Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Romans · About this commentary
Strive Together with Me in Prayer
Romans 15:30-33
30 Now 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, · WEB
The apostle begs for prayer as combat, names three petitions, and two of the three were answered otherwise than asked.
Now 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.
The verb is athletic — strive together, agonize alongside: prayer as shared combat, the strongest word for intercession in Paul's letters, begged from strangers by their apostle. The double invocation — by the Lord, by the Spirit's love — signals how seriously he means it, and the petitions that follow show why.
Three requests, in order of anxiety: that I may be delivered from those who are disobedient in Judea — he expects danger in Jerusalem, and the fear was warranted; that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints — the second worry is subtler and sadder: that the gift itself might be refused, Gentile money too suspect for Jewish hands, the collection's whole theology Romans 15:27 declined at the door; that I may come to you in joy through the will of God, and together with you, find rest Romans 15:32.
The record answers the prayers with the strange arithmetic prayers often receive. Delivered from the disobedient in Judea? He was mobbed in the temple and rescued by Roman soldiers — delivered, by arrest. Come to Rome in joy? He came, after two years' imprisonment and a shipwreck, in chains — and the arrival was real, and believers walked out from the city to meet him. The requests were granted in forms no one would have chosen and no one could deny Romans 8:28.
And the section closes with the shortest benediction in the letter: now the God of peace be with you all. Amen Romans 15:33.
The God of peace — after the plans, the fears, and the striving: peace as God's own title, spoken over a journey whose next chapters held riot, trial, and sea. The title recurs at the letter's close with a promise attached Romans 16:20; here it stands alone, a hand laid on the readers before the long goodbye of the greetings begins.
settled What this mark means