Study Desk

"I want you to know that God has also sent his salvation to all nations, and they will listen!"

He boldly preached about the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ, and no one stopped him.

From Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus. God called me to be an apostle and chose me to tell the Good News.

God promised this Good News long ago through his prophets, as it is written in the Holy Scriptures.

Through Christ, God gave me the special work of an apostle, which was to lead people of all nations to believe and obey. I do this work for him.

To all of you in Rome whom God loves and has called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

First I want to say that I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because people everywhere in the world are talking about your faith.

God, whom I serve with my whole heart by telling the Good News about his Son, knows that I always mention you

every time I pray. I pray that I will be allowed to come to you, and this will happen if God wants it.

I am not ashamed of the Good News, because it is the power God uses to save everyone who believes—to save the Jews first, and then to save non-Jews.

The Good News shows how God makes people right with himself—that it begins and ends with faith. As the Scripture says, "But those who are right with God will live by faith."

God shows his anger because some knowledge of him has been made clear to them. Yes, God has shown himself to them.

There are things about him that people cannot see—his eternal power and all the things that make him God. But since the beginning of the world those things have been easy to understand by what God has made. So people have no excuse for the bad things they do.

They knew God, but they did not give glory to God or thank him. Their thinking became useless. Their foolish minds were filled with darkness.

They traded the glory of God who lives forever for the worship of idols made to look like earthly people, birds, animals, and snakes.

Because they did these things, God left them and let them go their sinful way, wanting only to do evil. As a result, they became full of sexual sin, using their bodies wrongly with each other.

They traded the truth of God for a lie. They worshiped and served what had been created instead of the God who created those things, who should be praised forever. Amen.

Because people did those things, God left them and let them do the shameful things they wanted to do. Women stopped having natural sex and started having sex with other women.

People did not think it was important to have a true knowledge of God. So God left them and allowed them to have their own worthless thinking and to do things they should not do.

and say evil things about each other. They hate God. They are rude and conceited and brag about themselves. They invent ways of doing evil. They do not obey their parents.