 Good morning, everyone. Before we begin, will someone open us with the word of prayer, please? Let's pray. Have any further? We just thank you for this time of study. Father, as we commit this time of study into their hands, we pray that whatever we learn today, we will be able to retain whatever we learn and apply the same in our lives, Father. We also pray for a blessing upon all of our community members and all the students here. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen. Okay. So just a reminder about your exam. I haven't checked to see how many of you have done it. But if you haven't yet done it, you have till the end of Monday. For those who did it, it was everything okay. Do you have any issues? Okay. We'll talk more about it maybe on Monday once everyone or on the next Thursday once everyone has finished it. Also on Monday, our classes will be online, right? For all the in-person students, our Monday class will be online. So I can just join on Google Classroom. Okay. Let's begin. We are quite behind in this class. So we're going to try and catch up on as much as we can do over the next few weeks. Okay. So we finished with the Gospels and Acts and now we're going into the Epistles. Now a majority of the Epistles we know are written by Paul. So we have an introduction to Paul in our textbook just to help us understand who he is and how he has influenced so much of the New Testament. We probably are all very familiar with a lot about Paul, but this is just to give us some perspective into the letters. So we start with his sense of divine vocation. So Paul had a clear sense of his calling. So we see multiple records where he goes back to his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus and he uses that as he's testifying to people about who Jesus is. So that encounter with Christ for him was a very powerful encounter of being a personal witness to the resurrected Christ and having a sense of burden or calling to share this with all those who didn't know the Gospel. In Galatians 1-2 he talks about, I'll just read the verse for us, I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, rather I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. So he also had this sense of all that he was sharing had come to him from Christ himself, right, because he didn't have anyone come to him and share the Gospel with him. So he met Christ on the road to Damascus and then he went and he was introduced to other believers and grew in his own faith. So he understood that his revelation had first come from Christ himself. And so he had that confidence in everything that he was sharing that it could be trusted. It was not taught by man, but taught by God himself. So in Corinthians 9-16, for when I preach the Gospel, I cannot boast since I am compelled to preach, go to me if I do not preach the Gospel. So that sense of feeling compelled refers to having an outside pressure put on you, like recognizing that there is a need that you need to respond to. That is the way Paul felt. He had experienced God's grace so powerfully that he felt that pressure that others need this grace and I need to be the one to take it to them. And he was willing to do whatever it took, cross whatever seas he had to cross in order to take that grace to other people. Another thing that comes through really powerfully in his epistles is a sense of authority. He speaks to people knowing that his authority comes from God. So even if he is writing like we look at the book of Romans, he is writing to believers that he has not personally met. But he is able to talk to them with authority that comes from God. He has no fear, he has no sense of like he needs to shy away from speaking the truth to people. He'll correct people, he'll rebuke people, he'll praise people with confidence that God has put him in this place of leadership over the church. So knowing that it was something that had come from God himself. His love for his converts, as we're looking through the letters, we'll see this, that everything he says comes from a place of love. So while he also has this sense of authority that I'm speaking as God has led me to speak, he also does it in love. That balance of truth and love is there in his letters. So even if he's correcting people, even if he's calling out sin in the church, he's doing it from a place of love, wanting to see them stay true to Christ, wanting to see them not fall away from the faith. So it's a great example for church leaders that we hold on to love and we hold on to truth. We don't let go of either one of those when we are leaving people. So we're willing to address the difficult things, willing to call out sin, but we do it in a way that comes from a place of love. His convictions, so he talks about, we see a lot of things where he's talking about doctrine. So he has actually contributed to our understanding of the Christian doctrine in a very, very big way. So because so much of the New Testament is written by him, whatever we understand about salvation, about justification, about redemption, about sanctification, all of that is what he has written down in the letters. And he writes it according to the situation that he's addressing. So he's very aware of what is the issue in that church and how do I bring these doctrines out to address their situation? So from a particular problem, he'll arrive at universal application. So writing to their situation, but also bringing out a doctrine that can be applied universally, so in all the churches for all time. So these are some of the examples we already talked about, justification, salvation, grace, and his conviction coming from a deep and direct experience with God. We see also Paul's willingness, 1 Corinthians 9, 22b, I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means, I might save some. So what does that mean? What does that reflect about Paul's ministry? It means that no matter what the cost, he was willing to pay the cost. On the other hand, he's talking specifically about understanding the context of the people he's serving. To the Jews he became like a Jew, to the Gentiles he became like a Gentile. That is, he didn't force the Gentiles to follow Jewish law, neither did he force the Jews to give up on their law. He understood their context, their culture and he presented the gospel in a way that was relevant to them. At the same time, he didn't water down the gospel. So to say that he didn't give up on certain truths or give up on certain principles just to make it easily acceptable for people. He held on to the truth but held on to the main truths. So he was able to separate culture from the truth and he was able to present truth in a way that was culturally relevant to his audience. So that was something that he recognized the difference between what is important, what is necessary and what we can be flexible with in our faith, in our practice. Another is the same thing, to have a genuine concern to see things from another person's point of view. His language and style, he writes in very good Greek and he was also trained as a Bible scholar. He was not trained as a public speaker but in ancient times all writing was done in a style where you are convincing the people that you are writing to. So he uses that kind of writing which is called rhetorical style of writing. Structure of the letters, we'll see there's an introduction, there'll be greetings to the people he's writing to. He may raise certain things that are happening in the church then he'll raise concerns about things that are not going right. He'll write all of that in the body of the letter and then greetings and a benediction. That's a general structure for letters at that time. We also see him going through a lot of suffering, specifically in the Book of Acts we read about all of his travels and things that he's experienced. So imprisonments, beatings, stoning, shipwrecks, hazards from any sources both natural and human, lack of food, scantiness of clothing. All of that were his experience as he went on these mission trips. He sacrificed a lot because of that conviction of what he was doing, the work that he was doing. The importance of it, the necessity of it and a heart for the lost. All of that made it worth all of the sacrifice that he made for the Gospel. So Paul's epistles can be classified into four different categories basically based on the theme of the epistle. So we have the soteriological epistles, the Christological epistles, the ecclesiological epistles and the eschatological epistles. Lots of big words but we look at what do each of those mean. So the soteriological epistles focus on salvation. What does it mean to be saved by Jesus Christ? The Greek word soteria means salvation comes from the word soter which means saviour. Romans talks about justification so today depending on how much time we have we might just get an introduction to some of that. Talks about justification once for all, sanctification day by day and sanctification in personal life, in our personal lives. First and second Corinthians talks about salvation in the church. So how does salvation impact the life of the church? And then Galatians talks about salvation by grace not by work. So Galatians was a very important book in the Reformation because talking about salvation that comes by grace not by the works that we do was one of the main things that brought the church out of a works mentality to trusting in Christ sacrifice for salvation. The Christological epistles focus on Christ the Anointed One and emphasize the person and work of Christ. So we see in Philemon talking about how Jesus has paid the cost for our sins. So you all have a class in Christology, right? Have you already done that? Y'all are doing it this semester. So Y'all have probably already talked about all of this and gone into all of these books. But yeah, paying the price for our sins, Christ the head of the church, Christ the body of Christ and the humiliation of Christ in his incarnation and his subsequent exaltation. So all of these come from Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians and Philippians. As we look through those books individually, we'll be able to see how Paul brings out each of these themes about Christ in these books. The ecclesiological epistles, which means it focuses on the church itself taken from the Greek word ecclesia. We see 1st Timothy and Titus talking about what are the qualifications required of church leaders. So if you are in a place of leadership in the church, what kind of requirements must be placed on leaders? How should they live their personal lives, their faith lives, their family lives and what kind of character should they have? 2nd Timothy talks about diligence and faithfulness of continuing in our faith, especially for a church that was going to face a lot of apostasy. So people going away from the church, falling away from the faith. So Paul writes this last letter to Timothy and in this letter he's encouraging him to encourage the church to stay strong in their faith. So that they don't fall away from the faith when temptation comes or when wrong teaching comes or when persecution comes. Then we have the eschatological epistles, which is taken from the word eschatos, means last. And it focuses on Christ's second coming, so the last days in the return of Christ. 1st Thessalonians talks about the second coming of Christ and 2nd Thessalonians talks about false teaching regarding the second coming of Christ. So warning people about false teaching regarding Christ's second coming and teaching them about what is true, what is right. So this focuses on the end times basically. With that we can go into the book of Romans. So some background on the book of Romans, we see in Acts 1921 that Paul had planned to go to visit Rome. If someone can just read Acts 1921 for us. Acts 1921, when these things were accomplished, Paul purposed in the spirit when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia to go to Jerusalem saying, after I have been there, I must also see Rome. So we see right here, Paul having that sense of calling and purpose of I want to go to Rome, I want to go to the gospel in Rome. But if we read Romans 113, Paul says that he has not yet, he has longed to go there, but he has not yet been able to go. So that's about 10 years later than this verse that we read in Acts 19. So for 10 years, he had not yet been able to go to Rome, but was only after that about three years later. So 13 years later, which we come to the end of Acts, we read about Paul being imprisoned right at the end of acts. For two years, he was in prison. That is when he actually reaches Rome. So he goes as a prisoner to Rome, and that's when he meets with the Jewish leaders and starts to minister to them. So we know that Romans is written by Paul because it says so in Romans 11 where Paul himself introduces himself. And he introduces himself using the word dooloi, which is a slave or born servant, which means that he had given himself over completely to his master. He'd given up his rights, he'd given up his freedom to his master, and he would forever for the rest of his life be under his master's rule. This is different from other words that he could have used. So there's mistyos, which is a hired servant. So someone who could at any time decide that they no longer wanted to work under their master and could leave. Or diaconos, which is the word for deacon in English. And that is someone who serves prompted by love. So they are serving their master from a place of love. So he hasn't used that kind of word where I'm serving you for the benefit of what Christ wanted from him. And he is serving from a place of love, but he doesn't choose to use that word. That word was used much more for leaders in the church. The word diacon was used for leaders in the church. Rather, he uses the born servant or slave as a reference to himself. And then we have at the end of Acts that this was written by his secretary Tertius. So somebody else wrote the letter, Paul narrated it, and Tertius wrote it down. So letters in the New Testament are actually much, much longer than letters that were written in that time, in that culture. Usually there would be about 87, it would be the length of about 87 words, letters would be. But these letters are so much longer because they contained such important messages for the churches that they were going to. And so we see this letter would have taken multiple hours. Paul would have recited this letter to the secretary. It would have taken approximately 10 to 11 hours of recitation and writing for them to actually finish writing this letter. Date and location. So usually it's estimated that it's between 55 to 58 AD, but 57 or 58 AD is likely when Romans was written. This is during the last three months of Paul's third missionary journey. So he goes on his third missionary journey. He returns to Jerusalem and that's when he's arrested. So he writes this during those last three months while he's in Greece. And this is just before he returns to Jerusalem with the offering for the poor that he's collected from all the churches. And the recipients, we see in chapter one itself that it's addressed to those who have been called to belong to Jesus Christ in Rome. So basically written to the church in Rome. We see also personal greetings to many people. So we know from the beginning of Romans that Paul has never visited Rome. But still at the end of the book, he is writing personal greetings to several people and naming several people in the church. So he already knew a lot of people in the church, although he had never visited there. So the one possibility is that as he was doing the missionary journeys, he met some of these people in other places. If you all remember when we talked about Priscilla and Aquila, I don't know if I mentioned this in class. But Priscilla and Aquila had been asked to leave because of Emperor Claudius. All of the Jews were sent away from Rome because Claudius and generally the Roman government felt that there was a lot of controversy being raised by the Jews. They were basically causing strife between other faiths because they were talking about Christ. So the Jews were sent out of Rome and it's possible that during this time, Paul was able to meet a lot of them in his missionary journeys, which is why he knows so many of them and he's still able to name them in the last chapter. So because a lot of the Jews had been sent out of Rome, Paul is writing mostly to Gentile Christians because the church was made up of mostly Gentile Christians at that time. Paul writes soon after Claudius' death and it was after Claudius' death that Jews started to come back to Rome. So they started to come back to the church. So if we see in Romans, we see this whole thing of salvation to the Jews and then to the Gentiles, like judgment for the Jews and for the Gentiles. There is this distinction being made between the Jews and Gentiles. It's because the church was going through a transition, right? The church had become a Gentile church for a long time because the Jews had left and now the Jews were starting to come back after Claudius' death. So there were also these cultural differences, these differences in how they were practicing their faith that were causing issues within the church. And so Paul is addressing that through this letter. Even as he's talking about salvation through Christ, he's also saying that we are all one in Christ. Even if we are Jews, whether we are Gentiles or Jews, that salvation in Christ makes us one. So if someone can just read Romans 1, 5 for us, Romans 1, 5 and 6. Romans 1, 5 and 6, through whom we have received grace and a postal ship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. Okay, thank you. You read both 5 and 6, right? Yes. So we see here a very clear emphasis on the Gentiles here. So he says, through him we received grace and a postal ship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name's sake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Christ. So right there we see that focus on the Gentile Christians being emphasized. But we'll also later on see how he is distinguishing between Jew and Gentile. One example here is Romans 1, 16. It says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. First to the Jew and then to the Gentile. So that distinction between Jews and Gentiles. This is one of the key verses in the book of Romans talking about how salvation has come to all people. And that is what the focus of Romans is on salvation in Jesus Christ. But what that salvation means for us. Romans 5 1, if someone can read this for us, you can either read from here or open it in your Bible. Romans 5 1, therefore having just been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So this is one of the other themes in Romans is justification. From salvation, Paul moves on to what does that salvation mean for us now. It means that we have been justified in Christ. And what does justification, how does justification impact us? So keywords Christ and faith are used multiple times in Romans. And the main theme of Romans is our redemption. So in the first 11 chapters, it focuses more on the doctrine of redemption. So salvation, justification, sanctification. And then on verses 12 to 16 talks about the practical. So what does it mean now that we are saved, now that we are justified? How should we live our lives as Christians? And so chapters 12 to 16 will focus on the practical side of being believers, being people who are saved and sanctified in Christ. So everyone understands the meaning of these three words. Salvation, justification, sanctification. Yes, okay. So we will just go on. Unique features. The book of Romans is a pretty complete summary of Christian doctrine. It covers the very basic tenets of the Christian faith. So it's a very good foundational document for the church and for believers as well to understand what does it mean to be saved. And we see also that Paul quoted a lot from the Old Testament much more than he does in his other 12 letters. Just going to show that the Old Testament is a key to our understanding of what it means to be saved. So to understand salvation, we go back to what the Old Testament talked about. How do we understand our salvation in the light of that? Comparison with other biblical books. In Genesis, we see Abraham being the patriarch of Israel. In Romans, he is the patriarch of all who believe. So we see that Paul goes back to when Abraham was actually justified. He was not justified at the point of circumcision. He was justified when he believed the promise that God gave him regarding his inheritance. That he would have children and God would bless him with an inheritance. So that is when he was declared as being righteous because of his faith. So because his faith came before circumcision, he is the father of all who believe. And so it moves from this theme in Genesis of Abraham being the father of the Israelites to being the father of all who believe, even Gentiles. In Galatians, we see a discussion of justification by faith. It's like a shorter version of what Romans talks about. So Romans has a much more detailed description of justification. And Galatians being a shorter book just has all of that summarized into a few chapters. In the book of James, we see that he talks about the fruit of salvation. So Romans talks about the root of salvation, that is faith. So it is through faith that we are saved. And James talks about what is the result of that salvation, which is that we should be doing good works. So those are the three books that we can compare Romans to. So with that, we'll just begin with an outline in Romans until chapter 5, starting with chapter 1. So Romans chapter 1 begins with just an introduction. So he's following the general structure of letters in that day. So he begins with greetings to the church, begins with introduction of himself, and talks about what he's going to talk about in the rest of the book. Just to give them an introduction to what his main intent is in writing the book. With that, he then goes into his talk on justification itself. From chapters 1, 18 to 3, 20, he's talking about how all people, the universal need for justification. So all people need to be justified. Verses 18 to 32, he talks about the Gentiles being guilty. Chapters 2 to 3, 8, the Jews being guilty. And then goes on to all the world being guilty. Chapter 3 verses 9 to 20. So we'll just read some of the key verses from there. If someone can read Romans 132. Romans 132, through the know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. So this is regarding the Gentiles. So the Gentiles know God has revealed himself to all people through, even if you look at nature, you will ask questions about who has created this. And so that should lead people to seek God. But these people have willingly rejected God, knowing that there is a God. They've rejected him and not only rejected him, but also approved of people who walk in sin. And so these first few verses talk about how they are guilty because they have rejected God. Chapters 2 to 3, 8, the Jews are guilty. Can someone read chapter 2 verse 13 and then verse 25? For it is not those who hear the law, who are righteous in God's sight. But it is those who obey the law, who will be declared righteous. Thank you and verse 25. Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. So here in this chapter and in chapter 3, he is talking about how the Jews also have not followed the law. And so just because they have the law doesn't mean they are righteous. Only if they have followed the law that they will be declared righteous. And then we will read chapter 3 verse 20. Someone can read that. Romans chapter 3 verse 20. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. Sins through the law comes knowledge of sin. Thank you. So the final conclusion at the end of this section is that no one can be saved by the law. The law only helps us to see our sin, but we will never be made righteous through the works of the law. And then he goes on in the following section 321 to chapter 4 to talk about the fact that being made righteous or being justified will only is only possible through faith in Christ. So he talks about God's righteousness by faith if someone can read verse chapter 3 verse 25. Romans chapter 3 verse 20. Okay. Now please go ahead sister. Thank you. Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. Thank you. Was that 325? Romans 325. Yes, pastor. Okay. So here he talks about Jesus being the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life shedding his blood. So talking about we are all guilty. The Gentiles are guilty. The Jews are guilty. And there is no way we can be saved by the law, but it is through faith in Christ that we are justified. So he introduces that and then goes into chapter 4 where he goes back to Abraham and David talking about the fact that they were declared righteous and they were justified based on faith and not based on the law. Like we talked about Abraham was declared righteous before he was circumcised. So it was not by the works of the law, but by his faith that he was declared righteous. So we will just close with Romans chapter 5. We will continue from there on Monday. In Romans chapter 5, this is actually quite a key chapter, so I would encourage you all or maybe we can just read it quickly. If somebody can read this chapter for us, Romans chapter 5, 21 verses. We can read and close with Romans 5. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of glory, the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. You see, at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath to him? For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved through his life? Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people because all sinned. To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone's account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death ranged from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is the pattern of the one to come. But the gift is not like the trespass, for if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, overflowed to the many? Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man's sin. The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if by the trespass of one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as though the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man, the many will be made righteous. The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more. So that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank you. So we see this key chapter in the book of Romans talking about how we are justified. It is through Christ. So Christ is the new head under which all of us find ourselves. Whereas before Christ we were all under Adam's headship and therefore the sin of Adam was upon all of us. Now for all who believe in Christ, we are under Christ and the righteousness of Christ is imputed to all of us. That is we all are declared righteous because we are under the headship of Christ. So that is the kind of key from which the rest of Romans will continue. So we'll continue from there from Monday on Monday. If you'll have any questions, we can address that. If not, we can close. Okay. Then we will see you back on Monday in the online classroom for everyone. Thank you, Sister. Thank you.