Biblical Theme Map
Biblical Theme Map
Romans develops a small number of major themes across its sixteen chapters. Mapping where each theme appears helps keep terminology consistent across a curriculum that will be taught and translated lesson by lesson rather than as one continuous document.
Theme progression
- Universal need (1:18-3:20) — every person stands guilty before God, against the grain of Islamic fitrah doctrine. Key terms: sin (guneh), universal accountability (berpirsiyariya gerdûnî ya mirovahiyê).
- Justification by faith (3:21-4:25) — righteousness credited through faith, taught with adalet’s forensic weight rather than rastî’s thinner “correctness” sense. Key terms: righteousness (adalet), justification (wek adil hatin hesibandin), grace (kerem, distinguished from Sufi keramet), faith (îman).
- New life in Christ (5:1-8:39) — peace with God (drawing on aştî’s regional peace-process resonance), adoption with full inheritance against tribal norms, sonship taught against both tawhid-denial and mystical-absorption risks. Key terms: peace (aştî), sanctification (teqdîs), adoption (kurxwendin), Abba (aba).
- Israel and the nations (9:1-11:36) — God’s faithfulness to his promises, election distinguished from modern democratic “hilbijartin.” Key terms: election (hilbijartin), covenant (peyman), unity of Jew and Gentile.
- Transformed living (12:1-15:13) — practical outworking of the gospel in a community spread across four national jurisdictions. Key terms: church (dêr / civata Mesîhî), spiritual gifts (diyariyên giyanî), kingdom of God (padîşahiya Xwedê, anchored against nationalist readings).
- Closing and mission (15:14-16:27) — Paul’s mission to the nations, with region-specific safety awareness. Key terms: mission (peywira Mizgîniyê), fellowship (hevaltî).
Use in this curriculum
Each lesson in the Romans curriculum should be tagged with which theme-block it falls under, so terminology introduced in an earlier block (e.g. “justification” in block 2) is reinforced rather than re-explained from scratch when it recurs in a later block (e.g. block 3’s “assurance of salvation”).