The Power of the Gospel

ROMANS 1 Lovingly, Paul expresses his feelings for the church at Rome. “all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world.”[Rom 1:8] It wasn’t just that Paul was thankful for them, but he was thankful that they had embraced the faith that saves, and beyond that they shared it with others or as Paul noted “the whole world!” Have we shared beyond our neighborhood into the “whole world?” It is just as the gospel writers had said in another place; they turned the world upside down!  No wonder Paul was thanking God for them, because when salvation came to that corner of Rome, it shattered all the false ideas and pretenses that had gone before them in ages past. 

With that as a backdrop, Paul goes on to explain the depths of sin’s effect upon the masses of unbelievers still waiting to hear the gospel. Thus Paul said, he was unashamed of the gospel for it is, not was, but is, present tense, the power to change lives and if one should ignore it, it is to their own detriment! They are without excuse! The Roman’s testimony and changed lives should have been as the light like the beam of a lighthouse into the very souls of men.