The book of Romans is Paul's most comprehensive statement of the gospel. All the Reformers saw Romans as the God-given key to understanding all of Scripture, since here Paul brings together all of the Bible's greatest themes. The study of Romans is vitally necessary for the spiritual health and insight of the Christian.

Romans was written by the Apostle Paul in about A.D. 56 while he was staying in Corinth (Acts 20:2-3). How the Christian Faith originally came to Rome is not known. While the papacy maintains that the Apostle Peter founded the Church at Rome, this is unlikely and unsupported, although historians believe that Peter may have visited Rome, and may have written his first Epistle there. The book makes evident that Paul did not establish the Church at Rome, and for all his extensive journeys had not been there. That this letter was received, not only by the Church at Rome, but by the Church universal is testament to its divine authority. Paul's expressed desire to visit Rome would be fulfilled only by his arrest and transportation to imprisonment in Rome, and his eventual execution there ten years after the writing of this letter.