Theology for Everybody: RomansSample

In any given sports league, an all-star team comprises the best players from various teams. Throughout Christian history, we have had our own “teams,” such as Calvinists and Arminians. Our version of an all-star team would include the best theologians and leaders from various teams and traditions. We would choose Augustine (often considered the father of what we know as Calvinism today), Luther (the father of Lutheranism), and Wesley (the father of Arminianism along with both Charismatics and Pentecostals). I have oversimplified the breadth of Church history, but I want you to know there is variety in the Christian community. What each of these teams has in common is a profound, life-changing experience with the Holy Spirit through the book of Romans.

The church father Augustine was born in North Africa. He talks openly in his book Confessions about being torn between Christianity and his love of the common false trinity for young men—loud parties, beautiful women, and stiff drinks. In the summer of AD 386, after hearing a child next door say, “Pick it up, read it,” Augustine picked up a copy of Romans owned by a friend. Augustine began to read at random Romans 13:13–14, which says, “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” Like a sniper shot from heaven, the Holy Spirit hit Augustine right in the soul. He testifies, “A light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away” (Augustine, Confessions, 8:29).

Augustine grew to become one of Church history’s most influential theologians. His works help form the foundations of Christian theology to this day. Commenting on Romans, Augustine says, "Paul ... fights zealously and fiercely on behalf of this grace of God, against the proud and arrogant who presume upon their own works ... Truly then is he clear and eager above all in the defense of grace ... And in the letter to the Romans he is concerned almost solely with this very matter; fighting with such numerous arguments as to weary the reader’s will to follow: yet such weariness is beneficial and salutary, training rather than weakening the various aspects of the inner person."

Today’s Reflection

When did God’s light first “flood your heart”?