had many people and many different kinds of people. Every strata of society was impacted by the church at Rome. Like Priscilla and Aquila, for instance. By the way, ladies, Priscilla is always mentioned first in the Bible. I'm tempted to get off on Southern Baptists and women preachers here, but I won't do that. History of the church would never be written without the presence and the contribution and the ministry of incredible women who were much braver and much stronger than most of the men were in that whole time. But anyway, Priscilla and Aquila, according to the Romans, said that they had a house large enough for the church to meet there. So that brings up the truth that when we talk about the church at Rome, we're not talking about one big church. We think from today, when we think of Dallas, we think of Prestonwood Baptist Church or First Baptist Dallas. Or when we think of the evangelical presence, we think of Gateway or Fellowship. We think of big churches. This was not a megachurch in Jerusalem. And in Rome, it was mostly small groups that met together. And one of those small groups met at the home of Priscilla and Aquila. And the ancient catacombs, the burial places for Christians where they were outlawed for so long. And in the years before the Christians even came, they had burial caves they called catacombs. And it tells us a whole lot about the Jews in the first century. Six catacombs were found that indicated that there were 11 to 13 synagogues that were active in Rome at that time. Now, not buildings. They didn't have any buildings. But there were 11 to 13 synagogues during the first century. And we learn something very important from that. We learn from the inscriptions, which, by the way, were written primarily in Greek with only 7% of them being written in Hebrew. And Brother Jack tells me that's not unusual because Hebrew was the language of the Roman Empire, I mean the Greek. And Hebrew was mostly spoken in Jerusalem. And so it was unlikely that that tells a lot other than be the answer to some, what's the word, obscure question some people ask about things. It's an interesting fact, but it's not of particular note, except it was the language of the street. But it tells us that there was no central authority among the Jews in Rome. In Jerusalem they had the Sanhedrin. And they had all the complex roles of authority in Jerusalem. And that's why when Jesus was raised and the disciples went back to the synagogues, the Sanhedrin pretty well picked up on that and kicked them out of the synagogues. They only left the synagogues when they had to leave. In Rome it was a different situation. Since there was nobody important that was telling everybody what they had to do and what the rules were for the game, it was much easier for a Christian to stay in a Jewish synagogue because no one was going to slap their hands. So in a way the growth of the church in Rome was maybe much easier than it was in Jerusalem because of the fact that there was no central authority among the Jews to tell them they couldn't do this or couldn't do that. So we're in Rome and the Catholics said that Peter was the bishop of Rome and helped start the church. But here's what's interesting. Paul never once mentioned Peter. Now don't you think that if Peter had been the bishop of Rome and had started the church at Rome and he's writing to the church at Rome that he would at least have said something about it. I mean Peter and Paul were not strangers. If you'll remember, they had a little conflict back in the book of Acts. So surely if Peter had been there, Paul would have said, oh by the way, Luke does not mention Peter in Rome. So there's no indication, and I'll say it again, kind of like our guy this morning telling us that we don't have any 830 service on the 30th. You've got to start with Sunday school on the 30th. Anyway, there's just no evidence that Peter or Paul or any of the apostles had been there before we read the book of Romans. Christianity would come in from the east. One of the strong trade routes, one of the eastern main trade routes was called the Putoli-Rome route. And the business travelers, everyone would come from that direction. It was easy travel from north and south. All the traffic north and south came through that area. It would be certainly easy for the gospel to have been spread. Philo says, gave this description. He said, the reason some of the Jews now lived in Rome, their ancestors had been forcibly taken to Rome in slaves under Pompey. And once freed, the Jews bore the title of libertine. And it was not unusual for a slave to become a Roman citizen. Could it be that maybe the apostle Paul got his Roman citizenship because his grandfather may have been one of those slaves? And since he was one of those who had been liberated, had the privilege of becoming a Roman citizen. It is not hard to imagine it could have been that way. The importance of the Jewish background in Rome is that it provides us with a glimpse of the culture in which Christianity emerged. Christianity came out of Jewish roots. It did in Jerusalem. It did in Rome. The Jews in Rome, whatever else they had done, they had maintained their distinctive identity and their practices through their participation in the synagogues that were active in the city. There was no governing individual to tell them they could or couldn't do something. So it actually was an open door for Christianity to move in the synagogues. And the conclusion of all the pieces of information that we have about the founding of the church is that no apostle was instrumental in founding the church. Just ordinary Jewish individuals who converted and began the church in Rome. And after the expulsion of the Jews in 49 A.D. by Claudius, the church had to restructure. And with the Jews gone, there were mostly Gentiles left. So when five years passed and the ban was lifted and the Jews came back, they found a different church. They left the church controlled and dominated by Jews and came back with one dominated by Gentiles. So you can see a lot of the stress and the various possibilities for disunity that existed at that time. While much of this Christian community is shrouded in obscurity, there were many faithful believers there. Seven years after Paul wrote this letter, this letter was written around 57 and so seven would be 64, there was the fire that Brother Jack mentioned last week that Nero blamed the disaster on the Christians. Well, the interesting thing is there were enough of them there that he could blame them. I mean, they were a significant portion. By 40 A.D., the Christians were a major part of the culture in Rome. And so they were big enough that Nero could blame them and they made good scapegoats to divert attention from himself. And as a result, they became the victims of imperial persecution that included both the death of Peter and Paul. So all of that came about not long after this. In chapter 16, we hear from Paul that Christians that he had met in other places who now resided in Rome were part of the church. Verse 7 of chapter 16 speaks of Andronicus and Junia who were in Christ before Paul and were well known among the apostles. That indicates, implies at least, that those two individuals played a part in the founding of the church. They were well known among all of the churches. Rufus is mentioned. Now, are you curious about who Rufus is? Well, if you will go to the book of Mark chapter 16 and verse 3, you will find a mention of a Rufus who was the son of Simon of Cyrene. Do you recognize Simon of Cyrene? He was the one who ended up carrying the cross when Christ collapsed on the way to Calvary. And so Cyrene is an interesting... Like Brother Jack, he would say, you're probably not as curious as we are. But I wonder, where was Cyrene? For some reason they didn't teach me that in seminary. I don't know why I missed that. So I looked at it. But Cyrene at that time was one of the principal cities in the known world. In modern day Libya is where Cyrene was. So it not only was a fairly large city, it was a very prominent city, a very well known city. And Simon of Cyrene had a son named Rufus. Could it be possible that Rufus, as mentioned by Paul in Romans 16, could be the son of Simon of Cyrene? Now, that's our speculation. That's not mentioned like that. But it is intriguing that we keep running into these names that pop up here and there. And somehow we ought to be able to find some place for them to rest. Now, Rome was the capital city, so all rodents did truly lead to Rome. And Luke records in Acts 2.10 that Peter's message at Pentecost was attended by, quote, Jews and converts from Rome. Those who had seen Pentecost who were from Rome returned to Rome and likely were joined by other new converts, both Jews and Gentiles, who may have traveled back and forth on these wonderful roads that Rome had provided and often been in Rome, that these all could have been part of the founding of the church at Rome. So the truth is we don't really know. We can be sure that there were some folks who were at Pentecost that were there to start the church. There were also people who made business practice to come in and out of Rome. So we know there were a lot of people involved. We just don't know exactly who to attribute to. But maybe that's the way God intended it, because like the scriptures I just mentioned and others and many others and so on, there were certainly believers who were at Pentecost, but many others who also came. So we really don't know for sure, but that's as good a description as we can get of it. Again, the church was just not one church, but small groups that met for worship and fellowship, studied scripture, and Paul mentions the Quill of Priscilla in chapter 16. But just think about it. Once Christianity was firmly planted in Palestine and the surrounding territories, it was inevitable that it would come to Rome, because all the tribals, sooner or later, ended up in Rome. By this time, like I said, as many as 50,000 Jews lived in Rome, and many of them still worshipped in the synagogues, because they weren't forced out by a central authority of the Jews in Rome. Again, the tenuous nature of the Jews and Christians with Rome boils down to one thing, which was their belief in one God. That was unique. Not any of the other gods that were worshipped in Rome had any problem with you worshipping multiple gods. But the Christians and Jews couldn't do that. They worshipped one God. So, Tacitus, one of the historians, in fact, many think he was the greatest Roman historian. He was a political analyst. He was born about the time that Apostle Paul wrote this letter. He wrote a history of the Roman Empire that started with Augustus in 14 A.D. and ended in Domitian in 96 A.D. So he was a famous Roman historian. He reported that persecution began in A.D. 19 when Tiberius expelled many of the Jews from Rome. What he did, he sent 4,000 Jews and those who were descendants of slaves to Sardinia to be assigned to deal with the gangs who were robbing and stealing from the people. So he sent them over there to kind of police and get rid of the gangs in that area. The rest of the Jews were told to leave Italy unless they renounced their Christian faith. The same thing happened in A.D. 41 with Emperor Claudius. In A.D. 49, Claudius again, only this time he issued a stronger edict. So tensions were rising, not only with Jews and Christians in Rome, but also between Jews and Christians in the church. So you see all the flux and the changes in the culture itself. And so while there was conflict without, there was also conflict within. Nero followed Claudius five years later, and he only intensified persecution. As I said, he was a brutal and perverted man. He would capture Christians and set them on fire at night to provide light for his garden. The persecution went from bad to worse at the end of the first century. And the early Roman church was largely led by Jewish converts. And when Claudius expelled the Jews, only Gentiles remained. So from 49 A.D. forward, Jews were displaced for a period of time, and the church was largely Gentiles. When Claudius finally died, the Jews were allowed back in Rome, but the church wasn't the same. And the Jewish leaders were still there. Some of them were still there that stayed, but most of them were gone, and Gentile believers were in charge. That's why Paul wanted to come to Rome. He wanted to come to Rome to bring that church back together again. I mean, they were split six ways from Sunday and fighting demons on every side, and Paul wanted to come and be a healer and bring everything back together. So having said all that, despite all the obstacles and all the problems that the church had, it had healthy growth. The first century was a rousing success for believers. This was the reason that Paul wanted to come to Rome. He talks about it in verses 11 to 15 in the first chapter of Rome. He was so anxious to come to Rome, by the way, that when he was being tried in Jerusalem or in Israel, he probably would have been acquitted if he had stayed, but he appealed to Caesar and probably cost him his life when he appealed to Caesar, but that's how bad he wanted to get to Rome. So he got there three years later, and he did arrive in Rome, but not as he planned. He arrived as a citizen, not as an evangelist, and oh, by the way, the Christians lined the roads as he came into Rome as a prisoner and cheered and applauded his arrival in Rome. It was a great day for them, for him to be there, but that was not the way he intended to come. By the way, the book of Romans is different from any of the other epistles that the apostle Paul wrote in that he didn't deal with a lot of local problems. In Corinthians, for instance, he's trying to correct problems that existed in Corinth, and that's why it's dangerous to base your view of the actions of the Holy Spirit on Corinthians because Paul wasn't advocating anything. He was trying to correct something, but he didn't do that in Rome. He did deal with some, but not often. Instead, he gave us a majestic presentation of the great themes of our faith that was relevant then and is still relevant today, and every believer then and now needs to be aware of what Paul wrote. He's on his way to Jerusalem, and this is a little aside. Now, I'm tempted to say, Brother Jack, I'm going to stop there, and you pick up there next week now if you accept it, because I'm not near through, but I knew I wouldn't get through. We're going to stop here because our time is gone. When he came to Caesarea, he asked the Romans to pray for him that he'd have a good reception. When he got to Jerusalem, you remember he was taking a gift. He was taking an offering of money for the poor saints in Jerusalem, and he was praying that he would be well received. Now, when I first read that, I thought, well, why wouldn't they receive a good gift? And then it dawned on me. He wasn't concerned about the Christians in Jerusalem. He was concerned about the Jews, and he knew that it would be difficult for him to escape alive with the Jews if he went back to Jerusalem, but he steadfastly wanted to go. He was concerned about it, and rightly so. When he came into Caesarea, they begged him not to go to Jerusalem, and he still went to Jerusalem. He couldn't be persuaded. He continued on his way, and the warnings that he had heard and had received, as well as his own uneasiness, was proven true, because when he got to Jerusalem, he was arrested. They accused him of a crime against the temple, and he was charged with a crime that would be punishable if the Jews had their way by death. Likely, most of our scholars would say that if he had stayed in the area of Jerusalem, he probably would have been acquitted, but he wanted to get to Rome so bad, he used his Roman citizenship. Every Roman citizen had a right to appeal to Caesar. And so he comes to Rome, finally gets to Rome, and because of his request to come to Caesar, and like I say, he did get there, not the way he planned. His letter to the Roman church is the most important theological epistle in Christian history. It came at a time when some were even questioning his apostleship, but by the way, he doesn't sound like a man who's trying to protect himself or trying to correct something. Doubtless, people had heard things about it. It's hard for us to believe, but it's likely Paul was not especially popular in his day. Years have removed some of the shroud that may have surrounded him everywhere he went. Remember, Jews left Jerusalem and followed him everywhere he went to discredit him. So he had many false things said about him, many accusations. And so he knew. He didn't seem to be a desperate man worried that he wouldn't be recognized, but he wanted to give an apostolic stamp to that church because no apostles were part of the founding. And so we'll stop there, which is enough. By the way, in your notes, I gave you 15 conclusions that I drew from just researching the church in Rome, and I think they're self-explanatory, but you will have those. And I'm sorry I knew we wouldn't get through. I usually have eight or ten pages of notes. I had 13 today, so I knew that I wouldn't get all the way through. But Brother Jack may want to dip back just a little if he feels uneasy about something not being said. That'll be fine. But next Sunday, Carol Ann and I will be at Field Street Baptist Church in Cleburne preaching. Never been there before. The pastor called and wanted me to come. And he's having, I think, some kind of a sabbatic there that he's enjoying in July. He apparently is staying in town. I don't know whether he'll be in the service or not, but we're going to have lunch together Friday, and he'll tell me what I'm getting into, I guess. But we'll be there next Sunday. And Brother Jack will start with verse 1 next Sunday. And he will teach for two weeks? Okay, then I'll pick it up from there. Do what now? Speak up. I can't hear very good. Okay. Anyway, we'll see. But this is not something you want to rush through because it's kind of interesting. There are times when you could hit the speeding pedal a little bit, but I've looked at several. Harold Ockengay had a book on Romans where he had them divided. There were times when he had three verses, and there were times he had 22. Well, maybe you can speed dial through some of that, but it's probably going to be best to let us just kind of feel our way through it because everything is very, very important to our faith. And this is the foundational, this is the Magna Carta of the Christian movement. And so we'll do it reverently and carefully and not rush through it. And we'll see how it goes, but it'll be a fun trip. Barnhouse, by the way, has four volumes on Romans, which is probably 1,500, 2,000 pages. So anyway, we're not going to be that slow, but we can't rush through it. All right. Well, I guess we're through. Let's pray. Father, thank you for just realizing the world in which Christianity was born and the world in which it moved and the influence and impact of the church at Rome and the Apostle Paul and his message of the basic doctrines of the faith. We thank you for it. Bless us as we go through it. Speak to our hearts each time and guide us day by day, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
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