Why Would We Be 'Ashamed of the Gospel'? (Rom. 1:16)

Bishop Handley Moule's answer:

What is there about this revelation of the heart of Eternal Love, this record of a Life equally divine and human, of a Death as majestic as it is infinitely pathetic, and then of a Resurrection out of death, to occasion shame?

For our part we believe the solution lies near the words sin, pardon, self-surrender.

The Gospel reveals the eternal Love, but under conditions which remind man that he has done his worst to forfeit it. It tells him of a peace and strength sublime and heavenly; but it asks him, in order to receive them, to kneel down in the dust and take them, unmerited, for nothing. . . .

Such views are deeply repellent to the soul that has not yet seen itself and God in the light of truth. Well then did Paul remember his old hatred and contempt when he presented Christ at Rome--imperial, overwhelming Rome. But then he looked again from them to Jesus Christ, and the temptation was beneath his feet, and the Gospel, everywhere, was upon his lips. 

--H. C. G. Moule, The Epistle to the Romans (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1894), 36-37