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It is no overstatement to say that Romans has changed the world. Way back in the 4th century Romans had a profound effect on Augustine, who writes in his Confessions,

From a hidden depth a profound self-examination had dredged up a heap of all my misery… I threw myself down under a certain fig tree and let my tears flow freely… Suddenly I heard a voice from the nearby house chanting as if it might be a boy or a girl (I do not know which), saying and repeating over and over again, “Pick up and read, pick up and read.” At once my countenance changed, and I began to think intently whether there might be some sort of children’s game in which such a chant is used. But I could not remember having heard of one. I checked the flood of tears and stood up… I hurried back to the place where… I had put down the book of the apostle when I got up. I seized it, opened it, and in silence read the first passage on which my eyes lit: “Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts” [Romans 13:13-14]. I neither wished nor needed to read further. At once, with the last words of this sentence, it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart. All the shadows of doubt were dispelled. (8.12.28-30) [Quoted in Mark Allen Powell, 256.]

It goes without saying that Augustine’s conversion has deep effects on the church, not least on a certain Augustinian monk over a millennium later. Martin Luther also experienced his conversion while reading Romans:

I had greatly longed to understand Paul’s letter to the Romans, and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, ‘the righteousness of God’, because I took it to mean that righteousness whereby God is righteous and acts righteously in punishing the unrighteous… Night and day I pondered until … I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, he justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before ‘the righteousness of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gateway into heaven.’ [Quoted by Stott in his commentary, p. 21]

As if that weren’t enough, a young Anglican also experienced the profound effects of Romans. Anglican priests John Wesley and his brother Charles spent two years in Savannah, Georgia as missionaries to the colonists and the native Americans, but their time there was profoundly disillusioning. On the ship back John experienced very rough seas so that he feared for his life, and it was in this state that he was confounded by the calm happiness of a group of Moravian Christians also traveling. When he asked them how they could be so calm they replied, in essence, John, you are a pastor, you must know! Upon returning to England, Wesley reluctantly attended a Moravian meeting during which Luther’s preface to Romans (which you can read online, btw) was read. Wesley writes in his journal, About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. [Also quoted in Stott, 22]

Now it’s important to note that the Wesleys had already started their “holy club” at Oxford, and they could not have had a more sincere and godly mother than their Susannah, so their story is the polar opposite of Augustine’s life of debauchery, and still quite different from that of Luther, who had no one to teach him about grace. Nevertheless, the Spirit used Romans to speak to John about his grace and forgiveness in a way which he and the world would never forget.

Sources: (The Bible Project, 2016) The Holy Huddle - pas.rochester.edu/~tim/study/Romans%201%20v2.pdf