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Romans is the most profound of Paul's letters, because it is the best organized. In all of his other letters, Paul is dealing with specific issues that matter to whichever community he is addressing. But in Romans he is writing to a church that he does not know but that he wants to visit on his way to Spain.
The church in Rome is big, and it’s possible they don’t want Paul because they have heard some negative things about him. It’s possible they have heard how he was once an enemy of Jesus and how he is now preaching to the Gentiles. They may have heard as well how so many synagogues have driven him out, so they’re not so sure they want him to visit them.
So Paul has to justify what he is doing. And aren’t we lucky? Because in Romans, Paul writes out in a systematic way what God has sent him to do and what he believes the gospel to be.
The “Gospel of God.” When he opens this letter, Paul says straight away that he is “a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel of…
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