Theology for Everybody: Romansنموونە

At the risk of stating the obvious, the unifying center of the entire Bible is God. In fact, the very first line of Scripture says, “In the beginning, God ...” (Genesis 1:1). If we want to understand anyone or anything, we must begin with God. He is ultimately the unifying center of history, theology, and the Bible. This same principle is true of Romans and every other book of the Bible.

When instructing children about the Bible, we should not forget why we are teaching them in the first place. It’s great for them to hear about all the great heroes and even the terrible villains. But we should never forget that the Bible only has one Hero, and anyone else who does something heroic only stands in relationship to God working in the situation. Moses was a great deliverer, but God set the people free. Joshua was a great warrior, but God fought the battle. David was a great king, but only when he recognized God as the ultimate ruler. Follow that pattern, and children (and adults) will discover the main reason the Bible exists.

Bible commentator Leon Morris notes people often overlook that “Romans is fundamentally a book about God.” Morris believes that students of the letter often get caught up in the finer points of theology, such as the gospel's content, what God has done to save us, or something else, but Paul is focused on God. In fact, Morris notes the word theos, or ‘God,’ occurs 153 times in Romans, which is about every 46 words. No other New Testament book, except the short epistles of 1 Peter and 1 John, contains so many incidences per word. Acts contains 166 mentions, which means “God” occurs about every 110 words. Luke has 110 occurrences, and 1 Corinthians has 105. Otherwise, no additional books contain over 100. For that reason, Morris says, “[N]ot only does ‘God’ occur in Romans more frequently than in any other writing, it occurs more often than any other theme in that book.” Morris cautions using statistics to study Romans, but God remains a major theme. Even when Paul writes about other topics, he still does so in relation to God.

Today’s Reflection

Who or what is at the center of your spiritual world?