From the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans beginning in verse eighteen

First off, I would like to acknowledge that I am strolling into controversy central here because this passage is used in defence of the Church's condemnation of homosexuality. It is not my intent to directly support or dispute this save with what the Scriptures plainly tell us to be true.
With that in mind, a brief note on the preceding text. Paul had just quoted "the righteous shall live by faith" and the following verses contrast that severely.

¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

The wrath of God is not to be taken lightly, so we immediately know that the men who are declared here to be ungodly and unrighteous are in trouble. The words "ungodliness" and "unrighteousness" both mean basically the same thing. They mean anything that is contrary to God's commands. We also call this sin. We know that with this sin, they are suppressing the truth. It does not say right out which truth, but we can assume that it is the existence of God pretty reasonably based on the following verses.

¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

The Apostle Paul makes it clear that these ungodly men knew about God. He points out specifically the eternal power and divine nature (the state of being God) were clear right from the beginning. That these things were visible in the created world that we live in. Because God has been so obviously clear the whole time, the ungodly men do not have an excuse for their actions. Then Paul explains some of the results of this sin of failing to acknowledge God. 

²¹ For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

"Futile in their thinking" would indicate that everything that they thought became totally useless. The reference to darkened hearts is metaphorical and refers to the fact that they are lost in not understanding what is right. The main point here is that the ungodly men completely lost their ability to reason and see what is right as a result of their refusal to honour God.

²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

This is a pretty blatant reference to the practice idolatry. Idolatry is taking the true God and replacing him with something. Many modern interpretations would argue that that something can be a desire, such as sports or money. It is clear from this text that the Apostle Paul was referring to some kind of other false god. The text says that they did this as fools, as idiots despite claiming to be wise. 

²⁴ Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.

Paul states twice that because of this idolatry, the ungodly men have fallen into more sin. First is the impurity of the lusts of their hearts. This would indicate that they became corrupt in what they wanted. The began to desire more sin. The reference to the dishonouring of their bodies is translated right out as sexual impurity in the New International Version, whereas Young, in his Literal Translation, left in dishonouring, but also included the idea of uncleanliness. It is clear that this was a sinful act and it came as a result of them worshipping things other than God. 

²⁶ For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; ²⁷ and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

These verses contrast what is "natural" against what is "unnatural",  more literally translated as being counter or against nature. The text identifies a natural relation for a man to be with a woman, and assumedly that means for women the natural relation would be with a man.The Apostle Paul refers to these as "dishonourable passions" when men committed these acts with other men and women likewise. Towards the end, this lust and vileness is identified as being the penalty for this idolatry. The next verses confirm that by saying:

²⁸ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

This verse reaffirms that it is the rejection of God that brought about this desire to sin. The Apostle Paul goes on to give a list of more of the types of sins that these godless men got themselves into.

²⁹ They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹ foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

 A pretty intimidating list.First it says that they are filled with . . . And then again they are filled with . . . And then it characterises them by saying they are . . . The final verse of this passage offers a sort of summary to the whole point of this passage.

³² Though they know God's decree that those who practise such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practise them.

It states that in spite of the fact that they know what is right, they practice these things, and thus deserve to die. The final clause, though, seems to run contrary to logic. It states that they not only physically do the sin themselves, but that they also lend approval to others that sin as well. It seems that when somebody gives a "not only, but also" phrase, they intend that the latter item is worse. I would argue that the meaning of the passage is not that, but rather the passage implies that they are equally bad. It seems to say that it is just as bad to give approval to these things as it is to be physically doing them yourself.
This passage explains the issue with denying God and turning to idolatry. It gives us a clear picture of the results of this kind sin. It paints a grim picture of life without God.

From the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans beginning in verse one

The beginning is a very good place to start. So in my quest through the epistles, I begin with the apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, which begins with an introduction to the author and a statement of the original audience:

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, ² which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, ³ concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh ⁴ and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, ⁵ through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, ⁶ including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
⁷ To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:

The apostle Paul puts his name to the letter, which helps us as readers. Those who have been reading the scriptures straight through or have been exposed to the Scriptures for a while will remember that Paul became a Christian in a rather spectacular show of God's power and love. I will not retell the story, but will cite it: Acts IX.i-xix.
After giving his name, Paul kind of gives us an overview of his purpose after his conversion. He says first and foremost that he is a servant of Christ. Paul has dedicated his life to serving Christ and he puts that right out there for everyone to see. Then he says that he is called to be an apostle. This is a specific place in the early church that was responsible for teaching and discerning doctrine in the early church. He tells us a little bit about being an apostle in the next phrase as he says also that he is "set apart for the Gospel of GOD".
Later on, he will get around to explaining exactly what that Gospel is, but right here he explains that that Gospel was promised before the coming of Christ. Throughout the Old Testament and the period of the Law of Moses, God announced that Christ was coming. The Jewish people knew that a Saviour was coming, which makes the next phrase all that more important to understand. Paul comments that this Gospel that was promised is all about his Son. We know that this must be Christ who identifies as the son of God, even though he came from the line of David. There is an important distinction we must know about Christ made here: Christ in flesh and Christ in power.
Christ came as a descendent, a great-great-great-great grand son, of David. That was his physical flesh, but his power was from the Spirit that we understand to be God because of his resurrection. We know that God is the only one who can raise from the dead, so this is a clear claim to the power of God for Christ. So far, the apostle Paul has been talking about the nature of Christ. How he was promised before, he came from David's family, and had the power of God. Christ was very unique in this. His resurrection sets him apart from the rest of humanity.
Paul goes on to comment that it is Christ that he received grace and the power to be an apostle, which we discussed earlier. This power of apostleship, Paul Says, allows him to teach others to be obedient to Christ. The reason that we as believers are to be obedient is to promote the name of Christ in the "nations". The nations as used here would include all of humanity. He makes a special comment about those who are called to Christ. That would be the church that the apostle Paul is writing to.
Paul says that it is Christ through whom we get grace and he gets that authority to teach obedience to Christ as an apostle.
The audience is the believers in Rome, those who have already trusted in the grace of the Gospel. It should be noted that Paul does not identify a single, unified church, but all those who believe. Chapter sixteen, at the end of the book, identifies the church of Prisca and Aquila in their house among his personal greetings. It is not for certain, but these indicate that Rome may have had many small house churches at the time of this letter.
All of this has been building up to this: 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

In verse eight, Paul makes an interesting comment:

⁸ First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

He says that he thanks God for the church in Rome. Paul is grateful for them because their faith is famous all over the world. Of course, we are speaking only the Roman world, but that is still an accomplishment. In the day, Rome was the centre of politics and culture and for the early church to have a clearly established presence there was a big deal.

⁹ For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you ¹⁰ always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.

The spiritual sense with which the apostle Paul lives his life is made even more clear in these verses. He calls of God to be his witness, meaning that he is really serious about what he is about to say. Then he qualifies, or gives a little description of, who God is. God is the one that Paul serves, which he brings out earlier when he calls himself a servant of Christ. Then he comments that he prays without ceasing, that is stopping, for something. That is he will be able to come to them. The apostle Paul made it a regular habit to go around to the multiple churches and visit them. Often, when he couldn't, he would write them a letter like this. Paul still wants to visit, and he goes on to explain why:

¹¹ For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— ¹² that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine.

At first, he says something that seems a little weird, to give a spiritual gift to the believers in Rome? We know that the Holy Spirit is the one who gives out spiritual gifts, generally not the apostles. He clarifies in verse 12 when he says that he wants to allow them to encourage each other. Paul wants to go to the church at Rome so that he can see their faith and get hope from that, and they can see his faith and get hope from that. He continues explaining how he wants to come and visit the church at Rome:

¹³ I want you to know, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.

"Reap some harvest"? This phrase seems really odd at first, but we remember back to Luke X.ii where Our Lord himself makes a comment about how the harvest is plentiful. This has been understood to mean that there are many who are unsaved who are to get saved. Paul knows this and makes a reference to that as he says that he wants to come to Rome and share the Gospel there. However, in verse 14, Paul begins to explain why he hasn't been able to come:

¹⁴ I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

Most translations say "obligation", and the Authorised Translation says "debtor". I do not believe that this should be taken to mean that Paul owes them money, instead, we should look at how Paul makes the two divisions. Between "Greeks" and "barbarians", that covers the whole of the world, as does "wise" (sometimes understood to be "educated") and "foolish" (likewise "uneducated"). This might be taken to mean that Paul is obligated to preach the Gospel to all people. That as much as he wants to preach the Gospel in Rome, there are other people who need his preaching too.

¹⁵ So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. ¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

I will admit upfront that verse 16 is often taken right from it's proper context and shoved into whatever mold a speaker wants to fit it in. In this sense, Paul is trying to explain why he want to preach in Rome so badly. It is because he is proud of the Gospel. He wants everyone to know because of how powerful it is. The Gospel is the saving power of Christ for all that believe and Paul makes another distinction that ends up covering the whole world: Jews and Greeks. The fact that it was to the Jews first is a reference to the fact that originally, the Gospel was for the Jews, but when they rejected it, the Gospel went to the Greeks, the gentiles. And then, the apostle Paul makes a comment about the nature of the Gospel:

¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

He says that the Gospel is how God shows his righteousness, that is freedom from sin. The righteousness is "from faith to faith", or it starts with faith and is meant for faith. Paul then quotes Habakkuk II.iv in saying “The righteous shall live by faith.” This is important because this simple phrase describes what God finds pleasing "faith".

Even though this section may seem to be just the intro and the precursor to the book of Romans, we can learn a lot. Paul gives a quick overview of Christ which gives us a succinct statement of who it is we believe in. Paul then expresses his desire to come and preach, even though he has tried and can't come yet. In this, we understand the character of Paul a little better. He makes it clear that he just wants to keep preaching and gives us his reason. That the Gospel is the very power of God. This is the same Gospel that we have, that we profess. This is the same Gospel that other sections of Romans is famous for giving a good overview of. 

Mission Statement

In the past few years, I have made a note that among the Christian community, the Holy Scriptures have been taught less and less, or less and less accurately. The result has been a damaging weakness to the Church which has put the very Gospel at risk of corruption.We must be very wary of this trend because should the Gospel become corrupt, the Church has not only become unproductive, but has become a tool of the devil in insuring that souls may not believe and be saved. We must avoid this at all costs and the tool to do so is the Holy Scriptures. It literally fills our pews and homes, but is more ignored than ever.

It is easy to blame the teachers in the church for their lack of teaching the Scriptures. I am truly convinced that they are not intentionally submitting to the work of Satan or working with the dark powers. However, it can be assured that the devil rejoices in this trend none the less. It is also easy to want to rise up and declare them wrong. However, that is the job of the Lord when he come to judge the works of his church, the Apostle James confirms this. The best that we can do is insure that we ourselves as a Christian expose ourselves to the scriptures.

In the interest of insuring my exposure to the true Gospel as controlled by the Scriptures, I have endeavoured to set about working through the Epistles of the accepted protestant New Testament. The reason I have selected this part of the Scriptures is twofold. The first is because the Epistles are not incredibly difficult to teach from, in contrast to Job. The second is that the Epistles were written mostly to struggling churches, which I would qualify our current churches as.

I am of the intent to use a standard Literal-Grammatical-Historical-Rhetorical method of hermeneutics. I have found this to most accurately find the original meaning of the text. I will try to avoid having any attachment to previous errors in interpretation and take the text as intended. I find that much of the interpretation that the Scriptures have been subjected to over the years unfairly tie them to teachings that they never intended. As I work through the text, I will create what hopefully will become an archive of starting places as well. As I have begun to speak in my church from time to time, these may be used in future lessons that I may teach as a place to jump off from when preparing a lesson.

I must address that I write this as a personal project of growth, but as it is part of the public internet, there is no telling who may reach this. There are so many perspectives in the world, and even in just the Christian tradition. I feel that I am putting a disclaimer when I say that I do not intend to offend or upset anyone, but that is truly not my intent. Should anybody read this and be offended by something I have said, communicate with me about it. It is entirely possible that I made a mistake, in which case I am eager to correct it. It is also possible that something was read improperly and I need to provide a better explanation. It also may happen that your understanding runs contrary to the plain teachings of Scripture. I ask that nobody storm away angry, but seek understanding above all else.

There should be a note given that as much as I care for the Scriptures and want to see them handled properly, the Lord has also given me some challenges to overcome. My use of the English language may be, from time to time, wrong. This includes everything from issues with spelling and the misuse of spell check's in correcting it to issues arising from my affinity for incredibly long sentences which I share with the Apostle Paul. I will do my best to eradicate such mistakes, but some will also slip through. I apologise for these and request that these be treated with respect. If a reader wishes me to correct these, by all means contact me. Just know that I am trying to apply as much care as I can in writing.

In writing, I have also found it necessary to use an English translation of the Scriptures. This comes partly from the fact that my Greek is too weak to provide my own translation of the Scriptures and partly that my audience does not largely understand Latin, so my use of the Vulgate is limited to my banner photo. (The translation of that is "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:" [Authorised Translation], by the way). I will use, as much as possible, the English Standard Version (ESV). I use this out of respect for the translation work of the council of translation and will not profit from its use. I am, however, a big fan of comparing the various translations into English to get a clearer view of the intent of the Biblical languages. Keep your eyes out for citations.

One of the issues that comes with the use of an English translation, though, is the artificial division of the text by scholars throughout the years. These include both chapter and verse divisions as the Epistles were originally written as a single continuous text. While holding a personal disdain for these artificial divisions, I acknowledge them as being useful for the communal study of the Scriptures, so have left them in the text as I write. Many translations, the ESV included, also put topical section divisions, which I find more useful, but also foreign to the text. I may reference these from time to time, but have omitted them from my printing these in the text. It is the tradition also of the ESV publishers to publish their translations with the words of Christ in red. I have taken it a step further and will publish all Scriptures in a slightly reddened text to distinguish my mortal, fallible words from those of the immortal, infallible words of God.

I have also created my own artificial divisions of the Scriptures in selecting to publish my teaching in posts. I have used my judgement to create these divisions in the name of practicality, but would like to quote the last person I asked about the length of a text I intended to teach. "You've got thirteen verses? You could teach for thirteen weeks. But, for your purpose, thirteen verses will be fine for a lesson." Every word (and thus verse) is inspired and thus equally important to read and understand. Context is important too, so I seek to strike a balance.

I would also like to acknowledge that I find that hymns and Christian songs often provide a beautiful way of expressing ideas, but as the intent of this blog is a commitment to the teachings of the Scriptures, I will try to avoid their use. However, sometimes I can't help my self. And before anyone jumps on me for a lack of self control, I would remind you that we are taught by the Scriptures to control our flesh, not out faith. My occasional use of music is an outpouring of faith.

Above all else, I want this whole blog to be an outpouring of faith. I will admit that I will have to take care to not allow this to become an outpouring of my pride in my intellectual prowess. The centre of my life must be the Gospel and the Scriptures in all things. My pride in my own abilities will detriment the teachings of the Scriptures and every word of teaching out of pride will bring judgement upon me. In light of this I will endeavour to undertake all humility that this may be a work pleasing to God.

In light of this I intend and commit to undertake a true teaching of the Scriptures as to communicate the truth of the Gospel and conduct of the Christian life to insure that the pleasure of my God and Saviour be fulfilled through my life, his church, and the conduct thereof. I pray for God's blessing in this and all my ways that it may not be what I do, but what he has done in the sacrificing of his son for my sins. Amen.