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This file contains the full transcript to The Challenge of Paul, Theme 4: Paul & God.

Session 1 – To Make a Just World

Session 2 – The Greatest of These

Session 3 – Those Who Have Slept

Session 4 – On a Mission for Unity

Epilogue – And So We Came to Rome

Excerpt from “To Make a Just World”:

Paul’s Epistle to the Romans is often summarized by the motto, “justification by grace through faith.” That sounds to most people like heavy Reformation-Era language imposed on Paul or even simply weird new Christian language invented by Paul.

Yet that slogan would be utterly understandable to a Roman imperial theologian. In fact, he would say, “Exactly. Not a bad summary of our program.” So, let me think with you about what Paul is saying in the Epistle to the Romans and I begin by reading two eminent scholars on this epistle.

The Catholic theologian Joseph Fitzmyer S.J. says that the epistle “overwhelms the reader by the density and sublimity of the topic with which it deals.”

The Anglican theologian N. T. Wright says that “it is a work of massive substance, presenting a formidable intellectual challenge while offering a breathtaking theological and spiritual vision.”

I completely agree with those statements, but they might make us forget that Paul is writing to ordinary first-century Christians and not to expert scholars. He is
writing to the five or six small Christian communities operating most likely out of shop-churches in the Roman capital.