St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 1:8-23

Discussion

Verse 1:8-15, Purpose and Topic Subjects Introduction

• Why does Paul wish to visit Rome?
• Who are the people groups Paul mentions? (greeks, barbarians, jews, and gentiles)

Verse 1:16 and 17, The Gospel and Faith

• Why is Paul not ashamed of the gospel?
• What does he mean, "to the Jew first and also to the Greek"?
• What is faith? What does faith do for us?

Verse 1:18-23, Waxing Philosophical

• "...suppress the truth..." Does that sound like passive ignorance of God or is it more like open rebellion? How do we suppress the truth?
• "...what can be known about God is plain to them..." How is it plain? How has it been revealed? (See Genesis 1:27 - God's image in us)
• "...his invisible nature...clearly perceived..." Really? What attributes about God can we know that are so clearly perceived? Can we discover that God is a trinity for instance?
• "...they became futile in their thinking..." What does that mean? Why/How does it happen? Can we know if we have become futile in our thinking?

Think About it for Next Class

How do we know what is true? As some food for thought, consider the old definition for the "correspondence theory of truth" that states, truth is that which corresponds to reality. Is that sufficient to tell us how we know truth? Why/Why Not?