Because I am on vacation, I did not preach on Sunday. Since I did not preach on Sunday, I don’t have any official ‘After Thoughts & Other Thoughts!’ But I do have thoughts related to Romans.
Paul wrote Romans to real people who were living in the capital city of the empire, Rome. Some were Jewish Christians who were a minority group in the mostly Gentile/Greek Christian community in Rome. All lived in the tensions, anxieties and uncertainties of their day and time.
Nero was the recently installed emperor. When Paul wrote Romans, Nero was still relatively new to the job and sane. But, within a few years, he would have his mother killed, would be accused of being responsible for the setting of the terrible fire in Rome and would have Christians brutally killed.
