Strive Together with Me in Your Prayers
14I myself am also persuaded about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish others. 15But I write the more boldly to you in part, as reminding you, because of the grace that was given to me by God, 16that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the Good News of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. 17I have therefore my boasting in Christ Jesus in things pertaining to God. 18For I will not dare to speak of any things except those which Christ worked through me, for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, 19in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of God’s Spirit; so that from Jerusalem, and around as far as to Illyricum, I have fully preached the Good News of Christ; 20yes, making it my aim to preach the Good News, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build on another’s foundation. 21But, as it is written, “They will see, to whom no news of him came. They who haven’t heard will understand.” 22Therefore also I was hindered these many times from coming to you, 23but now, no longer having any place in these regions, and having these many years a longing to come to you, 24whenever I travel to Spain, I will come to you. For I hope to see you on my journey, and to be helped on my way there by you, if first I may enjoy your company for a while. 25But now, I say, I am going to Jerusalem, serving the saints. 26For it has been the good pleasure of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints who are at Jerusalem. 27Yes, it has been their good pleasure, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they owe it to them also to serve them in fleshly things. 28When therefore I have accomplished this, and have sealed to them this fruit, I will go on by way of you to Spain. 29I know that, when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of the Good News of Christ. 30Now I beg you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, 31that I may be delivered from those who are disobedient in Judea, and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints; 32that I may come to you in joy through the will of God, and together with you, find rest. 33Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
When the devil tempted Jesus, Jesus drove him back with the word, and afterward called people to repent, saying that the Kingdom of Heaven was near. By the shore of Galilee he saw Peter and Andrew casting their nets, and he told them to follow him, for he would make them fishers of men; at once they left their nets and followed Jesus. What they did is remarkable, because for men who had lived all their lives as fishermen, leaving their nets meant settling the whole of their past and taking Christ as their master. In calling them to become fishers of men, Jesus showed the very purpose for which he had come into this world. As a fisherman casts a net and hauls in fish, they were to draw people floundering in darkness out with the net of the gospel and lead them into life. Given that command, they obeyed without delay. They could obey at a single word because Andrew had earlier heard John call Jesus the Lamb of God. [John 1:35-51] Andrew went to find his brother Simon, told him they had found the Messiah, and brought him to Jesus, who gave him the name Cephas. As they talked with Jesus then, Simon and Andrew must have received deep grace and grown sure that this was the Messiah. That they gave up their livelihood at the promise of becoming fishers of men reveals the work of the Holy Spirit more than any decision of their own. When Jesus told Andrew and Peter to become fishers of men, he was sending them to evangelize. Proclaiming the gospel matters so greatly that, just as Christ atoned for sin, the Holy Spirit made the disciples take up the work of evangelism.
Romans 15:14
14I myself am also persuaded about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish others.
Paul had taught that the strong should accept the weak. He had also urged that the strong who sincerely embrace the weak can grow stronger in spirit, because they come under God’s protection and great love. He kept repeating the same thing because he wanted them to share grace with one another, just as he had shared with them the grace he had received from God. But now, bringing the letter to a close, he comforted the church in Rome. He commended them, saying he knew that they were doing good and helping one another with the word of truth. The church in Rome was not one Paul had founded himself. Even so, he could proclaim the gospel to them this boldly because the office of apostle to the Gentiles was so dear to him that he was resolved to fulfill his calling.
Romans 15:16
16that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the Good News of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Saul was on his way to Damascus under orders from the high priest, to seize Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem, when he met the risen Christ in a light and a voice. Christ gave him his calling as apostle to the Gentiles. Because he had been entrusted with the special task of leading the Gentiles to God, Paul counted it a great honor to be a servant of Christ. He felt this way because Jesus himself had come to meet him, the man who had persecuted Christians for the sake of the law, and had shown him that the truth is eternal life. Once he knew that the word of truth is eternal life, Paul realized that under the law he had never known freedom. He said that he had become a servant of Jesus Christ and a priest of the Good News of God, and that in the Holy Spirit he was sanctifying the Gentiles so that they might become an offering acceptable to God.
A priest presents an unblemished offering to God so that sin may be forgiven. An evangelist leads people to receive Christ, who atoned for their sins, and in this way fulfills a priest’s role. When Paul spoke of offering up the Gentiles, he called them an offering out of an earnest longing that they would become saints acceptable to God. His work of saving the Gentiles is exactly what a fisher of men does. Paul had kept the law at the risk of his life, but once he came to know the truth he never once wavered, and he counted the work entrusted to him a glory.
1 Timothy 1:12
12And I thank him who enabled me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he counted me faithful, appointing me to service;
Paul said that Christ, knowing his faith would not change, had appointed him to his office, and he rejoiced at being approved by God. Before he knew the truth he persecuted the church, but after he received it he held fast to the faith in humility and spent his whole life thanking God for his grace. He confessed that he was the least of the apostles and unfit to be called an apostle, because he had persecuted the church of God; it seems that the weightier the work entrusted to him, the more unworthy he felt. [1 Corinthians 15:9] He had no claim to do God’s work, yet wherever he went God caused him to work miracles, and he always gave God all the glory. Beaten, imprisoned, and suffering as though he were at the point of death, Paul nevertheless says that all these things are cause for boasting. [Romans 15:17] Such suffering was nothing to him, because he remembered the grace that had pulled him out of eternal death. Even when he worked miracles wherever he went, he knew that all of it was the power of the Holy Spirit.
1 Peter 2:9
9But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:
Peter declared that those born again by the redeeming blood of Christ are a holy race, and that God united them with Christ as a royal priesthood and made them a holy nation and people so that they might proclaim the excellence of Christ. Gentiles who until then had lived as slaves of Satan were raised to a new standing through Christ and given the privilege of proclaiming the gospel. Christians who have been loved like this, Peter says, naturally bear the responsibility of proclaiming the gospel of God. That Gentiles can become saints acceptable to God and live holy lives is possible only by the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul knew clearly how holy his calling was; that knowledge drove him to preach to the point of death, while those who heard the gospel from him filled the lands from Jerusalem to Illyricum with the gospel of Christ. The distance from Jerusalem to Illyricum is more than 2,000 kilometers. Paul did not evangelize all of that vast region himself, but because those who had heard the gospel from him planted churches everywhere, he could call them his own fruit.
Romans 15:20
20yes, making it my aim to preach the Good News, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build on another’s foundation.
Paul held to a firm missionary policy: he would not preach where other evangelists had already labored to spread the gospel. He did, of course, admonish churches he had not founded, such as the church in Rome, and teach them the word of truth, but he did so to support the evangelists already at work there. When he says he made it his aim not to preach where Christ was already named, he means that he pursued this with zeal. His task was to proclaim the gospel and lay the foundation, which is Christ, and then to help others build the church upon it. The places he went were always remote lands that had never heard the gospel, and suffering was unavoidable there; even so, he went willingly and gave himself to the work of evangelism. He kept preaching under such persecution, and once he had founded a church and raised up its pastors, he moved on to another region.
These days quarrels break out as churches try to draw members away from one another. Set beside that, Paul’s sincere love for the gospel is plain to see. His longing was to carry Christ to the ends of the earth as soon as possible, and that is why he labored to reach people who had never heard the news of the Lord. Driven by this calling, he tried to go to Spain, but each time something arose to stop him. Spain was a Roman colony, and there were Jews there as well. Many of Rome’s intellectuals and influential leaders lived in Spain, and Paul wanted to bring the gospel to them. His reasoning was that if they received it, the whole land would be easy to evangelize.
Romans 15:25-26
25But now, I say, I am going to Jerusalem, serving the saints. 26For it has been the good pleasure of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints who are at Jerusalem.
Paul had meant to see the church in Rome and then go on to Spain, but he turned toward Jerusalem instead, in the very opposite direction. The reason was a severe famine that had struck the region of Jerusalem, leaving the Christians there in great distress. In Jewish society, receiving Christ meant being cast out of one’s family and community and struggling even to earn a living. Because the faith was shunned in Judea, the church in Jerusalem could not escape financial hardship, and it badly needed help from other churches. Paul knew what the saints were going through. Mission mattered, but he could not turn away from the suffering of the saints in Jerusalem, who had no means of getting food.
Romans 15:27
27Yes, it has been their good pleasure, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they owe it to them also to serve them in fleshly things.
When the church in Jerusalem fell on hard times, the churches of Macedonia and Achaia came forward of their own accord to help. Paul judged that delivering to Jerusalem the contribution the Gentile churches had gladly gathered must come first. He believed that an offering from Gentiles, who had come to share in spiritual blessings through the Jews, could serve as a bridge between Jews and Gentiles. The Gentiles felt they owed the Jews a spiritual debt, and they wanted to repay it by bringing their contribution for the poor to the saints in Jerusalem. They did not overlook the hardship of the Jews who had brought them the holy Christ but served them in fleshly things, and their effort would have become an opportunity for the faith to grow.
Our own nation, too, owes a great debt to the churches of Britain and America from a hundred years ago. The British missionary Thomas was martyred on the bank of the Taedong River, and at the end of the Joseon era Underwood and Appenzeller, missionaries sent from America, brought the gospel to our country prepared to die. Through them God brought the gospel to our nation, and through our dedication he has used us to carry the gospel to the whole world. Now, to repay that spiritual debt, churches must send out missionaries and help nations that are struggling economically. In the church, too, those strong in faith may fall into greater financial hardship than the weak. If at such a time we help them willingly and with love, God will count that good deed as a debt repaid and pour out still greater grace.
Paul’s plan to deliver the offering to the church in Jerusalem, then go to Rome and on to preach the gospel in Spain, did not work out as he intended. Through this he would have learned that life does not go according to plan. At that point he did not know he would go to Rome as a prisoner, and that seems to be why he said that when he came to them, he would come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. He did reach Rome, the city he had longed for so earnestly, but he came in chains. On the way, his life was in danger; his ship was wrecked and he was cast up on the island of Malta; and there a viper bit him. Yet at every turn Paul worked signs and wonders and proclaimed Christ. When the father of Publius lay between life and death with fever and dysentery, Paul laid his hands on him and healed him, and others on the island as well, proclaiming the gospel all the while. After three months on Malta spent preaching the gospel, he sailed on a ship of Alexandria and arrived in Rome. In Rome Paul was a prisoner, but the soldiers who guarded him kept him safe. Indeed, he was able to teach the Kingdom of God and the gospel boldly and without hindrance.
Romans 15:30
30Now I beg you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me,
Paul had given his whole life to God and lived for the gospel alone, and still the Jews would not accept him. Zealots of Judaism, watching for any chance to kill him because he did not keep the law, lay hidden everywhere, so the contribution for the poor might not be delivered as intended. No one knew the Jews’ schemes better than Paul. He urgently needed the intercession of the saints, and he asked the church in Rome to join him in prayer over the delivery of this offering. He asked because helping a brother is not one person’s private concern; it is the work of God.
Acts 20:22-24
22Now, behold, I go bound by the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there; 23except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions wait for me. 24But these things don’t count; nor do I hold my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to fully testify to the Good News of the grace of God.
Having asked the church in Rome to intercede for him, Paul thought this journey to Jerusalem might well be his last. The men lying in wait for him had formed a band of forty and sworn neither to eat nor drink until they had killed him. They believed that killing Paul was the work of God, which left God as the only one who could stop them. Since many in the Jerusalem church were Jews, he also worried whether they would gladly accept the contribution he was bringing. For Paul, delivering it was a precious opportunity to bring Jewish and Gentile churches together, and he needed their intercession all the more for that. He wanted all the Gentile churches to agree together in intercession, according to the word that if two agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by the Father in heaven. [Matthew 18:19]
Things did not go as Paul planned, but God handled matters in Jerusalem in his own way and brought him to Rome as a prisoner to meet the saints there. His plan had never been to arrive in Rome a prisoner, yet because soldiers guarded him, he was in fact safe. The weak, whatever their situation, insist on their own will over God’s. Paul, however, was a mature Christian and a child of God who knew him better than anyone, and so, though he could not know what the future held, he said that he hoped to come to them in joy through the will of God and find rest together with them. Everyone has earnest wishes, but if, like Paul, we know that in the affairs of this world God’s will comes before our own, obedience becomes far easier even in hardship. Paul understood this well. Whenever the direction of his mission changed, he recognized God’s will in it and obeyed at once.
Paul spent two years in prison in Caesarea before he went to Rome. His wish was to rest with the brothers and preach the gospel freely, but instead he was imprisoned; he wrote Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon, then 1 Timothy and Titus, and during his second imprisonment 2 Timothy, before he was executed. The road of those who proclaim the gospel may be rough in the flesh, or it may be peaceful, full of spiritual rest shared with brothers and sisters. In peace and under persecution alike, Paul never changed: he wanted only to proclaim the gospel to the people of Christ.
Romans 15:33
33Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
In his benediction, praying that the God of peace would be with them all, Paul expressed his earnest longing for the church in Rome to abide with Christ. He wanted them to know the joy and contentment of spiritual maturity and to draw near in serving the God who gives true peace. Though he himself was enduring many hardships in his mission, he longed for those hardships to become the soil in which the saints would grow.
We have seen how the apostle Paul willingly gave up his own righteousness and his whole life in order to live by God’s will. And you, as you have listened to the word Paul sent to the church in Rome, what thoughts have come to you? When I see how he loved souls to the end, knowing all the while that proclaiming the gospel meant suffering, I cannot help thinking that he was bound to receive God’s love. Seeing Paul’s unchanging faith, God gave him the office of apostle to the Gentiles, and God’s love held him fast to the end. In human eyes he died a cruel martyr’s death, but God would have welcomed him with open arms and given him eternal life.
Through chapter 15, the letter holds the rules the saints are to keep and the love of the apostle Paul, who longed for them to live faithfully by the word to the end. The last chapter, chapter 16, is filled with gratitude to the brothers and sisters who labored alongside him. I hope that you too will take to heart the word Paul delivers and live by it. As we have learned in Romans, we must pray earnestly for our brothers and sisters in the faith and become strong in faith, showing them love. Only when believers grow will the church grow, and only when the church grows well can we become God’s workers, carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth. May you enjoy true peace and stand before God unashamed.