Paul's Love for the Roman Church

Rom 1:8-15

8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.

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;

10 Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.

11 For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;

12 That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.

13 Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.(KJV)

Here Paul starts to let the church in Rome know that he is so thankful for them as he has heard about them and is impressed with the fact that everyone has heard of this dynamic church. Their faith in God is spoken about throughout the whole known world. This must have been a strong church both filled with Jewish and Gentile believers, specially when you look at the issues Paul discussed in this book. Paul must have felt that he just had to write them and also let them know he was praying for them. How does he know so much about them? He learned from many friends of his about this church and there were people he already knew there in Rome. In the last chapter of this book he sends greetings to a large number of people who had gone to Rome to minister to that church. Priscilla & Aquila had gone to Rome and had a house church. He had met them in Corinth where Paul ran into problems. They went with him on to Ephesus. He knew a minium of 26 people who had gone to Rome and settled there ministering to the church there. Perhaps all of that group had gone to start that Roman congregation. And some of these folks he was greeting in that last chapter were relatives of Paul. So here was a growing church.

Now Paul states that God Himself is his witness that he is always praying for them. He parenthetically adds "whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son", pointing out it is God the Father he is serving with his spirit in the good news of His son, Jesus Christ". Course we know that means also serving Jesus Christ. But Paul is adding this just to make sure they see the connection between him and Jesus and know that he is actually a Christian too. They had to have known of him, and this is probably, (but there is no guarantee of it) his first letter to that church. At any rate, he does not cease "to make mention of" them in his prayers. And one of the petitions he makes is to be able to go to Rome and visit with this church, (see verse 10). He is hoping at this point that it is God’s will to send him to Rome and that the journey be a prosperous one. Actually the word in the Greek means--a successful journey.

Notice he brings in God’s will here. He is hoping, but doesn’t know yet at this point, that God wants him to go to Rome. Why? We see in the next verses why. Verse 11-"For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;" Paul’s motive for going is written right here as well as in verse 12–"That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me." So he had a two fold motive. Paul wants to bless these people with a greater and deeper revelation of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, and His Holy Spirit. He wanted to see them become an even stronger church than they already were. He also wanted to be blessed by their strength and faith as much as he wanted them to be blessed and strengthened by his faith. He had a heart for this church. And that is why he could not resist writing to them to encourage them. And since he was in Ephesus for a time, he had to time to write the letter.

Now as he wrote this letter, he evidently used a scribe to write down his words. We know this because Tertius wrote in his greetings and indicated he was the one who was doing the writing. We don’t know if Paul had to have help in writing stuff because of bad eyesight, but considering some other comments in other letters he made regarding his eyes, it is a good possibility that he had bad eyesight and could not have seen clearly to write. Who knows, maybe he had developed cataracts by this time, or some kind of eye infection. We don’t know. All we can do is speculate. Regardless of why Paul used a "stenographer" or "secretary" or whatever you would call it now a days, we do know that Paul’s words were the words in the letter written to Rome. Only that one comment Tertius made in verse 16:22 was his own.

Back to Paul’s heart for these people, he greatly wanted to bless these people and be able to minister to them, and often he had wanted to go see them, but was stopped each time he made plans for it. "I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,)" He wanted to develop more fruit in their lives just as he had done with other gentile believers. He makes a later reference to the same thing.

Rom 15:22

22 For which cause also I have been much hindered from coming to you.

Who stopped him? We don’t know if it was God or Satan. We do know that Satan sometimes succeeded in throwing a crimp in Paul’s plans. We also have evidence of God stopping him from going a particular direction-

Acts 16:6-7

6 Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia,

7 After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.(KJV)

Sometimes God will throw a block in a person’s way, so they go the correct direction. Kind of like setting up a passage way that you can’t deviate from, you are stuck going that way. Compare it to the way hunters used to flank herds of game to drive them into their traps. Course God does not lay traps, but He will at times just surround us with His will.

Now another means of Paul being stopped was Satan. Look at what he said about getting to visit the people in Thessalonika.

1Thes 2:18

18 Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us.(KJV)

So we can see that Satan can interfere with the work of God, and God can hinder man’s plans so that people are guided in the right direction. You see, Satan hinders, God directs. So when God stops you from doing something, it is because God has other plans --and your’s and God’s aren’t exactly the same, or the hindrance is because you are jumping ahead of God and your timing is wrong. Do you see the difference between Satan’s motives and God’s? Remember the verse that tells us Satan’s intents? Look up John 10:10. And in Paul’s situation with the Romans, we are not told who hindered Paul. We do know that later God gave him a free trip to Rome at government expense, until he reached Rome

Acts 28:16

16 And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him.(KJV)

Acts 28:30

30 And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,(KJV)

What is interesting to note is that here Paul lived under house arrest, also having to pay his own rent, and could only minister to those folks God sent to him. So we can see how his visit to Rome was really under God’s control and we also know that those folks God wanted Paul to minister to would show up at his door. Talk about a powerful ministry! He had that.

But at the time of writing this letter to the Romans, his government subsidized trip to Rome had not occurred and Paul had no idea that was in his future. So he is writing them, letting them know he wanted to minister to them in person as soon as he got the chance.

Are you learning anything new from this material? This is still just a small start of God’s revelation to us in the book of Romans. We are already learning about God’s actions in Paul’s life and how God changed Paul and gave him a real pastor’s heart. That is only the tip of the iceberg. Next week, Lord willing, we will go on.

God bless, The Good News Lady