Page 12 - Romans Student Textbook.doc

Study Section 2: The Big Picture of Romans
2.1 Connect
I have been teaching Sunday School for dozens of years, mostly to adults who have
attended church for most of their lives. Who knows how many Sunday School lessons they
have listened to? A couple of years ago I taught a class about Joshua entering the promised
land and taking the people to Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal in obedience to Moses’ command to
do so found in Deuteronomy 11. The entire class looked at me as if I was telling them
something they had never heard of before. I asked the class some basic questions about
entering the Promised Land, and almost no one could answer even some basic questions. Some did not
even know who Joshua was! What a shame! They have been listening to lessons for dozens of years, and
whether they ever read their Bible at home, I wouldn’t have any idea. But my conclusion was that there is
MASS IGNORANCE of the history and doctrines of the Bible among Christians. It’s like every lesson went
into one ear and out the other without registering in their brains.

Today, we want to concentrate on the BIG PICTURE of the book of Romans. We will also look at a basic
outline of the book to get an idea what we plan on learning in the course. Let’s get started…

2.2 Objectives

1. Students should be able to explain the literal/grammatical/historical method of Bible
interpretation.

2. Students should be able to recall from memory three sentences that explain the entire book of
Romans.

2.3 The Big Picture of Romans

Before we can properly understand the details of a word or phrase or sentence or paragraph
or chapter of a text, we need to know something of the bigger message to which they each
contribute. In the study of Biblical exegesis, we call the bigger pictures we need to understand
to make sense of the details the context. What we are going to do in this lesson is work
together on understanding the overall structure and message of the Book of Romans so that
we will be equipped to begin to wrestle with just what specific passages in the book might mean so that
we will be able to understand and obey God’s messages to us through the pen of the apostle Paul.

In the Literal / Grammatical / Historical method of interpretation of the text of the Scriptures the
individual words; the structure of the phrases, sentences and paragraphs; and the historical setting in
which they were originally written all matter significantly. To help us get the overall big picture of the
message of the letter of Paul to the believers in the churches of Rome we are going to practice an
exegetical skill together that should help us build that big picture together from our investigation into the
text of the letter. The technique we are going to learn, and practice is that of summarizing the paragraphs
in the letter with just one sentence each. The rationale behind this is quite simple. Every word expresses
an idea.

Words put together in sentences focus multiple words on communicating one idea. Sentences put
together in paragraphs relate together in such a way that they communicate and explain one bigger idea.
When we put the bigger ideas in the letter together, we can then get a feel for the overall message of the
letter that is built out of the text itself.

In Section 17 at the end of the lessons I have provided my personal translation of the text of Romans from
the original Greek. I have divided it not into chapters which were placed externally on the text as an aid in
locating specific statements quickly many years after the writing of the letter, but into the paragraphs that

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