One of my favorite books in the Bible is the epistle to the Romans by Paul. John Piper calls it “The greatest letter every written”. So in that I enjoyed reading the book Reading Romans through the Centuries: From the Early Church to Karl Barth by Timothy Larsen (Editor), Jeffrey Greenman (Editor).

Romans which is the gospel according to Paul is where he addresses in 16 chapters some of Christendom’s most perplexing questions. Like what does it mean to be saved? Did God choose who would be his followers, or was it a personal choice?

Reading Romans shows how some of the greatest minds in the history of the church have wrestled with, and even been changed by, Paul’s words. For example, God used a passage from Romans to speak to the untamed heart of Augustine, and John Wesley said that after hearing Martin Luther’s comments on Romans, he felt his heart “strangely warmed.” This book will show why, in many ways, Christian theology begins and ends with Romans.

There a number of essays on such great theological thinkers like John Chrysostom, William Tyndale, Charles Hodge, Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth and others. The one I appreciated the most was the one by Timothy George on Luther and his lectures on Romans. How they were lost until discovered by Denifle in the Vatican in the late 19th century. It was a student copy of Luther’s unpublished lectures on the Epistle to the Romans delivered in Wittenberg in 1515-16.

Luther’s full scholarship and notes on the text show a Christocentric reading and a care for biblical theology, but then we are cast back to consider how Luther was still operating with notions of covenant in his Psalms lectures for the breakthrough to occur only with these Romans lectures. The book that would spur on the reformation and protestantism and change the scope of theological studies forever. Where the doctrine of justification found it home in Luther’s heart and mind.

This is, in all, a well-researched essay which falls in line with the rest of these essays in this book. This a great read for someone who wants to further there studies in the book of Romans. ( )