The Roman Road

The Roman Road to Salvation, also known as, the Romans Road to Salvation. A little over two years ago, I wrote concerning the history of The Roman Road to Salvation. Today I want to focus on its “faith and practice.”

First, what is the “Roman Road?” The Roman Road to salvation is a method of evangelizing that focuses on verses from the book of Romans about sin, death, and salvation. This “Printable” version of a Roman Road by Kathy Howard uses five locations in Romans.[i] She writes, “But how do we share that in a way that people will recognize their need and respond to Jesus? One very simple way is what Christians call the ‘Roman Road.’ It’s a short list of verses from the book of Romans that show our need for salvation and how Jesus fills that need. I have seen variations of this list that includes 4 to 8 verses. My list below includes 5, very easy to memorize verses.” Got Questions has an article titled “What is the Romans Road to salvation?” It also about uses about five stops along the road, while incorporating a few more Romans’ texts than Howard does.

Kathy Howard’s Roman Road:

• Romans 3:23 – Every person has sinned, has done things contrary to God’s holy perfection.
• Romans 6:23 – Our sin has a cost. That cost is spiritual death or eternal separation from God.
• Romans 5:8 – Because God loves us, He paid our sin debt Himself. Sinless, perfect Jesus died in our place.
• Romans 10:13 – Anyone and everyone who accepts Jesus’ gift, or “calls on His name,” will receive God’s salvation.
• Romans 10:9-10 – Anyone who believes and confesses that Jesus died for us and rose from the dead will be saved!

No Bible believer that I know of objects to the verses in Romans or rejects their usefulness in teaching truths about sin, death, and salvation. Every scripture in the “Roman Road” is inspired, sound, and biblical. Not every preacher or soul-winner who uses “the Road” is!

“Evangelism With The Romans Road” by Paul Fritz at Sermon Central uses six locations in the book of Romans and concludes with an exhortation to prayer. Fritz writes, “If you have never really accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, would you do it right now? Do not delay or put it off. If you would like to receive Christ by faith, pray this simple prayer in your heart:”

“Dear Lord, I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I believe Jesus died for my sins on the cross, and rose again the third day. I repent of my sins. By faith I receive the Lord Jesus as my Savior. You promised to save me, and I believe You, because You are God and cannot lie. I believe right now that the Lord Jesus is my personal Savior, and that all my sins are forgiven through His precious blood. I thank You, dear Lord, for saving me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Paul Fritz concludes by pronouncing salvation on and giving assurance to any person who prays this prayer, “If you prayed that prayer, God heard you and saved you. I personally want to welcome you to the family of God.”

When someone objects to the “Roman Road” style of evangelism, there are always those “Roadies” who come along to raise the spectre of Calvinism. Calvinism is an easy foil charged with giving the Roman Road a bad rap. First, we need to realize that objections to the Roman Road are not just from the realm of Calvinism. The very first objections I heard were from Missionary Baptists who rejected the 5-points of Calvinism.[ii] Second, Roman Roadies need to realize – their own practices give the Roman Road a bad rap. Don’t look for someone else to blame!

One primary objection is the way these verses are used. This use reduces salvation to a method – if repeated, the proven steps will yield the right results every time. In principle the “repeat after me” prayer method subtly (or not so subtly) changes the biblical exhortations of repent and believe the gospel to “pray this prayer.”[iii] Some proponents of “the Road” are careful to say something like “if you sincerely prayed this pray.” However, note the quote from Paul Fritz above does not bother with this distinction. When the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas, “What must I do to be saved,” they responded with “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” rather than “pray this prayer.”[iv]

The “Roman Road” method can be very superficial, manipulative, and results-driven. A number of believers have related online such things as “soul winning contests” in which they participated. Those who “got someone saved” received points for the feat, and the one who got the most points won the contest! Often these people are told that someone should be saved every time they go soul-winning, and if not they must be doing something wrong. Taking “no” for an answer is a sign of weakness and unconcern.[v]  The process usually ends with, “Bow your head and repeat this prayer.” There is good reason to question the sincerity of a profession of faith under “duress.”[vi]

Again, no Bible believer objects to any of the verses in Romans. These superficial, manipulative, results-driven practices give the verses a bad name. The Roman Road, as often practiced, reduces evangelism to a repetitive scheme more akin to the door-to-door salesmanship than sharing the gospel. Take your free fire insurance! The New Testament commands the presentation of the gospel and leaving the response to the conviction of the gospel and the Holy Spirit. May we be careful to neither add nor subtract.

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[i] I write “locations” rather than “verses” because sometimes one “step” on the Road will include more than one verse.

[ii] As an example, see Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, Our Beliefs and Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, Salvation.

[iii] Some believers have dubbed this a “1-2-3-repeat-after-me” style of evangelism. Exhortations such as “make a decision for Christ,” “”accept Christ,” “ask Jesus into your heart,” and so on also substitute for “repent and believe.” I’m not sure what compels people to prefer these over biblical exhortations.

[iv] Perhaps I have missed it, but I have not noticed any New Testament reference that advises an unbeliever to do that.

[v] Curiously, some of the loudest advocates for extreme free will are the same ones guiltiest of badgering and bullying unbelievers into making a profession of faith. They say God can’t violate a person’s free will, yet they don’t mind doing it!

[vi] I have been present with “soul-winners” who bulldozed through the verses, forced the “right” answers out of the individual, and concluded the session by pronouncing the lost now saved and secure. Not being the presenter gives one the luxury of watching the body language, facial expressions, glances (when more than one is being witnessed to) and such like of the person or persons on the receiving end. Sometimes there was hilarity and mockery; maybe frustration and despair as the “soul-winnee” just wanted it all to be over with so he or she could get on with life; even the totally unresponsive. This would be coupled with lack of discernment on the part of the soul-winner. So busy putting another notch in his belt, the soul-winner can be oblivious to the real reception he and the gospel are receiving.

The Roman Road to Salvation

What is the Roman Road (or Romans Road) to salvation? According to GotQuestions.org, “The Romans Road to salvation is a way of explaining the good news of salvation using verses from the Book of Romans.” This is a popular method used by Christian witnesses to “lead the lost down the Romans Road map to salvation.” The method is a basic presentation using, usually, six or seven texts from the book of Romans.

The “Roman Road” verses, as often presented:

• We are all sinners (Romans 3:10,23).
• The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
• Jesus paid for sin on the cross (Rom. 5:8).
• Salvation comes by faith, confessing with our mouths and believing in our hearts (Romans 10:9,10).
• Call on the Lord/pray for salvation and get saved (Romans 10:13).

I recently noticed someone call attention to the fact that this “Roman Road” method was created and coined by Fundamental Baptist pastor Jack Hyles. In his June 1970 sermon There Remaineth Yet Very Much Land to Be Possessed Hyles recalls it this way:

“By the way, you folks who don’t come on Wednesday night don’t know this, but about twenty-two years ago, in a little East Texas Church, I came up with a little plan of presenting the plan of salvation called ‘The Roman Road’ whereby you take Verses contained in Romans and show people how to be saved using Romans 3:10, and Romans 3:23, and Romans 5:12, and Romans 5:8, and on and on. I termed it, ‘The Roman Road,’ and from the ‘Roman Road’ I wrote the little book, Let’s Go Soul Winning. Over one hundred and thirty-five thousand copies of that book have been printed. It has been translated into several foreign languages: Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, French, and others, and has literally gone around the world.”

He further stated, “Just before he left Japan and retired, Douglas MacArthur got a copy of the ‘Roman Road to Salvation’ that we started in 1948 or 1949 in East Texas…”

I have searched and as yet have not found any reason to doubt Jack Hyles’s claim that he came up with the “Roman Road” plan of presenting the plan of salvation. As best I can determine, Hyles must have been attending East Texas Baptist University in Marshall and pastoring Grange Hall Baptist Church at the time this happened.* It also appears accurate that he based the plan in his book Let’s Go Soul Winning on “The Roman Road”. Here is part of what he writes:

I contend that you can be a soul winner if you don’t know a single verse of Scripture, if you can draw a map in your Bible to tell yourself where to go. All you need do is find Romans 3:10 and you won’t have to know a single verse of Scripture. Right beside Romans 3:10, write the next verse to tell you where to go in your Bible. Actually what you do is draw yourself a little road map in your Bible to explain where to go next.

First, turn to Romans 3:10. That is all you have to remember. Underline the verse. Beside it write 3:23. After you have read Romans 3:10, it tells you where to go next. Now turn to Romans 3:23. Underline that verse and beside that write 5:12. Turn to 5:12 and underline 5:12 and write beside it 6:23. Underline 6:23 and beside it write 5:8. Underline 5:8 and write beside it 10:9-13.  Now that is a map for you. You don’t have to know a single verse of Scripture to be a soul winner if you draw a map in your Bible. You follow the map until you learn the Scriptures. Of course, as you go along, you will learn many other Scriptures that will help, but these are the basic ones.
Let’s Go Soul Winning: Step-By-Step Lessons in How to Win a Soul to Christ by Jack Hyles (First Printing: April, 1962; First Electronic Printing: May, 1994)

All the verses used in the “Roman Road” are Bible truths. The tactics used by certain soul-winners when presenting the “Roman Road” are unethical at best and fiendish at worst. Nevertheless, I thought it interesting to find this tidbit of history concerning the beginning of “The Roman Road to Salvation.” If anyone knows of this method and name occurring before Jack Hyles, I would be glad to know of it.

* Note: Jack Hyles’s pastorates in East Texas were Marris Chapel Baptist Church (aka Morris Chapel) of Bogata, Texas, Grange Hall Baptist Church in Marshall, Texas, and Southside Baptist Church of Henderson, Texas. The latter two still exist as Southern Baptist churches. I am not sure about the first. From what I found online, 1949 seems to be about the time he was at Grange Hall.

A “New” Approach to Youth Work

A “NEW” APPROACH TO YOUTH WORK by Tim Hoover, Long Branch, TX*

It has been said that we have a weak nation because we have weak churches, and we have weak churches because we have weak families. Strengthening families should be a priority of youth work. It is often pointed out that young people today are having difficulties in relating to their parents. Rather than simply putting a bandage on the problem by providing more youth leaders and youth programs, we must begin to deal with the root problem. We must implement strategies that will “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.” The emphasis of youth programs must be to reinforce the relationship of parents to children, not to take the place of that relationship. Many seemingly family-oriented churches are actually individual-oriented -- providing activities for each individual family member, but not providing opportunities for families to study, worship, and serve together. God made it a point to include the entire family when presenting His truths to His people. Joshua 8:34-35 tells us that Joshua “read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones…” The little ones referred to here are toddlers. God saw fit to keep the families together, even the toddlers, during a lengthy reading of the law!

This becomes more challenging in situations where the young person’s parents are not involved with church, but even then God gives us the answer. Psalm 68:6 states “God setteth the solitary in families.” Those families who are willing to share a part of their lives with these solitary youth are a valuable part of youth work. [In] the 21st century, our youth face many difficult challenges. However, Solomon reminds us that there is no new thing under the sun, Although technology is advancing at a rapid pace, man is still the same, plagued with the same sin nature, facing the same temptations, and making the same choices that he has always made. It cannot be denied that we have seen a drastic decline in morality in our country during the last 50 years, but our society is still no more wicked than it was in the days of Jesus and Paul. As we study scripture and history, we see that immorality was just as rampant then as it is today. Yet, God’s answer was not to woo the lost with worldly attractions, but “by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” We must teach all people. including our youth, the very words of Jesus, “If any man will come after me let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Neither a popular message, nor one that will draw the multitudes, but the only one that will prove effective in making disciples for our Lord Jesus Christ! 

Brethren, God’s message never changes, neither do His principles! I challenge every church to evaluate its youth program in light at God’s Word to ensure that we are building up and strengthening families, one of our churches’s most vital resources. 

* The author lived at Long Branch, Texas at the time this piece was written.

Originally printed in The Baptist Waymark, Vol. IV, No. 2, Mar-Apr 1996, p. 4, R. L. Vaughn, editor

Children’s Church, by Johnson

CHILDREN’S CHURCH? by Eddie Johnson Amarillo, TX

Does Biblical precedent exist for separating one group of the congregation from another when the Word of God is being preached by the man of God? If one could find such an example in the Scriptures, then this practice would clearly be justified as right and proper with the Lord. This practice might even have permissive justification if no example to the contrary were to be found resulting from a search of the Scriptures.

My finding is the admonition of the Apostle Paul addressing the assembly at Ephesus in Ephesians 6:1-3, “Children, obey your parents in The Lord; for this is right. Honour my father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.” Since he addressed them directly in this epistle, then it seems that to Paul the very best situation of worship, Biblical instruction, and outreach for the children of this assembly during their worship service was for them to be assembling with their parents under the preaching of the Word of God. So, the practice of separating children to a gathering of their own during the worship service of a New Testament church is a practice not found in the Bible. Indeed such a practice has a specific example to the contrary. Wherefore, when considering the outreach of a church family to the children born within and without the congregation, let the question be, “Why have a Children’s Church?”

Originally published in The Baptist Waymark, Vol. IV, No. 2, Mar-Apr 1996, p. 4, R. L. Vaughn, editor

Children and Church

In general children come into churches much earlier in progressive churches as opposed to primitivistic churches -- and probably earlier in "Arminian" churches as opposed to "Calvinistic" churches. I realize these are very broad generalizations. Whether or not this observation is correct, what do you think about the relationship of children and church, and especially the following specific questions? 

1. What biblical basis is there for children coming into churches at very young ages? (e.g. 4 or 5 years old)
2. If you use believers' church and believers' baptism as a basis, why do you think the apostolic churches did not seem to have any significant outreach to young children? (Or do you think they did?)
3. If children are church members on a equal footing with all other members, how do feel about their equal status in church decision making to mature adult members? 
4. How much actual difference is there between baptizing 3 and 4 year old children who can give the right answers as prompted by parents (or pastors), and baptizing infants whose parents have faith for them? 
5. Why has there been a trend among Baptist churches in America to baptize children at younger and younger ages than our forefathers did? Were they wrong? Are we right?