Bible Journaling: Book of Romans

In this letter to the believers in Rome, Paul writes a beautiful and moving encouragement that still carries that message for readers today.  This book reads like a how-to-manual for Christlike living.

For a broader view of this book of the Bible, we encourage you to watch this video:

Bible journaling tip: 

In reality, Paul was a person just like us. He never saw Jesus face-to-face like the disciples did, and God didn’t give him special abilities that are not also available to all believers according to the Bible. Yet he did so much! Paint / draw a map of Paul’s missionary journeys adding some landmarks along the way. Use a real accurate map that you can find either in your Bible or on the internet. Make yours beautiful and creative- have fun with it! 

*This is where he encountered God for the first time. *This is the journey he took as a blind man. *This is where he stayed until someone came to pray for him and his eyes were healed. *This is where the ship got stranded! *This is where he was in jail.

LOOK UP (information): encounter God through the Scripture 

Author:

This is the first of many letters in the New Testament that were written by Paul. See what you can find about this unique character in the Bible and create a kind of timeline about his life. Authorship is very important, as we have seen now with the four Gospels and how different they are. Even though the disciples experienced the same Jesus, they had different ways of sharing this news. 

What is unique about Paul’s writing style? What is a word that he uses often? What is something that he says that you haven’t found in one of the other books of the Bible? 

Audience:

The recipient of this letter was the believers in Rome. Look up some images of what Rome looked like in Biblical times and keep this in mind when reading the letter. When they say they walked somewhere, imagine those streets. If you can find images of some archeological findings like pots or tools - remember those when you read about meals or households. How would that audience understand some of the metaphors that Paul uses in his writing, like building or boxing? The city of Rome was very powerful and filled with military soldiers. How did you think this affected these believers?

History:

Paul used to persecute Christians before his conversion. He was a scholar of the Jewish Scriptures - this means that he believed that a Messiah would come and all, but he was not convinced that Jesus was that person. He had a very good understanding of all of what we call the Old Testament. Can you see any places in the book of Romans where he points back to that?

Genre:

Romans is the first letter in the New Testament - there are 21! This means that we need to get familiar with the format and style of letters. See which of these parts you can identify in the book of Romans: introducing the author, stating the purpose for writing, exhortation, greeting, sending regards.

LOOK IN (revelation): contemplate / reflect on our own lives

Key verse:

Romans 10:9 NIV

If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Inspiration:

Let’s look in and reflect on ourselves for a moment. When we read the Bible, we need to also allow the Bible to read us. The book of Romans is a particularly helpful mirror to look in - Paul’s way of speaking is more direct than many of the other New Testament authors. 

In this verse above, we see clear instructions to salvation. Have you declared that Jesus is Lord? Have you questioned whether Jesus was truly raised from the dead? Does it say anything about how we can lose that salvation again? What does the word ‘Lord’ mean - and what does it mean if we say Jesus is Lord of our lives?

LOOK OUT(transformation): respond with creative worship action  

Drawing prompt:

Paint a picture of what you imagine Paul to look like. He wrote about thirteen of the New Testament letters so you can paint him at a writing table - what writing tools did people use in that time? Did he use a scribe or did he write himself? What city was he in when he wrote? How old was he when he wrote? 

When we do activities like this, it allows us to spend time meditating on the Bible. You can listen to an audio reading of the book of Romans while you paint, or you can listen to some worship music. 

Bible Journey with HolyJot:

Here are some questions / prompts provided by the HolyJot community. 

• What does Paul say about the law and the commandments? (Romans 7:12)
• Does the Christian still possess the old nature? (Romans 7:14-18)
• Who does Paul say that he thanks God through in this verse? (Romans 7:25)

Follow this link to dive into this book with an online Bible Study group.

Writing prompt:

Paul writes about how we die to sin when we come alive in Christ. Write a page-long prayer where you talk to God about this concept. You can talk about sin in your own life and how you are trusting Him to guide you in this new identity to be unaffected by sin. Pray that sin will lose all its power in your life and that you will become truly free in Christ.

Prayer:

God, I want to thank you for the book of Romans. Thank you for revealing yourself to Paul that day on his way to Damascus, so that I might read this letter today. Guide me with your Spirit as I go about my day that I might remember and reflect on what I have journaled about here. Let my response to this text be worship unto you!