Expository Notes on the Bible (Constable)

• II. COUPLETS EXPRESSING WISDOM 10:1--22:16
  Chapters 1-9, as we have seen, contain discourses that Solomon evidently wrote urging his sons to choose the way of wisdom for their lives.92At 10:1 we begin the part of the book that sets forth what the wise way is in a vari...
• The preservation of God's people within a world under divine judgment 24:1-20
  Isaiah revealed that the Lord's people are at the center of His plans for the world (cf. 14:2; 21:10). He will preserve them even though He will judge sinful humanity.227This passage contains many connections with the flood n...
• Message8
  The book of Hosea is an unusually powerful book because the prophet ministered out of his deep personal emotions. His intellectual appeals to the Israelites in his day, and to us in ours, arose out of great personal tragedy i...
• Message8
  The Book of Amos is distinctive from the other prophetic books of the Old Testament in two respects.First, the prophet Amos was not a prophet in the same sense that the other prophets were prophets. He was not recognized as a...
• C. Jonah's displeasure at God's mercy 4:1-4
  The reader might assume that the Lord's deliverance of the Ninevites from imminent doom is the climax of the story. This is not the case. The most important lesson of the book deals with God's people and specifically God's in...
• 2. Indifference to the King's message 11:20-24
  One indication of Israel's opposition to her King was the antagonism she displayed toward John and Jesus' methods (vv. 2-19). Another was her indifference to Jesus' message. Jesus and His disciples had preached and healed thr...
• The parable of the blind guide 6:39-42 (cf. Matt. 7:3-5)
  6:39 In this parable the leader evidently represents a disciple and the led someone the disciple is seeking to guide into the way of life. If the disciple is blind, he will not be able to help other blind non-disciples find t...
• 5. The explanation of Jesus' preeminence 3:31-36
  This pericope explains why Jesus must become greater. It also unites several themes that appear through chapter 3. John the Apostle or John the Baptist may be the speaker. This is not entirely clear.3:31-32 The incarnate Son ...
• Paul's sermon to the Athenians 17:22-31
  Luke probably recorded Paul's address (vv. 22-31) as a sample of his preaching to intellectual pagans (cf. 13:16-41; 14:15-18; 20:18-35).712In this speech Paul began with God as Creator and brought his hearers to God as Judge...
• Message9
  Throughout the history of the church Christians have recognized this epistle as the most important book in the New Testament. The reason for this conviction is that it is an exposition of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Luther ca...
• Outline
  I. Introduction 1:1-17A. Salutation 1:1-71. The writer 1:12. The subject of the epistle 1:2-53. The original recipients 1:6-7B. Purpose 1:8-15C. Theme 1:16-17II. The need for God's righteousness 1:18-3:20A. The need of all pe...
• II. THE NEED FOR GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS 1:18--3:20
  Paul began his explanation of the gospel by demonstrating that there is a universal need for it. Every human being needs to trust in Jesus Christ because everyone lacks the righteousness that God requires before He will accep...
• A. The need of all people 1:18-32
  Perhaps Paul began by showing all people's need for God's righteousness first because he was the apostle to the Gentiles and his Roman readers were primarily Gentiles. His argument in 1:18-3:20 moves inward through a series o...
• B. The need of good people 2:1-3:8
  In the previous section (1:18-32), Paul showed mankind condemned for its refusal to respond appropriately to general revelation. In this one (2:1-3:8), His subject is more man's failure to respond to special revelation. Since...
• 1. God's principles of judgment 2:1-16
  Before showing the guilt of moral and religious people before God (vv. 17-29), Paul set forth the principles by which God will judge everyone (vv. 1-16). By so doing, he warned the self-righteous.2:1-4 "Therefore"seems more l...
• 2. The guilt of the Jews 2:17-29
  Even though the Jews had the advantages of the Mosaic Law and circumcision, their boasting and fruitlessness offset these advantages. Divinely revealed religion is no substitute for trust and obedience toward God. Verses 17-2...
• 3. Answers to objections 3:1-8
  In chapter 2 Paul showed that God's judgment of all people rests on character rather than ceremony. He put the Jew on the same level as the Gentile regarding standing before God. Still God Himself made a distinction between J...
• C. The guilt of all humanity 3:9-20
  Having now proven all people, Jews and Gentiles, under God's wrath Paul drove the final nail in mankind's spiritual coffin by citing Scriptural proof.3:9 The phrase "What then?"introduces a conclusion to the argument that all...
• III. THE IMPUTATION OF GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS 3:21--5:21
  In beginning the next section of his argument Paul returned to the major subject of this epistle, the righteousness of God (v. 21; cf. 1:17). He also repeated the need for faith (v. 22; cf. 1:16) and summarized his point that...
• 4. The priority of faith to the promise concerning headship of many nations 4:13-17
  The Jews believed that they had a claim on Abraham that Gentiles did not have. Obviously he was the father of their nation, and this did place him in a unique relationship to his physical descendants. However, they incorrectl...
• D The benefits of justification 5:1-11
  Paul's original readers would have had another question because of what he had written in chapters 1-4. Is this method of justification safe? Since it is by faith, it seems quite unsure. Paul next gave evidence that this meth...
• IV. THE IMPARTATION OF GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS chs. 6--8
  The apostle moved on from questions about why people need salvation (1:18-3:20), what God has done to provide it, and how we can appropriate it (3:21-5:21). He next explained that salvation involves more than a right standing...
• 3. God's freedom to elect 9:14-18
  The question of fairness arises whenever someone makes a choice to favor one person over another. Paul dealt with the justice of God in doing what He did in this pericope."These verses are a detour from the main road of Paul'...
• 4. God's mercy toward Israel 9:19-29
  Next Paul dealt with a question that rises out of what he had just argued for, namely God's freedom to extend mercy to whom He will. Is it not logical that if God is going to show mercy to whom He will in spite of human actio...
• VI. THE PRACTICE OF GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS 12:1--15:13
  In contrasting chapters 1-11 with chapters 12-16 of Romans, perhaps the most important distinction is that the first part deals primarily with God's actions for humanity, and the last part deals with people's actions in respo...
• 1. The folly of judging one another 14:1-12
  The apostle dealt first with the importance of not judging one another. This was a particular temptation to those Christians who believed that they should refrain from some practices that they believed were displeasing to God...
• 4. The importance of accepting one another 15:7-13
  This section concludes Paul's instructions concerning the importance of accepting one another as Christians that he began in 14:1. In this section the apostle charged both the strong and the weak.15:7 "Accept"repeats Paul's o...
• Bibliography
  Alford, Henry. The Greek Testament. 4 vols. New ed. Cambridge: Rivingtons, 1881.Allen, Kenneth W. "Justification by Faith."Bibliotheca Sacra135:538 (April-June 1978):109-16.Auden, W. H. For the Time Being. London: Faber and F...
• Once dead to God 2:1-3
  These verses are really preliminary to Paul's main point. They describe the Christian's condition as an unbeliever before God justified him or her. In the Greek text verses 1-7 are one sentence. The subject of this sentence i...
• The fate of beast-worshippers 14:9-12
  14:9 A third angel followed the former two with a third message in this sequence warning the beast-worshippers of their judgment (cf. 13:11-17). The goal of this warning is to alert potential beast-worshippers to their doom, ...