For didactic reasons the opening formula of Romans offers itself as an entrance into the theology of the letter. These seven verses are easy to memorise and can serve as a helpful frame for keeping important topics or aspects of Romans in mind.

All letter openings of Paul share a structure of three parts: sender, addressee, greeting. In some cases the opening contains little more than the names of persons and places (see 1 Thess. 1:1; Phil. 1:1–2). In others we find substantial extensions of certain parts (e.g., of the address in 1 Cor. 1:2 or of the greeting in Gal. 1:3–5). These extensions are no mere embellishments but a deliberate, premeditated prospectus of the following letter. Thus in Gal. 1:1 the double ‘no’ ‘apostle not of human origin nor through human mediation’ anticipates Gal 1:10–24, where Paul insists on his independence from Jerusalem because of his being called by a direct revelation from God. His mentioning of Christ's death in Gal.1:4 interprets the term ‘grace’ of the greeting in v. 3 in a way which recurs in Gal. 2:20–21. The address of Galatians is the shortest of all: apparently Paul had no mind to pay compliments to the Galatian churches: they were still churches, of course, but … (see Gal. 1:6–8).