Despite most of what we have come to know about Romans 1, as it is so commonly called, Paul is clear from the beginning to whom and about whom this book will be.  He gives us a cause and effect explanation.  According to Paul, God has revealed Godself through nature from the beginning of time.  As such, those who have observed nature could come to only one conclusion, that there is a God somewhere.  Paul takes issue with their interpretation of God in nature given that they have, in their attempt to worship God, given themselves over to all manner of fleshly traditions.  Having made images of birds, animals, reptiles and mortal men, they gave themselves over to lascivious sexual pagan worship, mostly to satisfy their own need for vice rather than to give glory to God.  Paul says that they were drawn away to each other burning with lust while their minds became darker and more wicked.  They thought of philosophies of men to coincide with their created pagan worship, thereby thinking they were wise in their own eyes, but being non but foolish.

The central theme of Romans is Christ, himself crucified and risen and the faith by which we now should be living through him.  Secondarily, Paul deals with the pagan worship introduced in the first chapter, castigating it as being foolishness and being subject to the authority of Jesus. Not only the pagan beliefs, but the forsaken practices related to the pagan worship. Tertiarily, Paul finally deals with sexuality but not in a way that could address adequately the complexities of  a post modern church.  He implicates us all in sin, the Jew for not obeying the law and then the Gentile for not having the law.  He uses a very common template from verse 18 on to deal with Gentiles and how they should be living.  It was the typical way that Jewish preachers preached to Gentiles telling them why they should live like Jews. Overall, he links the particular sins to the pagan worship which is his biggest project in writing to the Romans.