Small Group Material - Romans 2 (Ch 1. 8 - 13)
The Power of God: Paul longs to see the Roman Christians
Welcome
What’s one place you’ve never seen that you’d like to visit?
Worship
‘I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you’ Ro 1.8
Paul is full of thanksgiving.
Sing the hymn, ‘Praise to the Lord the almighty’
Take some of the phrases and turn them into thanksgiving prayers. Why not pray round in a circle and keep praying until you have prayed right through the hymn? It is bursting with Christian truth!!
Word
1. v.8 Why would news about the faith of the Roman church have spread far and wide?
Read Romans 16. 1 - 16. Don’t worry about the difficult names! What do you notice about some of the Christians mentioned here?
Leader’s notes: Tom Wright suggests that there may have only been a hundred Christians in a city of over a million people and that the majority of them would have lived down in the poorer area by the Tigris River which regularly flooded. The rich lived up in the hills!
2. What do v.8 - 13 reveal about Paul’s attitude to the Roman Christians? (What is Paul praying for when he thinks of them? Why do you think he was so encouraged and motivated by them?)
3. What do you think Paul is talking about in v.11? How have you experienced this yourself?
4. Who was the Paul in your life who encouraged you in the early days of your Christian faith?
Witness
‘Because your faith is being reported all over the world’ Ro 1.8b
Some astounding facts:
In 1900, there were 10m Christians in Africa; by 2000, it was 360m; by 2025, it will be 633m.
Latin America, by 2025, 640m; Asia, by 2025, 460m.
By 2050, there will be over 3 billion Christians; one and a half the number of Moslems!!
By 2050, there will be nearly as many Pentecostal Christians as there are Moslems in the world!
Pray together as a group for Iraq (look it up on the Open Doors website), a country that is in danger of loosing its Christian population altogether.
Pray also, the the knowledge of the faith of Jesus will spread down your streets and throughout the parish.
1Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy
health and salvation!
All ye who hear,
Now to His temple draw near;
Sing now in glad adoration!
2. Praise to the Lord, who o’er all
things so wondrously reigneth,
Who, as on wings of an eagle,
uplifteth, sustaineth.
Hast thou not seen
How thy desires all have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
3. Praise to the Lord, who hath fearfully,
wondrously, made thee!
Health hath vouchsafed and, when
heedlessly falling, hath stayed thee.
What need or grief
Ever hath failed of relief?
Wings of His mercy did shade thee.
4. Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper
thy work and defend thee,
Who from the heavens the streams of
His mercy doth send thee.
Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do,
Who with His love doth befriend thee.
5. Praise to the Lord! Oh, let all that
is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come
now with praises before Him!
Let the Amen
Sound from His people again;
Gladly for aye we adore Him.
1Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy
health and salvation!
All ye who hear,
Now to His temple draw near;
Sing now in glad adoration!
2. Praise to the Lord, who o’er all
things so wondrously reigneth,
Who, as on wings of an eagle,
uplifteth, sustaineth.
Hast thou not seen
How thy desires all have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
3. Praise to the Lord, who hath fearfully,
wondrously, made thee!
Health hath vouchsafed and, when
heedlessly falling, hath stayed thee.
What need or grief
Ever hath failed of relief?
Wings of His mercy did shade thee.
4. Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper
thy work and defend thee,
Who from the heavens the streams of
His mercy doth send thee.
Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do,
Who with His love doth befriend thee.
5. Praise to the Lord! Oh, let all that
is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come
now with praises before Him!
Let the Amen
Sound from His people again;
Gladly for aye we adore Him.