Romans 1

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¹Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, and set apart for the gospel of God— ✦ ²the gospel He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, ✦ ³regarding His Son, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh, ✦ ⁴and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. ✦ ⁵Through Him and on behalf of His name, we received grace and apostleship to call all those among the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. ✦ ⁶And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. ✦ ⁷To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ✦ ⁸First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed all over the world. ✦ ⁹God, whom I serve with my spirit in preaching the gospel of His Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you ✦ ¹⁰in my prayers at all times, asking that now at last by God’s will I may succeed in coming to you. ✦ ¹¹For I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, ✦ ¹²that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. ✦ ¹³I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, how often I planned to come to you (but have been prevented from visiting until now), in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles. ✦ ¹⁴I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. ✦ ¹⁵That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. ✦ ¹⁶I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Greek. ✦ ¹⁷For the gospel reveals the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” ✦ ¹⁸The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. ✦ ¹⁹For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ✦ ²⁰For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse. ✦ ²¹For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. ✦ ²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, ✦ ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. ✦ ²⁴Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another. ✦ ²⁵They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen. ✦ ²⁶For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. ✦ ²⁷Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. ✦ ²⁸Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. ✦ ²⁹They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, ✦ ³⁰slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents. ✦ ³¹They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless. ✦ ³²Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them. ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

In this chapter

Concept The Spirit of Holiness Concept Wrath

Where this chapter connects

Rom 1 ·28 Rom 15 ·17 Col 1 ·12 1 Tim 1 ·10 2 Th 2 ·9 Rom 2 ·9 Eph 1 ·9 2 Tim 1 ·8

Christ at the center

Paul unfolds the gospel in full: Christ our righteousness received by faith, the second Adam in whom many are made righteous, in whose death and resurrection we are buried and raised.

How Romans 1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereVideoBibleProject — video overviews & word studiesBibleProject · 5–10 min · Free · evangelical
Free animated overviews of every book of the Bible, plus themes and Hebrew/Greek word studies — the best visual on-ramp to any book. (Biblical-theology, broadly evangelical, not distinctly Reformed.)
★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.
VideoMike Winger — BibleThinkerMike Winger · Free · reformed
Free verse-by-verse studies through whole books plus careful apologetics — "learn to think biblically about everything." (Reformed-leaning, non-denominational.)

Pastoral

★ Start hereSermonMLJ Trust — Martyn Lloyd-Jones sermonsMartyn Lloyd-Jones · Free · reformed
1,600+ free sermons from "the Doctor," including landmark verse-by-verse series (Romans, John, Ephesians, Acts) — a gold standard of expository preaching.
SermonGrace to You — John MacArthurJohn MacArthur · Free · reformed
Decades of careful verse-by-verse expository sermons, especially through the New Testament. (MacArthur, d. 2025; archive remains free.)
SermonGospel in Life — Tim KellerTim Keller · Free · reformed
Tim Keller's gospel-centered preaching — sermons stream free (the complete downloadable archive is paid).
ArticleRecommended NT commentaries (9Marks / Schreiner)Thomas R. Schreiner · Free · reformed
A trusted pastor-oriented guide to the best commentary on each New Testament book.
SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.
VideoVerse By Verse Ministry InternationalVerse By Verse Ministry Int'l · Free · evangelical
In-depth, verse-by-verse expository teaching book-by-book — strong for working straight through a whole New Testament book.
VideoLook at the Book — John PiperJohn Piper · Free · reformed
Watch Piper trace the logic of a passage phrase by phrase on screen — a model of close reading.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Romans videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Romans 1YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Romans 1David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on RomansMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Romans 1Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

Romans 2 →