Nothing Can Separate You from God’s Love
God speaks to us through the Bible, His word is relevant for today. God speaks into our lives to build us and strengthen us. Our study together will focus on one of my favourite passages of God’s word - Romans 8 Before we look at Romans 8, we are going to take a quick look at the whole book of Romans, yes the whole book, all 16 chapters!
Background Faith Service Worship Vision
Imagine it’s the winter of A.D. 57-58, Paul is in Corinth at the close of his third missionary journey. Soon He will return to Jerusalem with an offering for the poor.
There may be times when you find it difficult to reconcile God’s truth to your own opinion or worldview, God’s truth is eternal, it does not change, our understanding of the truth does change as we allow God to work in our hearts and minds.
A woman named Phoebe, who lives in a suburb of Corinth, is going to sail to Rome soon and Paul sees an opportunity to send a letter to the church in Rome with her. The only postal service in the Roman Empire was for government business, personal letters had to be carried by friends.
These sessions are not about opinion, they are about learning truth, the truth contained in the Bible, together we are going to focus on how we apply God’s truth, black & white in a grey world. To set godly priorities, grow in Christian character and live according to God’s standards so that we are a living witness to others.
Realising that this may be his only only communication with the church in Rome, he wrote about two important truths of the Christian faith – the belief that results in salvation and the behaviour that results from salvation.
The basis of our belief: Session 10
Ashingdon Elim Bible Study 15 June 2010
Paul was not sure he would get away from Jerusalem alive and he wanted the Christians in Rome to have a written explanation of the gospel. He wrote this letter, which Phoebe delivered safely to the church.
The Letter In chapter 1 Paul begins his letter to the Roman church by clearly outlining man’s depraved condition before God. After a few introductory words about himself, the Roman church’s reputation, Paul’s thwarted plans to come to them, and the nature of the gospel he preached, he tackles the sin problem. In the latter part of chapter 1, Paul deals with the gentile world. Although they do not have the law of Moses, they have a law within their own hearts, which they have violated, failing to live up to the truth they posses. For that reason, the Gentiles stand as sinners before God. In chapter 2, Paul deals with the Jewish people who have religious privileges - but fail to realise their possibilities, violating God’s law and refusing to live up to the light that has been revealed to them. Paul ties all the strings together in Chapter 3, ending with that great statement that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Chapter 4, deals with salvation by faith. Man has always been saved by faith, even in Old Testament days – we are told that it was Abraham’s faith that God counted for righteousness. In chapter 5, the glorious results of faith are outlined. 1