Romans Introduction

It explains the foundation for salvation, which brings eternal life, and how it’s not earned by our own good works, but by God’s Grace, through faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross of Calvary. That faith that’s the necessary ingredient to believing and accepting salvation comes, according to Romans 10:17, by the word, and we read,

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

See, you and I hear God’s word in the form of the Gospel of Grace, The Good News about God’s Grace, and as I hear it, faith comes and its through that faith, that belief in God’s Word, that grace comes to me.

This hasn’t changed throughout the entire bible. It’s always faith that brings righteousness just like Abraham in Genesis 15:6,

And he (Abraham) believed in the LORD; and he (The Lord) counted it (his faith) to him for righteousness.

 

What does grace really mean? It’s that which someone else does to benefit us that we ourselves do not want or deserve.

Romans answers a question about Grace that’s perplexed many great thinkers and philosophers down through the ages.

You see if God is perfectly righteous He must punish sin or He’s not perfectly righteous. He just can’t select one sinner and forgive them while condemning another. A judge in a courtroom even today must punish a person once it’s proved that he’s committed a crime. He can’t just let that person off scot-free because he feels pity for him and worse still, reward him into the bargain.

Romans deals with this, how God, in His infinite wisdom, makes sinners righteous despite them being guilty and in so doing this age old question is answered.

 

This Gospel, that’s so wonderfully taught in the Epistle to the Romans, was given by revelation. It wasn’t the product of some deep human thinking or some sort of religious system. It’s pure revelation from God.

The proof of this is in the Gospel itself. The mind of man could never have invented or discovered such a scheme, a scheme that had its beginnings before the world even began and has been precisely fulfilled to the letter. God Himself had to reveal it. The more we, as Christians, study this epistle concerning the Gospel of God, the more we’ll discover this great truth; All is of God and not of man.

 

This epistle to the Romans is regarded by many experts as probably the most profound piece of writing in existence and that’s because it’s of God, and all that comes from Him is as endless and infinite as He is Himself.

The things revealed in this Gospel of God are so deep that no one can ever reach the bottom of them and yet they’re incredibly simple at the same time. This is always the mark of God, infinitely deep meaning while at the same time clearly understandable simplicity.

 

The great reformer, Martin Luther, found his purpose, his message and his deliverance in this Epistle.

He said this about it, “It is the true masterpiece of the New Testament, and the very purest Gospel, which is well worth and deserving that a Christian should not only learn it by heart, word for word, but also that he should daily deal with it as the daily bread of men’s souls. For it can never be too much or too well read or studied; and the more it is handled the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes.”

Martin Luther was a Catholic until he read and understood Romans and realised that much of the teaching that he’d dedicated his life to was wrong. He saw that he was justified by faith alone, and that it wasn’t all the other works and traditions and rituals and things that justified him.

Romans really was the key that released him from Catholicism and saved him through the gospel of the grace of God and that started a reformation and a revolution of people reading and studying their Bible to find what else the church was wrong about. It resulted in a gigantic move of the church away from its catholic domination.

People went back to the foundation of salvation, which is in Romans.

We desperately need the books of the Old Testament and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the Book of Acts to understand humanity’s need for a saviour and Who Jesus really was. The fact that He was the Son of God, God in the flesh, who died was buried and rose from the dead is confirmed for us in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the Book of Acts and Romans would offer nothing at all if Jesus was not Who He said He was. But once we have that foundation set firmly, Romans becomes the foundational book for the church, The Body of Christ today.

 

Through history we find growth and strength in the Lord the closer we are to Paul’s epistles, especially Romans.

No Christian can enjoy the Gospel and really know true deliverance unless he knows the precious passages of the first eight chapters of this Epistle.

It’s the great need of the time we live in. Many professing Christians are ignorant of what redemption is and what it includes and have just a hazy view of justification and grace. Many of us don’t have true peace with God and lack the assurance of salvation making us weak and immature in our daily walk in this world.

Many of us are ignorant regarding the deliverance from the power of sin that dwells in us!

We’re constantly striving to be somebody and to get something, which God, through His infinite grace, has already supplied in the Gospel of His Son.

Most of us live as the wretched man described in Romans 7:18-25,

For I (and this is Paul talking about himself), For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 

For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 

Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 

I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 

For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 

But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 

I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. 

 

Here in this passage, we have an answer to another age old and common question.

If I’m saved and redeemed why do I keep sinning and doing things contrary to God’s will? Maybe I didn’t get salvation like other people because I was beyond saving? Maybe I’m lost because I just can’t do good all the time?

Here another great truth is explained to us by Paul, that we as believers have two natures, one natural or “of the flesh” as Paul calls it.

That nature is part of our mortal body and is not destroyed or done away with when we believe. It’s that part of us that lives in the world till we die and as such is influenced by the world, by our own emotions and feelings and by sin. It attracts sin like a magnet.

Our other nature is spiritual, deep in our spirit and soul, where Paul calls the “Inward Man”. This nature delights in God and longs to do His will.

These two natures are at war and will be till the day we die in our bodies. The natural fleshly nature will always battle for supremacy and most of the time will win but the great lesson Paul teaches is that the fleshly nature is temporary whereas the spiritual, the mind, the soul, the inward man, is eternal.

Though we go through this earthly existence warring within ourselves, the flesh, longing to serve sin and the spiritual longing for God, one day soon the flesh will die permanently and the spiritual, the soul and the mind will live on and even that mortal body will one day be resurrected immortal and incorruptible.

 

This all makes the teaching of the Gospel of God according to Romans vitally important. It brings assurance and peace, and its teachings lead the believer into a life of victory no matter how good or bad his personal circumstances in this world are.

We desperately need these truths. Luther was right when he said, “it (Romans) can never be too much or too well read or studied.”

Even if we have grasped the great doctrines of salvation as revealed in this Epistle we need to go over them again and again. Repetition is the best teacher.

The truths revealed in Romans are increasingly denied and perverted in our present day and we need to personally keep in constant touch with them, unless they slip away from us, and we lose the reality and power of the Gospel in our lives.

 

This Epistle was written by Paul, and most historians place the date of writing as A.D. 58.

Paul was an apostle who was appointed to that role directly by Jesus Christ Himself after His resurrection and ascension and he was given a specific ministry to preach the Gospel of the Grace of God to the Gentiles, the non-Jew. He also preached this Gospel to Jews as well, but his specific ministry was to the gentiles.

 

The list of apostles in the Bible is short. There were twelve who Jesus chose from among the crowd of disciples who were following Him during His earthly ministry. They were called to leave their jobs, sell all they had, and follow the Lord into the kingdom as we see in Luke 18:22. These apostles were obedient to the call.

The apostles were to lead the remnant of the nation of Israel into the coming kingdom, and in that kingdom they’d be judges over the twelve tribes of Israel, as we see in Matthew 19:28 and Matthew 21:43.

When the twelve apostles were appointed by Jesus in His earthly ministry, the Kingdom of Heaven with Christ as it’s King and ruling from David’s throne from mount Zion was still the next age or dispensation that the world would move into.

This is what was preached, even by Jesus, and it’s called the gospel of the Kingdom, and it was preached to Jews. Jesus said in Matthew 15:24,

“I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 

And then, in Matthew 10:5-6 we see this,

These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. 

But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

During Jesus’s time in human flesh, during His earthly ministry, the setting up of the kingdom and the restoring of the nation of Israel to its true purpose was what was preached.

It was because of Israel’s constant rejection of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah during Jesus’s ministry on earth and later after the absolute proof of Who He was after the resurrection, that the Kingdom of heaven and the restoration of Israel was put on hold.

Of course, God knew this would happen, but He still gave every possible opportunity to Israel to repent and accept the long-promised Messiah. They did not.

 

Paul, who was then named Saul and known as Saul of Tarsus, was not one of these twelve. He was not a disciple of Jesus in His earthly ministry.

During the earthly ministry of Jesus and then after His death, burial and resurrection, Saul of tarsus was the exact opposite of a follower of Jesus. He un-mercilessly persecuted the followers of Jesus and was greatly feared among them.

 

Paul himself confesses that he was a blasphemer who denied the Lord, a persecutor of the true apostles and insolent and dangerous towards the followers of Christ’s disciples. We see the account of this in Acts 8 verses 1 to 3, and we see Paul admitting this in 1 Timothy 1:12-14.

However, something unprecedented happened to this man as he was on the road to Damascus one day on his way to round up and persecute the church some more.

Saul of Tarsus was miraculously saved in a manner like no other man. His name was changed to Paul, and he was commissioned, purely by the grace of God, as an apostle to go to the Gentiles.

He was not chosen by man, nor taught by man, nor was he selected by the same standards as the twelve before him.

The twelve were disciples of the Lord since the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry and had given up everything for the Lord.

But Paul, just one man, was chosen solely by God’s grace despite his unbelief and his murderous persecution, to be an apostle of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. We see this act of salvation in Acts chapter 9 and Romans 11 verse 13.

 

The apostle Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books of the so-called new testament section of our bible, nearly 50% of the entire new testament. Romans is not the first one he wrote. The first was the 1^st Thessalonians letter, written six years before Romans in 52 A.D., then 2^nd Thessalonians was written a few months later.

The place given in the Bible to Romans, immediately after the Book of Acts, is the right place, because the main theme of Romans is the Gospel of God, and, as the foundation doctrine of the church, the Body of Christ today, that needs to be revealed first.

 

Paul was staying in the house of a wealthy Corinthian named Gaius when he wrote Romans, and we see that in Romans 16:23.

Paul’s amanuensis, the person who actually wrote down what Paul dictated, was Tertius, who himself wrote a sort of footnote in Romans 16:22 which reads,

I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, greet you in the Lord.

 

It was during that three month visit to Corinth that we see in Acts 20 verse 3 when Paul wrote this letter to the Romans. He was on his way to Jerusalem, but he had a burning desire to go to Rome to visit the fledgling church there as we see in Acts 19:21.

He tells them this in the letter itself also, in Romans 15:23-25,

But now no longer having a place in these parts, and having a great desire these many years to come to you, whenever I journey to Spain, I shall come to you. For I hope to see you on my journey, and to be helped on my way there by you, if first I may enjoy your company for a while. 

He expressed the same desire to see them in Romans 1:10-11 and we read,

…making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you. 

For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established— 

 

In Romans 16:1-2 we see that a Greek Christian woman, Phoebe, was about to visit Rome, and she was undoubtedly the deliverer of this Epistle to the Roman church.

The genuineness of this Epistle has never been doubted. The critics have never been able to attack its authenticity. From the earliest time, it’s accepted to be the writing of the Apostle Paul.

 

Who was the epistle of Romans written to?

It’s addressed, in Romans 1:7,

To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. 

There was a church, a local assembly of believers at that time in Rome but we don’t know the facts relating to its origin.

The catholic church, the so-called “church of Rome”, claims that the apostle Peter headed up the church there, but this is just an invention to try and validate the claims of the papacy and there’s no historical support for the claim.

Long before Paul ever wrote this letter to the Romans, Peter had made a declaration in Jerusalem which restricted his ministry to the circumcision (to the Jews) while the Gentiles were left to Paul.

Galatians 2:9 has this,

and when James, Cephas (or Peter), and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me (Paul) and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 

Peter wrote two Epistles addressed to the scattered Jewish believers, scattered by the way largely because of Paul’s persecution.

He does what the Lord told him “to strengthen his brethren”, the Jews, and nowhere does he claim the position of head of the church at Rome.

None of the twelve apostles from Jesus’s earthly ministry had anything to do with the foundation of the local assembly in Rome and Paul confirms this by saying in Romans 15:20,

And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man’s foundation… 

If Peter or another one of the twelve had anything to do with the church in Rome, especially in founding it, Paul would certainly have made some mention of it.

Later when Paul wrote what’s known as his great prison Epistles, written from prison, he doesn’t mention a word about Peter in any connection with the church at Rome.

The assembly in Rome was composed of both Jews and Gentiles, but Gentiles made up the majority of the community, and the names mentioned in chapter 16 are nearly all Gentiles.

 

This early church community was also troubled with Judaizing, where Jewish teachers were demanding the keeping of the Mosaic law and circumcision as a means of salvation.

Paul warns the community of this in Romans 16:17-18 which reads,

Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. 

For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. 

 

This may explain why Paul spends a lot of time in the epistle instructing them on why these attempts at putting these people under the Mosaic law and circumcision was wrong and urging them to reject this false teaching.

Chapter 3 of Romans and many other places in Romans as well as in Paul’s other epistles deal with this false teaching.

 

The focus of the book of Romans is on the mystery of Christ.

Paul preaches Jesus Christ according to “quote” the revelation of the mystery even though Paul only mentions this mystery at the very end of the book in Romans 16:25-26 and we read,

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest (or revealed), and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith

However, Paul didn’t just began to mention this mystery at this place in Romans.

He’s laying a foundation based on this mystery that was revealed to us, through him, by Jesus Christ Himself, but it’s a foundation he’s laid already in his other epistles written before Romans.

Romans is on the mystery of Christ instead of the history of Christ that’s in Matthew Mark, Luke and John.

As we’ve said it’s the foundation for salvation by grace alone, not by works, by the keeping of the Mosaic law, or by Israel’s covenants or through Israel itself (as was God’s purpose for Israel).

Our salvation today is not according to the Gospel of the Kingdom that was peached up until this new age, this new dispensation, was ushered in through Paul called the dispensation of the grace of God.

Everyone’s heard of the manger in Bethlehem, the sermon on the mount, the Lord’s Prayer, the great commission, the feeding of the thousands, the walking on water and the other great and mighty miracles of Jesus, but few people know what Romans is about.

Only a saved Christian who knows the Book of Romans knows that’s where the fullness of the gospel’s explained.

 

Jesus came in the flesh in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John for Israel to see God in the flesh, the Son of God, the Messiah, Emmanuel and they rejected Him.

Romans chapter 10 deals with that rejection and how they didn’t have excuse and how they could have and should have known who He was.

At that time no man knew the mystery of the Body of Christ because it was hidden by God before the world began. Let’s read that in 1 Corinthians 2:7-8,

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 

There’s no way man could know the teaching of the Gospel of Salvation that Paul taught because it wasn’t revealed by God till after Israel’s last possible chance had gone for them to turn back to the Messiah and His kingdom.

In Romans chapter 11, Paul teaches how even though Israel rejected Christ, the Messiah, there’s a remnant of them who do believe, and that remnant will always be in the nation and Israel will be saved eventually.

That’ll be after this current age, this dispensation of Grace is finished and God’s timeline of the setting up of the kingdom on earth will begin again from where it left off after Israel’s rejection of their Messiah.

 

God had a purpose from before the world began and as he’s doing things in history and revealing things one after the other as He sees fit through prophecy. He’s teaching something through Adam and Eve, through the promise given to Abraham, by creating the nation of Israel and by the giving the law to Moses.

In Romans He’s teaching how we know what sin is by the giving of the law and how we can’t keep that law. This’s why Christ came into flesh.

In the revealing of this mystery, given to Paul after Israel’s rejection of Christ in the flesh and all that was promised to them, God’s teaching us previously hidden wisdom about what His purpose was from the beginning and Paul explains this in Romans.

There are a couple of stumbling blocks when we first pick up Romans and try to understand it.

The first maybe that Paul jams huge pieces of information into sentences and verses.

If you attend some sort of writing course today you’ll be told you should keep sentences and topics brief, so the reader doesn’t lose his way. Paul does the opposite.

A good example of this is the very first Chapter of Romans, Romans 1:1-7. Here we have 7 verses of scripture but it’s all one sentence. We’re not used to these information packed sentences in today’s world, even though they were commonplace not that long ago.

God, in His genius, has given His Word to the world through human writing. Every word of it is inspired by God Himself and yet the personal traits and mindsets and habits of the human writers is never interfered with. This is very apparent in Pauls’ writings. It’s like God said to the human writers, “I’ve given you My Words and instructions now write it according to the personality I created you with!”

 

The second stumbling block is the meaning of many of the words Paul uses. Some of them are not common today such as, sanctification, justification, atonement, circumcision, uncircumcision, condemnation, righteousness, perseverance, character, hope, reconciled, reconciliation, the transgression, judgment, deliverance, redemption, glorification, and others.

An old English literature teacher once told me that if I was reading a passage from a book and became sleepy, or lost interest, it was because I had passed over a word that I didn’t properly understand. If I go back and find that word and define it was easy to carry on with no loss of interest.

This is surely true of the Romans. We need to understand what these words mean in the context of salvation and the bible, and we will as we go along.

 

The next stumbling block happens when we don’t understand how the epistle to the Romans is written.

Paul starts at a foundation point and builds on that with each chapter. If we start in the middle we’re going to get confused because we’ve missed the previous foundation Paul’s building on.

A perfect example of this is Romans chapter 8.

The very first word on Romans 8:1 is “Therefore”. In most bibles you’ll see the word “There is” placed before the word “therefore” but you’ll notice they’re in italics, meaning they were placed there by the translators, not the writer.

Then we see the division of the bible into chapter and verse. This was added to the bible by publishers centuries after the bible was completed as the entire word of God.

So, we get a chapter and verse division between Romans 7 verse 25 and Romans 8 verse 1, however chapter 8 verse 1 begins with the word “therefore”, meaning it’s a carry on from chapter 7. Romans 8 verse 1 is an expansion of what we were given at the end of chapter 7 and if we have no clue about what chapter 7 said we’ll have very little clue about chapter 8, you see.

 

There’re three very clearly defined and simple parts or divisions in Romans.

The first eight chapters consist of the doctrine of the Gospel of God, and it consists of the introduction to the epistle and who the writer is and his credentials and authority to write it.

Then it shows the need for salvation because the whole world is guilty of sin. The righteousness of God is revealed, and justification is explained along with what it is and what it includes.

Then, we learn about being “In Christ” and what that means and the sanctification of the believer, which is his deliverance from sin and the law.

We learn how we’re children of God and joint heirs with Christ.

We see the glorification of the believer through Christ’s resurrection along with the believer’s deliverance from the guilt of sin, the power of sin and, in the future, the deliverance from the presence of sin.

This is the most important passage of writing to every person on earth because it’s the foundation of salvation and eternity.

 

Chapters 9-11 form the second part or division, which is God’s sovereign dealings with Israel.

Here we learn of Israel’s election as God’s people who He separated as His special nation and why, and then how His rejected them because of their failure and unbelief and their final rejection of Him. We also see Israel’s future restoration to their initial purpose. God’s righteousness is explained in this second part as it is also in the first section.

Much of the church, the Body of Christ today, has no clue how Israel fits into God’s overall purpose.

We call them Jews. In Joel 3:2, Jeremiah 50:6, and elsewhere, God calls them “My people.” He’s not finished with them. The Bible tells us they have an amazing future.

 

Chapters 12 to 16 make up the third part where we find the practical application for the justified and sanctified believer, as we wait for the coming glory and how we’re to live on this earth in the righteousness of God through the power of the Gospel. It’s been said that here, the gospel walks in shoe leather.

 

Just before we mentioned Pauls description of the “Wretched Man” by which he describes himself through Romans chapter 7.

This leads us into perhaps the biggest and most profound of Paul’s teaching to the body of Christ and Paul goes over it time and time again through his epistles. It’s called The Walk!

Most of us here would realise that this walk Paul speaks of is not the putting of one foot in front of the other, but is instead a way or manner of life, a custom, or how we choose to go through life, such as our walk through our school years or our walk through a particularly challenging time like the death of a loved one or a personal illness.

Paul speaks of two walks of the believer, the walk after the flesh and the walk after the spirit.

Here we have an answer to another age old and common question among believers.

If I’m saved and redeemed why do I keep sinning and doing things contrary to God’s will? Maybe I didn’t get salvation like other people because I was beyond saving? Maybe I’m lost because I just can’t do good all the time?

 

Paul explains that every believer, including him, probably the greatest of all believers, have two natures, one natural or “of the flesh” as he calls it. That nature is part of our mortal body and is not destroyed or done away with when we believe. It’s that part of us that lives with sin and lives in the world till we die and as such is influenced by the world, by our own emotions and feelings. It’s attracts sin like a magnet.

Our other nature is spiritual. Deep in our spirit and soul, where Paul calls the “Inward Man” this nature delights in God and longs to do His will.

These two natures are at war and will be till the day we die in our bodies.

The natural fleshly nature will always battle for supremacy and most of the time will win but the great lesson Paul teaches is that the fleshly nature is temporary whereas the spiritual, the mind, the soul, the inward man, is eternal.

Though we go through this earthly existence warring within ourselves, the flesh, longing to serve sin and the spiritual longing for God, one day soon the flesh will die permanently and the spiritual, the soul and the mind will live on and even that mortal body will one day be resurrected immortal and incorruptible.

We move through life, or walk, either in the flesh or the spirit.

 

Just as it was very difficult for believers in Paul’s day to shed their deeply held traditions, so is it true for many Christians today. To many, this walk, or walking after the spirit, means performing good works to display the change in our lives. Many never come to the full knowledge of the two walks because they’re either unable, or unwilling, to let go of the traditional doctrines that they’ve grown up with. To many, walking after the spirit is somehow aligned to being led by the Holy Spirit while walking after the flesh means turning our back on the Holy Spirit.

This is not so.

When we become believers we have the Holy Spirit in us, and we become part of Jesus Christ in the Body of Christ and He becomes a part of us. It doesn’t come with any special feelings or sensations or glowing lights or any other natural phenomenon. Nor does it come with miracles of healing or prophetic words.

It’s purely by faith after hearing the Word of God relating to salvation.

As we study and we become more familiar with God’s Word and His plan we begin to understand these two walks and we begin to awaken ourselves to the fact that through Jesus’s completed work on the cross we’re saved by His grace through faith, and it has nothing to do with what we feel or even if we fail to be the goody two shoes that we think we should be.

Then we start to walk after that which we actually are in the spirit, in the inner man and not what we are like in the man of flesh, completely at the mercy of this world and sin.

As we go through Romans we’ll see how Paul places this walk squarely in the realm of the mind, how we think.

Either we think with our minds conformed to the lies this world or we think with our minds renewed by the truth of the Word of God.

And that’s Roman’s outline. It’s Paul’s gospel, the gospel the grace of God, the gospel of Christ which is the theme throughout the Book of Romans. That’s why studying it and knowing the gospel that saves or the gospel of grace, or the gospel of Christ, which is the same thing because it’s Christ who saves. It’s the gospel of God because it was God who dispensed Grace and sent Christ so we should know the gospel clearly in this dispensation of grace in which we find ourselves today.

The Bible is the most important book in the world and Romans is the most important book in the Bible.

It’s the establishment book for the church today and it’s where we get our Doctrine.

Next time we’ll open the Book of Romans and begin our journey through this incredible document.

Until then, why not try and find the time to read for yourself the book of Romans from start to finish and try to do it in one sitting? If you can’t, at least try and read chapters 1 to 8. It’ll set a great foundation for studying the book verse by verse. May God bless you richly.