to a ord a perfect opportunity to choose the righteous ways of God: special privileges, perfect instruction, marvelous revelations, miraculous protection, and matchless covenants and promises But again there was utter and complete failure — failure so great that when Israel chose, with others, to crucify the Lord Jesus and refused to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit through the apostles, God rejected her and scattered the people throughout the earth, allowing them to go on in their own blindness and darkness In the book of Romans God is saying to the readers of the whole world — Jew and Gentile — that though they have failed to attain a righteousness acceptable to a holy God, this righteousness may be received as a gift from Him, through faith, in the person of His righteous Son It is their only hope for now and eternity II BACKGROUND A AUTHOR According to the text of 1:1, Paul was the author Note the three ways Paul identi es himself in the verse In your own words write down what is involved in each identi cation Most of what is known about Paul’s life is given to us in the book of Acts B DATE WRITTEN Paul wrote Romans from Corinth toward the end of his third missionary journey, around A.D 56 C THE CITY OF ROME IN A.D 56 When Paul wrote this letter Rome was the largest and most important city of the world (estimated population: one to four million) Emperor Nero had just begun to rule (A.D 54-68), and anti-Christian persecutions had not yet begun The city’s population was made up of the usual mixture of a large city: wealth, poverty, capitalism, slavery, citizens, aliens, religion, worldliness There was a large number of Jews living in Rome at the time, for about a dozen synagogues were located throughout the city Hiebert writes, “Around the various synagogues of the Jews there gradually grew up a considerable following of Gentiles more or less in active sympathy with their religion Here, as elsewhere in the Empire, these ‘God-fearers’ furnished fertile ground for the spread of Christianity.”1 D ORIGINAL READERS The letter was addressed to the saints in Rome (1:7), a mixed group of Jews and Gentiles, the latter group probably constituting the majority (cf 1:13; 2:17) These Christians had migrated to Rome from various parts of the Mediterranean world Some no doubt were converts of Paul’s and Peter’s itinerant ministries It is possible also that included in the number were “visitors from Rome” (Acts 2:10) who had been present at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and had returned to Rome with the message of Christ Paul had not as yet visited the church at Rome when he wrote the epistle E OCCASION AND PURPOSE OF WRITING Paul had various things in mind in writing this letter Among them was his desire to ... Rome at the time, for about a dozen synagogues were located throughout the city Hiebert writes, “Around the various synagogues of the Jews there gradually grew up a considerable following of Gentiles... sympathy with their religion Here, as elsewhere in the Empire, these ‘God-fearers’ furnished fertile ground for the spread of Christianity.”1 D ORIGINAL READERS The letter was addressed to the saints... yet begun The city’s population was made up of the usual mixture of a large city: wealth, poverty, capitalism, slavery, citizens, aliens, religion, worldliness There was a large number of Jews