1:8
“First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.”
First order of business: thank you, God, for the Roman church. Note he is not thanking the church, flattering them. He is thanking God. But it is Paul’s way, in most every letter except to the Galatians, to find something positive to say to his addressee. Now, the Galatians were a different story. They were falling away from Christ, going back to Moses. They needed no commendation but a good wake-up call. He launches right into the letter.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul thanks God for the gifts God has given to that church. In 2 Corinthians, thanks for praying for me. In Ephesians, Paul says he never stopped giving thanks for this church. Philippians: I thank God on every remembrance of you. Colossians. Since we heard of your faith, we always pray and thank God for you. The Thessalonians, likewise, and in the second letter to them, thanks that their faith is growing. His remembrances of Timothy also caused him to be thankful. Same formula to Philemon.
In Galatians, after introducing himself and Jesus, he starts out, “I marvel you are already turning away from the faith!”
Again, Hebrews differs greatly in these opening comments.
Paul was using a time-honored way of dealing with people. Let them know they are loved and accepted before you have to tell them some serious things.
Now, why specifically his thankfulness to the Romans? Their faith has been spoken of throughout the whole world! In 16:19, Paul says their obedience is known to all. Notice that faith and obedience go together. Can’t have Bible faith without obedience or Bible obedience without faith.
Macarthur brings out here that many churches are known for their pastor. Or their architecture. Or their stained-glass windows. Or their size. Or
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their wealth. How many churches that you know of are known for their faith?
Throughout the whole world? Hyperbole but true. He would not lie. But consider:
This is Rome. It’s the political center of the world. Other churches would have heard about what was going on in the Roman church. Perhaps persecution was strong here in Nero’s back yard.
Nero had been Emperor for several years [A.D. 54]. That’s the Nero that murdered his own wife and mother, that mercilessly slaughtered Christians, that in AD 64 set the city of Rome on fire and blamed it on the Christians, then persecuted them mercilessly. Reminds one of the barbarity of our own age and of a certain dictator that is now a rock star all over the world, sipping drinks with the Dictator of China while he tries to befriend America’s leadership.
So if Christians are being sought out and persecuted in Rome, though only sporadically at the writing of this letter, surely that news was getting to the rest of the church. Paul says, I thank my God for you, for your faith which has led to your obedience in the midst of these trials.
Helps you to understand the serious nature of Phoebe’s mission (ch. 16:1), to get a letter from Paul to this persecuted church. Imagine sending one of your servant ladies to Pyongyang to get a message to the Christians there.
The danger was not as great as it would become, but Christians were not that popular. And remember there was a strong Jewish presence there too. Rome’s faith in the midst of all its enemies was being spoken of everywhere. Please note that Paul is not being literal but he is being true.
For example, my podcast on sermonaudio is heard around the world! But I challenge you to go to any nation and find someone who has heard my podcast. I have been in many nations, but only by a few people here and a few there. Nothing to write home about.
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Rome’s story had found an audience in many places throughout the Roman world. And its fame would grow when the real persecution set in.
Not to mention the fact that today Paul’s words are literally true!
1:9
“For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers.”
Macarthur brings out that the Roman church must have had two questions when they received this attention from a great man of God: 1. Why us? 2. Where have you been? He will answer both of those questions in detail. The quick answer: I want to bless you, and I’ve been hindered in my attempts to visit.
God is my witness. Nearly an oath. Not to be used casually, as many do. But Paul had never met the Romans. Yet he tells them that he is praying for them all the time. He wants them to believe this, though it must be hard to believe. Without ceasing. [note that this does not mean 24/7, any more than “pray without ceasing” for us!]
Always. Again note the truth of the claim but not the exactness of it. Paul will use terms like this to indicate continual prayer. Not 24/7. But whenever I pray, I pray for you, Paul says. I am constantly asking God for a chance to come to see you and bless you. I’m not one who makes his own plans, I must hear from God about this.
Not sure when I will see you, but I keep praying about it, whenever I pray. And when God opens that door, I’ll be there. This God that I pray to is the one I serve “with my spirit in the Gospel of His Son.”
Sometimes it is difficult to know whose spirit is being talked about when “spirit” is in the text. Here it is clearly “my” spirit. The spirit of man is essentially dead before Christ. “You were dead in your trespasses and sins” says another text.
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How dead? Body was alive. Soul, that is the mind, that was alive. But that invisible portion of man that comes to life when God’s spirit touches us, that was dead.
Paul says he serves God in his spirit. But of course, that spirit is connected to God’s Spirit. It’s the innermost holy place of the Christian’s being. Out of that spirit/Spirit, Paul served God.
Specifically, that field of service was the Gospel. This was not a vague feeling religion Paul had. His mission was clear: getting out the Good News about Jesus.
How do you serve Him? How do I? In the spirit, or motivated by flesh in some way? Do we look for approval, ease, attention? This is not serving God in the spirit. Do we desire what God desires, and serve Him out of that set of desires? Then we are serving in the spirit or Spirit, actually both.
Once again, Macarthur (p. 32) : “People serve the Lord from many motives. Some serve out of legalistic effort, as a means of earning salvation and God’s favor. Some serve the Lord for fear that, if they do not, they will incur His disfavor and perhaps even lose their salvation. Some, like Diotrophes (3 John 9), serve because of the prestige and esteem that leadership often brings. Some serve in order to gain preeminent ecclesiastical positions and the power to lord it over those under their care. Some serve for appearance’s sake, in order to be considered righteous by fellow church members and by the world. Some serve because of peer pressure to conform to certain human standards of religious and moral behavior. Children are often forced into religious activities by their parents, and they sometimes continue those activities into adult life only because of parental intimidation or perhaps from mere habit. Some people are even zealous in Christian work because of the financial gain it can produce.”
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Why do we do the things we do and who do we do them for? Important question. Paul’s answer was clear enough. I serve from the Spirit, in my spirit, for the Gospel.
1:10
“Making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you.”
Making request [in my prayers]. Here is the particular thing Paul has been asking for them: that he might be able to come to them.
He recognizes that when you have a desire to go somewhere and do something, you don’t just up and go. God has to arrange it. God has to open a spot in the schedule. God has to provide the means financially. Everything must be put in order for a trip like this, so I’ve been asking God to come, if it is His will. Notice the phrase “in the will of God.”
James says we should always include in our statements about the future, “if the Lord wills.” We have no idea what the morrow will bring. I’ll come visit you, Lord willing. Let me be sure it is God’s will before I come.
Because if I don’t, it will just be me visiting you, and what you want is God’s visit, not just mine.
But look closer. He is not saying, I will sit back and wait for God to send a carriage to my door, to transport me to you miraculously. Notice every word: I’m praying that “I might find a way” to come to you. He will be looking for the opportunity. He’ll be trying to work things out with his budget and schedule. He will do everything humanly possible to see them, because his desire is so great to be there. But if the door closes, it closes. If every method fails, so be it.
Remember this was the case at different times in Paul’s ministry: Acts 16:6-7. “Now when they (Paul and company) had gone through
Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit
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to preach the word in Asia [the small Roman province in present-day Turkey].
“After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them…” We find later that God had other plans for them, though their desire to preach in Asia and Bithynia was real.
Human desire is not the only indicator of the will of God, though it can be a starting place. If we place ourselves in the hands of God and ask for His leadership, He will take our human desires and tweak them so that we wind up just where we need to be.
Paul says, I want to be there. I will try to be there. But ultimately I will not be coming unless it turns out to be the will of God. And it was. Three years later, in chains.
What about that little phrase “at last” in the verse? “… now at last I may find a way…” Quite possibly it means just what it seems to mean. “I have been wanting to visit you for a long time, and finally – at last – I am going to be there.” Another thing we can learn from Paul before he even begins teaching in his letter: Sometimes the things we pray for take a long time to see the light of day! We are encouraged to keep praying and keep praying, and at last it will happen if we are praying in His will.
Yes, His will is the supreme factor in getting prayers answered. Macarthur: “The popular practice of demanding things from God and expecting Him to meet those demands is perverted and heretical.”
The Scripture is plain, “If we ask anything according to His will [not ours] He hears us…”
The church collectively has been praying “Even so come Lord Jesus!” in every generation of its history. And every generation including ours has believed that His coming was imminent, right around the corner, any day now. But it hasn’t come yet. The mercy of God keeps being extended to lost sinners, in answer to our other prayer, “Lord, save the lost. Lord send laborers into the harvest fields and reach the unreached!”
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Which prayer do you want Him to answer? Finally, at last, he will answer them both. First one, then the other!
1:11
“For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established.”
Now we see more of the reason Paul wants to visit Rome. He has the heart of Christ, the heart of an apostle, the heart of a teacher. Not everyone is called to be a Paul, but everyone is given a heart to do certain things for the Lord. We call these gifts. And Paul, with his gift, his heart, wants to impart a gift for the church at Rome.
Notice he does not say “gifts” but “gift.” Notice also he is not writing to an individual, but to a church. The church, Paul said elsewhere, should be desirous of spiritual gifts. Especially the ones that build up the church.
Note one more thing, in Romans 12:6ff. The Roman church seems to have these kinds of gifts already, and Paul directs the Romans as to how to use those gifts. So what is he talking about in the verse before us, when he says he wants to impart some spiritual gift?
Whatever it is, we get a clue in the next verse. After saying in verse 11 that this gift (singular) is going to establish them, he explains in verse 12 that he means that through this establishing, they are going to have the same faith that he does.
Verse 15 then may have the answer: “I am ready to preach the Gospel to you who are in Rome…”
But you say, they already had the Gospel, too! We know they had the Holy Ghost gifts. We know they had formed a church. We know that it was being persecuted. But when you read the content of the book of Romans you see there was a whole lot that they didn’t have! Not that they were guilty of subverting the truth, or living in immorality. They simply had never had a full explanation of this Gospel.
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Paul then begins to explain to them in his epistle what the Gospel really means. But before all that he tells them, I am going to come to Rome and preach this Gospel, not only to you, but to many others there. I want you to understand it, and I want you to see it.
And no doubt, while he preached and taught, God would manifest himself in various other gifts. They would be established in the Word and in the Spirit. That was his intention.
Back up one page in your Bible, but fast forward several years into Paul’s life, and you read, in Acts 28:30, 31, while Paul is in Rome as a prisoner: “Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him [church members, Jews, Gentiles, who knows?] preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ [the Gospel] with all confidence, no one forbidding him!”
Mission accomplished! Desire of Romans 1 fulfilled. Do you see the connection? “I want to impart a spiritual gift…” “I want to preach the Gospel to you at Rome…” Paul “… received all… preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern Jesus…”
Paul had imparted what he wanted to impart: the Gospel! And in the letter to the Romans, received ahead of time, an earth-shattering description of that Gospel which he would show in person when he came later.
Remember when we are talking about the gifts, we are talking about those things which edify, build up, the Body. What greater gift could Paul impart to edify, to establish, this church than the laying out of the Gospel of salvation?
That word “establish”, translated “stablish” often in the KJV is worth our attention. Stayridzo. To steadfastly set. To strengthen. I think of a fence post being set in cement. Ever tried to move one of those? It aint goin’ nowhere. That’s how Paul wants the Roman Christians to be.
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I don’t believe that he is coming to impart temporary giftings (plural) to this new and vulnerable church. I believe he wants to steadfastly set them, to ground them, to make them unshakeable. That’s what happens when a man is filled with the truths of the Spirit of truth that we call simply the Bible. Established. Set in stone. Set on the Rock. Aint goin' nowhere!
For confirmation of what I am saying, I take you to the other end of this epistle, 16:25: Paul’s benediction reads, “Now to Him Who is able to establish [same word!] you [how?] according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations…”
Strengthened, confirmed, established, set in stone by the Scriptures. By the Word. By the Gospel. By God’s Spirit entering a man and quickening Him with the very words from God about how to be saved, how to live in Christ, how to prepare for glory. Oh, despise not this Book!
Paul finishes his thought in verse 12.
1:12
“that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”
He equates their establishment with their encouragement, and Paul’s encouragement too. The word in the KJV is “comfort”. It comes from the word from which we get “paraclete” or comforter, together with a word that means “together”. We are comforted together, encouraged together, when you are established. Established in what? In the mutual faith.
This is not just “faith” as an attribute of the Spirit, but “the” faith. The faith once delivered to the saints. The Gospel. The Truth. The Word. I will establish you in this Word and together we will encourage one another. We will come into unity over this.
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There’s a similar pattern in Titus 1:3-4. Paul writes to this young son in the faith that God has “…manifested His Word through preaching…” and now he sends a letter about it “…to Titus, a true son in our common faith.” Not just that we both know how to believe, but the things we share are the things being shared all over the Christian church. One common faith.
One established faith of Jesus. That, Romans, is what I am coming to settle you into. You have received of the Spirit. Wonderful! You are meeting regularly. Great! You are truly a part of the church. Well and good! Now let me tell you the rest of the story, so we can truly be united with a strong common bond.
1:13
“Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now) that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles.”
Paul continues in expressing his desire, not only now, but for a long time, to come and see them. This trip is heavy on his heart. The plans were actually in his schedule book. The tickets were bought, so to speak, but every time he actually tried to go there, he was hindered.
I would preach in Corinth and Ephesus and so many others, and God would give me souls, and God would give me miracles, and God would give me precious lives built up strong. God would give me leaders for the churches, disciples for my own cause of preaching, and each time I would say, I must go to Rome now. I want them to know what these other churches know. I want them to experience the power of God in their midst, the joy, the fellowship. Oh I must go to Rome!
But it never happened. Not yet. Paul experienced gradually what God had told him originally, that he was the apostle to the Gentiles. Not a Gentile himself, but one whose specific calling was to go preaching to all the nations outside of Israel. What better place to go, then, than to the capital of the Gentile world, Rome itself?
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Perhaps Paul in his humanity had visions of grandeur, or was thinking humanly at times, with human logic. Logically, get the Gospel to Rome and from Rome to the rest of the world, he thought? If so, God had to put the brakes on, and make Rome among the last of his journeys. He would show him how God didn’t always work on his own schedule, as He has to show us. And how God considers the kingdoms of this world as nothing compared to the Kingdom He is building around us.
Consider Nimrod of Genesis. He actually founded the cities that would become the headquarters of the two main empires that are the backdrop of the Old Testament, Babylonia and Assyria.
How many verses are given to Nimrod in Genesis? Precious few. Yet multiple chapters are given to the man Abraham. What did he do? Had a son. Isaac. Jacob. Judah… you know the rest. From his descendants came one who will rule the earth, who will judge the earth, who will eventually replace the earth with a new earth.
God doesn’t look at things the way we do. Paul had to wait. Rome had to wait. And a great church did come to that city, unfortunately later corrupted by the ways of men.
1:14
“I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.”
“I am under an obligation,” says Paul [NASB]. Similar sentiments to the Corinthians: 1 Corinthians 9:16-17:
“For if I preach the gospel [and I do] I have nothing to boast of [brag about], for necessity is laid upon me [I am under compulsion]; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!”
Then this insight, that helps explain the Romans passage: “For if I do this [preaching the gospel] willingly, I have a reward [as when a man puts in
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hours at a job and gets paid for it]; but if against my will [as a slave simply responds to his Master], I have been entrusted with a stewardship.”
In other words, as much as I love you and want to help you, you need to understand that I am going to visit and bless you because God has entrusted me with a message that is for all Gentiles everywhere. I have to come to you one day. I’m under orders.
That includes the educated of the Greek culture we are living in, and the rest of the population too, the foreigners, the non-Greeks, the uneducated. Smart people and total fools, I have to preach this gospel to everyone out there.
1:15
“So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also.”
Now you understand why I am coming to you. I will do everything in my power to get to you.
Paul had to go to Jerusalem first. To be rejected, arrested, and sent to Rome a prisoner. As he leaves Corinth and makes his way back to the Jewish capital, he says in his farewell to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:22- 24:“…I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me… but none of these things move me, nor do I count my life dear to myself…”
That attitude would eventually cause Paul to say to the Roman-appointed governor of Judea, “I appeal to Caesar.” Do you think that in that appeal, Paul had had an inspiration from heaven, saying to Paul, “This is the way you will get to see the Roman Christians.”?
He feared no human government, because his super-human Master had given him an assignment, and he intended to fulfill it.
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Sure, he knew that Rome was immoral, pagan, steeped in emperor worship. He knew that trouble would meet him there as it had among his own people. But the text here still says, I am ready. And that word “ready” in the Greek carries with it the idea of “predisposition” or “alacrity”, that is “eager”. I’m so looking forward to being with you! Can’t wait. My mental bags are packed. Let’s do this!
