Topic: Book of Romans
And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him: But their laying await was known of Saul. And they watched the gates day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket. (Acts 9:23-25 KJV)
More than any other individual, Paul (Saul) was responsible for spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Before he began to become an apostle of Jesus Christ and proclaim the gospel throughout the Roman Empire, Jesus told him that he is going to suffer for His name’s sake (Acts 9:16). Although most of us may don’t like to hear this from our Heavenly Father, there will be a time that we must to go through some hardship to meet our goals for God. As we read through Acts 9-28, Paul went through many difficult times to spread the Word of God to Gentiles.
He made three missionary journeys through much of the Mediterranean world, tirelessly preaching the gospel he had once sought to destroy (Acts 26:9). After he returned to Jerusalem bearing an offering for the needy in the church there, he was falsely accused by some Jews (Acts 11:27-29), savagely by an angry mob (Acts 21:30-31), and arrested by Romans. Unlike today’s Christian evangelists, Paul and other apostles were the most hated by Jews and non-Jews because of Jesus Christ. Even Pharisees hated Paul after his conversion to Christianity, because they don’t like to hear what was fulfilled by the words of Moses and prophets about Jesus Christ.
Paul wrote the letters to Romans in Corinth, as the reference to Phoebe (Romans 16:1, Cenchrea was Corinth’s port), Gaius (Romans 16:23), and Erastus (Romans 16:23—all of whom were associated with Corinth—indicate. Paul wrote this letter toward the close of his third missionary journey (about A.D. 56), as he prepared to leave for Palestine with an offering for the poor believers in the Jerusalem church (Romans 16:1-2)
In this letter, Paul presents the theological truths of doctrine (chapters 1-11), while the last five chapters give detail its practical outworking in the lives of believers and the life of the whole church.
