Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Romans · About this commentary
Not Where Christ Was Named
Romans 15:14-21
14 I myself am also persuaded about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish others. · WEB
The letter is reframed as a reminder, Paul's ministry is described as priesthood with the Gentiles as offering, and his rule is pioneer ground only.
I myself am also persuaded about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish others.
After fifteen chapters of sustained instruction, the courtesy is genuine and strategic: the readers are competent — full of goodness and knowledge, able to correct one another without him. So the letter reframes itself: I write the more boldly to you in part as reminding you Romans 15:15 — the whole massive argument filed as a reminder, boldness excused by office rather than by the readers' deficiency.
And the office is described in the most liturgical sentence Paul ever wrote about his work: that 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 Romans 15:16.
The apostle to the Gentiles casts his mission as temple service: the gospel as the ministry he attends, and the offering he presents at the altar is the Gentiles themselves — converted peoples as the sacrifice, made acceptable not by any rite but sanctified by the Holy Spirit. The living sacrifice of 12:1 at continental scale: nations laid on the altar alive.
His boast is immediately fenced: I will not dare to speak of any things except those which Christ worked through me Romans 15:18 — accomplishment reported only as Christ's working, in word and deed, in the Spirit's power. And the scope is stated like a surveyor's report: from Jerusalem and around as far as to Illyricum, I have fully preached the Good News of Christ Romans 15:19 — the eastern arc complete, from the mother city sweeping to the Adriatic's edge.
Then the rule that explains his whole strange career: making it my aim to preach the Good News, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build on another's foundation Romans 15:20.
Pioneer ground only — the ambition-word applied to unclaimed frontiers, with Isaiah's servant-song as warrant: they will see, to whom no news of him came Romans 15:21. The rule explains the hindrance he apologized for in chapter 1 Romans 1:13: Rome had believers already; the frontier kept him. And it quietly explains this letter's existence — a man whose policy forbade building on foundations he did not lay wrote his fullest gospel to a church he did not found, laying in words the foundation he would not lay in person.
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