Romans for Normal People: A Guide to the Most Misused, Problematic and Prooftexted Letter in the Bible

Paul’s letter to the Roman church is one of the most widely read, rigorously discussed and minutely dissected epistles ever written. What more could there be to say?

Plenty, it turns out.

In this highly engaging, perceptive and accessible commentary, J. R. Daniel Kirk situates Romans firmly in its first-century context, redirecting our attention from a modern-day concern with individual salvation towards the theological questions that consumed the apostle Paul. Questions such as what are the Jews and Gentiles to make of one another? Practically, how are they to live, worship and be community together in the right here and now? And, most importantly for Paul, how can God be faithful if God’s great act of salvation excludes God’s own chosen people: the covenantal community to whom all promises had been made?

By approaching the text from a first-century perspective, Kirk illuminates a letter and its writer deeply concerned with the day-to-day lives of its readers. A letter written not to provide answers and rules, but encouragement and inspiration. A writer concerned less with waiting for the new creation, than living it. And a God intent on inviting outsiders into a worldwide family.

Romans for Normal People is an invitation to lay down everything you think you know about Romans and discover the text as it is. And in doing so, encounter a letter as relevant today as it was some 2000 years ago.

Daniel Kirk (Ph.D., Duke University) is an award-winning New Testament scholar and author who spent years engaging "normal people" about Bible nerd things through blogs, podcasts, books, and speaking. He currently lives in Dallas, TX and is training to be a physician assistant.