by Pastor Dan Baumgartner

We recently finished a sermon series on the Psalms we called “Honest Faith.”

I’d like to now invite you to the next installment of reading scripture together at Bethany that I’m calling “Thinking Faith.” The Letter to the Romans is the Apostle Paul’s most comprehensive attempt to lay out the full meaning of Jesus Christ and the implications of following Him. It is compact, full of passion and sweeping in scope. In Romans, Paul challenges our thinking, our vocabulary and even our reading ability (the man needed an editor!).

We are in good company in picking up this challenge - but hold onto your seat! As Fleming Rutledge says, Romans “is theological dynamite.” Martin Luther read it and had his world turned upside down in such a way that the Protestant Reformation emerged. John Wesley heard it at Aldersgate in 1738 and was encountered by Christ. Karl Barth, perhaps the most significant theologian of the 20 th century, wrote a commentary on Romans in 1922 that rocked much of Western Christendom.

We will preach out of Romans on Sundays starting with May 3 and stretching into August. Julia Sensenbrenner has again prepared a guide for daily reading during that time which can be found on the Welcome Table in the Lobby, or online at www.bethanypc.org.