Romans
Paul's longest letter, and the closest thing the New Testament has to a full explanation of the gospel.
Who wrote it: Paul, dictated to a scribe named Tertius, from Corinth around 57 AD. Nobody seriously disputes this one.
What it is
Paul had never been to Rome. He was planning to visit on his way to Spain, and he wrote ahead to a church he had not founded, made up of Jewish and non-Jewish believers who were not getting along. So instead of dealing with local drama, he laid out the whole thing from the ground up. That is why Romans reads less like a letter and more like an argument, and why it has been the book that keeps setting off reformations.
The argument goes like this. Chapters 1 to 3: everyone is in trouble. The pagan world has swapped God for idols and each other; the religious world has the law and breaks it. 'All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.' Nobody gets to feel superior. Then the turn: God has made a way to be put right that does not run through being good enough. It runs through trust in Jesus, whose death deals with the problem. Abraham, Paul argues in chapter 4, was counted righteous by believing before he ever did anything religious.
Chapters 5 to 8 are about what that life is like. Peace with God. Suffering that produces something. A whole new humanity in Christ where there was one in Adam. Chapter 7 is Paul's own honest confession that he does what he hates and can't do what he wants, and chapter 8 is the answer to it: no condemnation, the Spirit praying inside you when you can't, everything working together, nothing in creation able to separate you from God's love. Many people think chapter 8 is the high point of the whole Bible.
Chapters 9 to 11 wrestle with a painful question: if this is God's plan, why have most of Paul's own people rejected it? His answer is long, hard, and ends in worship rather than a tidy solution. Then from chapter 12 the letter turns practical. Offer your bodies. Don't be squeezed into the world's shape. Love without pretending. Bless the people who persecute you. Pay your taxes. Don't judge each other over food and holy days. Welcome one another the way Christ welcomed you.
The last chapter is a list of greetings to about thirty people, including Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae (the word is the one we get 'deacon' from) who probably carried the letter, a couple named Priscilla and Aquila, and a woman called Junia who is described as notable among the apostles. It is a glimpse of what the church in Rome actually looked like: house churches, women leaders, freed slaves, a lot of names nobody remembers. Paul remembered them.
Verses worth keeping
- Romans 1:16WEB
For I am not ashamed of the Good News of Christ, because it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsI'm not embarrassed by the good news about Christ, because it's God's power to rescue everyone who trusts him, the Jew first and the Greek as well.
Paul's thesis statement for the letter. Everything that follows explains it.
23for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; 24being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsEveryone has sinned and missed what God made them for, and everyone is put right freely, by his grace, through the rescue that comes in Christ Jesus.
Both halves matter. The first is the diagnosis, the second is the cure, and they apply to exactly the same people.
- Romans 5:8WEB
But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsBut God proves how much he loves us like this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Not once we'd cleaned up. Before. That order is the whole point.
- Romans 8:1WEB
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsSo there is now no condemnation for the people who are in Christ Jesus, who live by the Spirit and not by their old nature.
Comes straight after Paul's confession in chapter 7 that he keeps doing what he hates. That is the person this is said to.
- Romans 8:26WEB
In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsIn the same way, the Spirit helps us where we're weak. We don't even know how to pray the way we should, but the Spirit himself prays for us, with groans that can't be put into words.
For the days when you cannot find the words. The verse says that is fine; someone else has them.
Read Romans
The full text, every chapter, from the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation. Pick a chapter below. The highlighted verses are the place to start if you have never read it.
Romans 8
1There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. 3For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; 7because the mind of the flesh is hostile toward God, for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be. 8Those who are in the flesh can’t please God.
9But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. 10If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
12So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God. 15For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God; 17and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.
18For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us. 19For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. 22For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. 23Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body. 24For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees? 25But if we hope for that which we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.
26In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered. 27He who searches the hearts knows what is on the Spirit’s mind, because he makes intercession for the saints according to God.
28We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.
31What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things? 33Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Questions about Romans
Is Romans 1 condemning gay people?
Romans 1:26-27 describes same-sex acts as one example of what happens when a society swaps God for idols, alongside greed, envy, gossip and disobeying parents in the same list. Then Romans 2:1 turns on the reader: you who judge do the same things. Christians disagree, deeply, about what Paul meant and how it applies now, and this page will not settle that. What can be said is that Paul's rhetorical target in chapters 1 to 3 is everyone, and his point is that nobody gets to stand over anyone else.
What does 'justified by faith' actually mean?
It is a courtroom word. To be justified is to be declared in the right. Paul's claim is that God declares people right on the basis of trust in Jesus rather than on their record. Protestants and Catholics fought a five-hundred-year argument over exactly how this works and how it relates to a changed life, and have narrowed the gap a lot since. Everyone agrees Paul says it is a gift.
Does Romans 9 teach that God picks who is saved?
Romans 9 talks about God choosing Jacob over Esau and hardening Pharaoh, and says the potter has rights over the clay. Calvinists read this as God choosing individuals for salvation. Others read it as being about God's freedom to choose nations and roles in history, with chapters 10 and 11 opening the door to everyone. This is one of the oldest live disagreements among Christians. Read all three chapters together before deciding; chapter 11 ends with God binding all to disobedience so that he might have mercy on all.
Was Paul against women?
Not on the evidence of this letter. Romans 16 names Phoebe as a servant of her church (the Greek word is deacon) and probably the letter's carrier, Priscilla before her husband as a co-worker, and Junia as 'notable among the apostles'. The restrictive passages people quote are in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, and Christians disagree about whether those are local instructions or permanent rules. Whatever you conclude, Paul in Romans is working alongside women and saying so in public.