Reading Romans Will Change Your Life
As we begin our new sermon series on Paul's letter to the church at Rome, let me strongly urge you to take time to read this letter in its entirety. One thesis that is easily defensible is: Reading Romans changes lives. The impact of the book has been almost incalculable. Below are three historical examples of what happens when people read and seriously grapple with the truths of this book.
Take the case of Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430 ). Struggling in the chains of lust and sin, he suddenly heard a voice repeating over and over, "Take up and read. Take up and read." In response he picked up his Bible and read the first passage his eyes fell on: "Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts" (Augustine, Confessions, 8:29). Those words from Romans 13:13, 14 led to Augustine's conversion to Christ. In the book of Romans, Augustine met Jesus as Savior from sin. He went on to be the leading voice in the church for the next 1,000 years. Many think that his writings have done more than any other person to shape Western thought.
More than a millennium afterward, Martin Luther had a similar experience with the book of Romans. At one time he wrote that "if ever a man could be saved by monkery [being a monk] that man was I" (in Barclay, Galatians, p. 23). But religious practice just didn't do it. He was driven to despair until he discovered Christ's righteousness in Romans. Thereupon, he wrote, I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning" (Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, pp. 49-50). The result was Martin Luther's own salvation. In addition to this, Luther's reading and meditating upon Romans ignited what we now call the Great Reformation.
Two hundred years later John Wesley, who had struggled to be righteous for years, found himself in utter despair. In that condition on May 24, 1738, he went to a chapel on Aldergate Street in London where he heard someone reading Luther's Preface to Romans. "I felt, he penned, my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death" (Wesley, vol. 1, p. 103). The result was the rise of the Methodist movement with its forceful impact on the modern evangelical, holiness, and Pentecostal movements.
Take the case of Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430 ). Struggling in the chains of lust and sin, he suddenly heard a voice repeating over and over, "Take up and read. Take up and read." In response he picked up his Bible and read the first passage his eyes fell on: "Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts" (Augustine, Confessions, 8:29). Those words from Romans 13:13, 14 led to Augustine's conversion to Christ. In the book of Romans, Augustine met Jesus as Savior from sin. He went on to be the leading voice in the church for the next 1,000 years. Many think that his writings have done more than any other person to shape Western thought.
More than a millennium afterward, Martin Luther had a similar experience with the book of Romans. At one time he wrote that "if ever a man could be saved by monkery [being a monk] that man was I" (in Barclay, Galatians, p. 23). But religious practice just didn't do it. He was driven to despair until he discovered Christ's righteousness in Romans. Thereupon, he wrote, I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning" (Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, pp. 49-50). The result was Martin Luther's own salvation. In addition to this, Luther's reading and meditating upon Romans ignited what we now call the Great Reformation.
Two hundred years later John Wesley, who had struggled to be righteous for years, found himself in utter despair. In that condition on May 24, 1738, he went to a chapel on Aldergate Street in London where he heard someone reading Luther's Preface to Romans. "I felt, he penned, my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death" (Wesley, vol. 1, p. 103). The result was the rise of the Methodist movement with its forceful impact on the modern evangelical, holiness, and Pentecostal movements.