Romans 2:21–3:9 

You're writing a gospel, a chapter a day
By deeds that you do and words that you say.
Men read what you write, whether false or true.
What is the gospel according to you?
   –Author unknown 

"If circumcision in itself does not give righteousness, if circumcision does not preclude it, what profit was there ever in it? A distinction that God made among men seems, after all, not to be one." 
   –Dr. James Stifler 

Romans 5:1-9 

"In Washington there is a feeling that the problems have so mounted and multiplied that man is totally incapable of solving the problems of the world." 
   –James Reston, New York Times 

"You are looking at an atheist who has lost his faith."
   –George Bernard Shaw 

Romans 7:1-6 

“Dr. Alexander Whyte once said that whenever a new book on Romans comes out and is sent to him for consideration, he at once turns to the comments on chapter seven, and according to the view taken of that important section he decides on the value of the entire work”
   –Dr. Griffith Thomas 

Romans 8:6-17 

To hope to do better is to fail to see yourself in Christ only.
To be disappointed with yourself means you believed in yourself.
To be discouraged is unbelief.
To be proud is to be blind.
The lack of divine blessing comes from unbelief, not a failure of devotion.
   –Dr. William R. Newell 

“If we could see ourselves as God sees us, we couldn’t even stand ourselves!”
   –attributed to Mel Trotter 

Romans 8:18-28 

“A soft pillow for a tired heart.”
   –Dr. Rueben A. Torrey describing Romans 8:28 

Romans 9:1-5 

“It has been tacitly assumed in Christian interpretation that Judaism’s day is over; that an elect, leveling church built on faith in Christ was the intent of the Law and prophets; and that it was the duty of all Jews to drop their peculiarities and come into the church. Such an assumption the Jews ascribed to Paul. It is strangely forgotten that the mother church inJerusalem and Judaea never had a Gentile within its fold, that none could have been admitted, and that every member of that primitive body of tens of thousands was zealous of the law (Acts 21:20). They accepted Jesus as the Messiah, but abandoned none of their Old Testament customs and hopes. Christianity has suffered not a little in the continuous attempt to interpret it not from the Jewish, but from the Gentile point of view. The church in Jerusalem, and not the church in Antioch or Ephesus or Rome, furnishes the only sufficient historical outlook.”
   –James M. Stifler, The Epistle to the Romans 

Romans 9:4-24

Presumptuous Pigmy
You cannot put one little star in motion,
You cannot shape one single forest leaf,
Nor fling a mountain up, nor sink an ocean,
Presumptuous pigmy, large with unbelief!
You cannot bring one dawn of regal splendor,
Nor bid the day to shadowy twilight fall,
Nor send the pale moon forth with radiance tender;
And dare you doubt the One who has done it all?
   –Ella Wheeler Wilcox 

“I am having trouble with that passage too, but mine is different. I do not understand why God loved Jacob.”
   –Dr. Griffith Thomas’ answer to a student who was having trouble understanding why God hated Esau 

Romans 9:25—10:6 

“Is it not marvelous that people can read the Bible and all the time fail to see its essential teaching and its personal application to themselves? There is scarcely anything more surprising and saddening than the presence of intellectual knowledge of God’s word with an utter failure to appreciate its spiritual meaning and force.”
   –Dr. Griffith Thomas 

Romans 14:17—15:3

“Despite these objections, the integrity of the epistle as it now stands is certain.”
   –Kerr, Introduction to New Testament Study

Romans 15:25—16:2

“The sixteenth chapter is neglected by many to their own loss.”
   –Dr. William R. Newell, Romans Verse by Verse