Sermon Tone Analysis

Francis Schaeffer (Shafer) said, “God is there, and He is not silent.”

What a wonderfully succinct way to describe the Christian worldview.

“God is there,” indicates that there is not only more than the physical, natural, finite world, but that the metaphysical, supernatural, infinite world is more important because it is God’s primary residence.

This first phrase also reveals that God is being and therefore separable from His creation, permeating all things, but also transcendent.

“And He is not silent,” indicates perhaps the most important point from the human perspective – God desires relationship!

The Christian worldview is clearly theistic and in fact is monotheistic, but beyond recognizing the reality of God, the Christian worldview submits to His will.

Truth, goodness, beauty and all other objective realities are what God determines; therefore any understanding contrary to God’s understanding is simply wrong.

Articulating the Christian worldview is of paramount importance for the individual believer because as Robert G. Ingersoll said, “Any doctrine that will not bear investigation is not a fit tenant for the mind of an honest man.”

It is vital that Christians know what they believe and why they believe it in order to be stable in their faith and able to share that faith with others.

That’s the second great reason to be able to articulate the Christian worldview – explaining it to others.

There is another reason one should be familiar with the basis of their worldview.

As Ken Boa teaches, one’s zeitgeist is the bedrock of one’s presuppositions about everything and one’s presuppositions shape perspective and perspective determines priorities and priorities lead to what we practice (Boa: “Conformed to His Image,” 69).

In other words whatever we believe deep down inside, whether we are aware of it or can make sense of it, determines how we act.

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;

 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.

New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Ro 3:24-25.

New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Ro 3:23.

Introduction

 

Years ago a friend of mine was preaching through the Book of Romans.

He had reached the middle of the book, Romans 6-8, on the Sunday when a visitor attended the service.

As the service came to a close, a woman sitting nearby turned to the young man and engaged him in conversation.

After learning a little about him, the woman asked, “How long have you been a Christian?”

The young man thought for a moment, looked down at his watch and said, “About ten minutes.”

The Book of Romans was, for this man, a life-changing study.

The study of the Book of Romans has often proven to be a life-changing exercise.

Throughout the history of the church, lives have been radically transformed through the impact of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.

Augustine, in 386, was sitting in the garden of a friend, weeping, as he considered making a radical change in his life.

The words of a young neighborhood child singing a tune reached his ears, words which invited him to “Take up and read.”

He took up the scroll nearby, a scroll which contained these words from Paul’s Roman epistle: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.

But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:13b-14).

Augustine later wrote about his response to these words from the pen of the apostle Paul: “No further would I read, nor had I any need; instantly, at the end of this sentence, a clear light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away (Confessions, viii.

29).1 The impact which Romans would have on Augustine, and the impact which Augustine would have on the world, can still be seen.

Many years later, in November of 1515, Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk who was a professor at the University of Wittenberg, began to expound the Book of Romans to his students.

The more he studied the Epistle, the more he recognized that the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith was central and crucial to the argument of the Epistle.

But he found himself struggling to understand it.

He describes his struggle with this Epistle and his dramatic conversion when the message came clear to his mind, heart, and soul:

 

I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, ‘the righteousness of God,’ because I took it to mean that righteousness whereby God is righteous and deals righteously in punishing the unrighteous … Night and day I pondered until … I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, he justifies us by faith.

Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.

The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before ‘the righteousness of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love.

This passage of Paul became to me a gateway to heaven.2

Over two-hundred years later, John Wesley was transformed by this same Epistle.

As he wrote in his journal, he:

 

… went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans … About a quarter before nine while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.

I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken my sins away, even mine; and saved me from the law of sin and death.3

Again, in the early twentieth century, Karl Barth, pastor of Safenwil in Canton Aargau, Switzerland, published an exposition of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.

Once again, Paul’s words had a powerful impact upon Barth, and his exposition, we are told, fell “like a bombshell on the theologian’s playground.”4

While not all have experienced the dramatic changes which the Book of Romans has produced in the lives of some, biblical scholars are virtually unanimous on the towering significance and contribution of this Epistle:

 

Luther, in his preface to the Roman letter, wrote:

 

‘This Epistle is the chief book of the New Testament, the purest gospel.

It deserves not only to be known word for word by every Christian, but to be the subject of his meditation day by day, the daily bread of his soul … The more time one spends in it, the more precious it becomes and the better it appears.’

He spoke of it as ‘a light and way into the whole Scriptures, …’ Calvin said of it ‘when any one understands this Epistle, he has a passage opened to him to the understanding of the whole Scriptures.’

Coleridge pronounced Romans ‘the most profound work ever written!’ Meyer considered it ‘the greatest and richest of all the apostolic works.’

Godet referred to it as ‘the cathedral of the Christian faith.’

… Gordon H. Clark recently wrote of Romans that it is ‘the most profound of all the epistles, and perhaps the most important book in the Bible …’ Hamilton, in his recent commentary on Romans, calls it ‘the greatest book in the Bible.’5

Just what is it about this book of the Bible which makes it stand out and have such impact?

At the conclusion of this lesson, I would like to suggest several possibilities, some or all of which may provide the answer to this question.

Our answers must come from the text of Romans itself, and thus we shall press on to our study with great anticipation.

The purpose of this first lesson will be to get a “lay of the land,” to survey the territory of this text as a whole in order to obtain some sense of its nature, its argument, and its areas of emphasis.

We will begin by attempting to learn as much as we can about the church in Rome and to determine Paul’s relationship to these saints.

We will then briefly trace the argument of the book through the entire book.

On the basis of this study, we shall seek to discern and identify at the conclusion of this lesson what makes Romans unique, that which sets it apart from the other 65 books of the Bible which has enabled Romans to dramatically impact so many lives down through the ages.

After our survey in this lesson of the Book of Romans as a whole, we will look at Romans section by section.

We will seek to identify the major sections of this Epistle and to study each of these, devoting one lesson to each major section.

Finally, we will undertake a chapter by chapter, verse by verse study of the book.

A Personal Challenge

 

As we begin this study of Romans, I would challenge you to do three things.

First, pray that God would use this book in your life, in a powerful way, as He has done in the lives of countless others before you.

Expect God to speak to you, and pray that He will.

Second, set some specific goals for your own study.

Determine when and how you will study Romans during the week.

Establish a goal for how many times you will read the book clear through, and when during the week you will commit yourself to this reading.

Also, purchase those study helps which will assist you in your study.

Third, follow through with your study of the Book of Romans.

Let these lessons be the starting point and the stimulus for an intensive study of your own.

I am convinced that those whose lives were transformed were those who worked hard at studying Romans.

Do not expect God to transform your life apart from your own diligent search of these Scriptures.

May these words of wisdom be your motto as you begin your study:

 

My son, if you will receive my sayings, And treasure my commandments within you, Make your ear attentive to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding; for if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding; if you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will discern the fear of the Lord, And discover the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2:1-5).

The Relationship Between

Paul and the Church at Rome

 

We are told that Jews and Jewish proselytes from Rome were present at Pentecost (Acts 2:10), but no one actually knows when the church of Rome was founded or by whom.

It would seem clear that the Holy Spirit did not want us to focus on men as the founders of this church.

It is a great encouragement to me that this church may have been founded by the testimony of ordinary Christians, rather than celebrities like Paul.

Such was the case with the church at Antioch (Acts 11:19-21) and probably with a number of other churches as well.

We do know that at the time of Paul’s writing, there was a church in Rome made up of both Jews and Gentiles.

It was a church that seems to have been spiritually prospering.

Paul commended this church for its reputation:

 

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world (Romans 1:8).

From secular history, we know that in Rome the Jews were not well thought of nor kindly treated at various times.

Claudius, for example, expelled the Jews from Rome (Acts 18:2) which was not the only time this happened.6

It would be only a few years after this Epistle to the Romans was written that Rome would be destroyed by fire and that Christians would serve as scapegoats for this atrocity.

Soon would come the day when Christians would be fed to the lions at Rome.

This may have set the scene for the martyrdom of both Peter and Paul, as well as many others.

Paul had wanted to visit Rome and the saints there, but up to this point in time he had not been able to do so:

 

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.

For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you.

For I long to see you in order that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.

And I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented thus far) in order that I might obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

Thus, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome (Romans 1:8-15, emphasis mine).