July 12

NT -- Romans 1:1-17
The New Testament is broken into 3 different sections, The Gospels and Acts, The Letters, and Revelations. The Gospels and Acts are more or less a history of Jesus' life on earth and the early years of the church specifically where Paul was concerned.
The Letters are grouped first by author, then by length. Paul is considered to be the author of the majority of the letters and he begins this section.
The mission statement of the letter to the Romans is in vs. 17 "The righteous will live by faith."
According to our scripture reading today, Paul had not yet been to Rome. This indicates that the church in Rome was not of his 'planting'. Acts does not mention a journey to Rome until Paul is brought there as a prisoner. However, there are numerous personal greetings so apparently, he knew some people in the church.
It is not known how the church in Rome got started although there is church tradition that Peter began the church. Acts does not mention Peter going to Rome so this may or may not be true.
In any regard, Paul does seem to have sway over the folks in the church.
Based on other statements in the letter, it was probably written between 54-59 AD. Nero was emperor and there were no active persecution of Jews or Christians during this time.
The conflict in the church seemed to be between the Jews and the Gentiles (I told you that you would be tired of hearing about this...) and the power in the church seemed to be fairly evenly split along those lines.
Enjoy!