[12] As with many of the Pauline epistles, Paul's first thoughts are of thanksgiving for the widespread reputation of the faith of the Roman Christians (later, in another epistle, Ignatius of Antioch praises the Church of Rome for never having been envious and for having instructed others)[13] then he expresses his longing to visit and minister to Rome.

[17][18] The suggestion that the Roman believers' faith was proclaimed "throughout the whole world" is treated as hyperbole by both Meyer and Sanday.

[28] Moody Smith, Jr. showed that in Romans 1:17, by exegesis of Galatians 3:11 (also quoting Habakkuk 2:4), Paul took the ek pisteos with the verb zesetai not by the subject of the sentence, ho dikaios.

[32] Paul starts first with God's wrath that comes deservedly on the state religion of the Gentiles (20–32), drawn against the background of the fall of the first human beings in to sin.

20Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.

[32] It echoes what Paul and Barnabas has said to a crowd in Lystra in Acts 14:16-17: The living God [...] made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways.

Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.Paul begins to explain from verse 18 onwards why the "gospel" (το ευαγγελιον του χριστου, to evangeliou tou Christou) is needed: it is to save humankind, both gentiles and Jews, from the wrath of God (οργη θεου).

sees Romans 1:26–27 as a blanket condemnation of both male and female homosexual activity enduring to the present day.

Another perspective sees Romans 1:26 as a blanket condemnation of unnatural heterosexual activity enduring to the present day, such as anal sex,[44] whereas Romans 1:27 is a blanket condemnation of male homosexual activity enduring to the present day.