Romans 1
Romans 1 — Commentary and Meaning
The short answer
Romans 1 opens the longest and most carefully argued letter Paul ever wrote. He introduces himself to a church he has never visited, and almost immediately states his thesis: he is "not ashamed of the Good News," because it is "the power of God for salvation" for everyone who believes (1:16). That single sentence sets the agenda for the whole letter. For Paul, the gospel is not merely information or advice—it is an announcement that actually does something.
N. T. Wright helps us feel the force of that claim. As he puts it, when the news that Jesus is Lord is announced, things change: lives, hearts, situations. New communities form around people who believe the message and give Jesus their deepest loyalty. That transformation, Wright observes, is the evidence Paul points to—and it remains as real now as it was in the first century, even when people dismiss the whole thing as folly.
But the chapter has a second half, and it is bracing. From 1:18 onward, Paul describes a humanity that knew something of God through creation but refused to honor him, trading "the glory of the incorruptible God" for images and lesser loyalties. Three times Paul says God "gave them up"—to their desires, their passions, their darkened thinking. It can sound as though God is the one pushing people downhill.
William Loader's close reading resists that conclusion. To read the passage that way, he argues, would be to blame God for the sin. In Romans 1, Paul clearly assumes that people are responsible both for their feelings and for what they do with them—and 1:32 makes the point unmistakable, laying the blame for wrongdoing squarely on people themselves. The chapter holds both truths at once: the gospel's real power to save, and our real accountability for how we live.
What scholars say
These excerpts answer two questions Romans 1 raises: what does Paul mean by calling the gospel God's power (Wright points to changed lives and new communities as the evidence), and who is to blame for the wrongdoing in 1:18–32 (Loader shows Paul holds people, not God, responsible for their feelings and actions)?
“In other words, as he says in Romans 1.16, the gospel, the royal announcement that Jesus is Lord, because God has raised him from the dead, is ‘God’s power for salvation to those who believe’. When this announcement is made, people discover to their astonishment that things change. Lives change. Human hearts change. Situations change. New communities come into being, consisting of people grasped by the message, believing it’s true despite everything, falling in love with the God they find to be alive in this Jesus, giving Jesus their supreme loyalty. That is the evidence Paul has in mind. ‘To us who are being saved, it is God’s power.’ That is as true in the twenty-first century as it was in the first – however much people today, exactly as in Paul’s day, defend their own power and prestige by declaring that it’s all folly.”
“That would be to blame God for the sin. Paul does say in 11.7–10 that God hardens people, but here in Romans 1 he clearly assumes that people are responsible both for their feelings and for what they do with them. That shows also in 1.32, which clearly lays blame on people for their actions.”
What it means for you
Romans 1 asks two honest questions of any reader. First: do you expect the message about Jesus to actually change anything—your habits, your loyalties, your community? Paul stakes everything on the claim that it does, and Wright reminds us that transformed lives are still the evidence.
Second: are you willing to own your choices? It is tempting to explain our worst patterns as things that simply happen to us. Paul won't allow that move—not for his ancient audience and not for us. Taking responsibility isn't meant to crush you; it's the doorway to the rescue the rest of Romans describes.
Romans 1 in context
Romans 1 is the doorway to Paul's letter to the Roman churches, written before he had ever visited them. Verses 1–15 are his greeting and his longing to come to Rome; verses 16–17 state the letter's thesis about the gospel as God's saving power; and verses 18–32 begin a long indictment of human rebellion that continues through chapter 3. Paul builds the case that everyone—Gentile and Jew alike—stands accountable before God, so that the good news of chapters 3–8 lands with full weight.
Passages we cover in this chapter