I confess, we didn't make it through the Bible in a Year.  We did finish the Old Testament though.  The culprit is the group that meets locally to discuss these podcasts feasted on them and didn't want to miss episodes when the group couldn't meet during the summer and the holidays.

But we pick back up with Romans!  For this podcast, I want to tie together the personal impact of Paul's letter to the Romans on the reader, with the particular ways in which the reading of Paul's letter to the Romans has shaped Western and Christian history.   In short, buckle up because we have a lot of ground to cover.  If you want to read it over a week, aim for two chapters a day.

Questions

1)  What parts of Romans were you familiar with prior to reading/listening?  Have their been key points in your life -- funerals, weddings, baptisms or rites of passage that involved a reading from Romans?

2)  Why do you think this book in particular has impacted so many?

3)  How does the fact that Paul is writing this from prison shape your understanding of the letter?

4)  Paul tends to have an urgent, if not passionate nature, a conviction that something deep is at stake with regards to what Christ has done for you, humanity and creation.  Do you find yourself drawn to faith that is more zealous:  The job of religion is to transform our fallen humanity through the brutal and glorious acts of death and resurrection OR drawn to a faith that is more "common sense", in that the job of religion is to tame our worst instincts and draw us into encounters with God that give us a sense of love existing in the world?

5)  When you think about the ethics laid out by Paul (Romans 12 and 13) -- do they sound like kind of ethics that American society guides us toward or do they have a different approach?

6)  Do you share Paul's conviction that nothing can separate us from God's love in Jesus?