First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you 10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. 11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— 12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. 13 I want you to know, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. (Romans 1:8-15)
Paul makes clear his appreciation for the Roman church, his constant prayer for them, his deep desire to come to them, and the fact that he has tried several times to visit. Mostly, though, Paul communicates the reasons behind his desire to visit them. It looks to me like there are basically two reasons, and both are challenging. The first reason is that Paul wants to “impart . . . some spiritual gift to strengthen” the Roman Christians (Romans 1:11). Now that may come across a tad arrogant. Kind of like here is Paul to save the day. So Paul explains further, “that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine”(Romans 1:12). In other words, Paul wants to come to see these Christians both to give and to get. Personally, I expect the give part. He is after all the apostle Paul. It is the get part that shocks me. This is Paul, and he longs for relationships with other Christians to get strength from their faith.
Honestly, I think the get aspect is often more difficult than the give. Let me explain. Of course, in a consumer driven culture, we automatically think “get” all the time. But that is a selfish sort of get. We feel we need some kind approval, kindness, appreciation, to feel like we have some worth. Of course, with this kind of “get” you don’t really need the church of Jesus. You can get, or at least try to get, those things from any group of family or friends. But when it comes to our faith, we tend to diminish the “get.” At least, the “get” from other people. You need God. You need Jesus. You need the Spirit. You need the Bible, and you get a lot from them. But do you get all you need? That is a trick question. The answer, of course, is “Yes, you get all you need from God, Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Word.” But without interacting with the faith of others, you don’t get all you can, or dare I say all you need, from God and His Word. Christianity is not and was never meant to be a solo sport. Even Paul the apostle needed the church to sustain and build his faith. That’s kind of why I’m asking others to join this discussion. I think we can all get a lot more out of our Bible study in the context of community. We need one another to get more of God.
It is this kind of mentality that seems rare among Christians. It is more common and certainly easier to accept that people need me to give, to serve, and to help them. I after all do have a lot to offer. It is kind of scary, but the desire to serve can be a subtle cloak of our arrogance. True service desires to give and to get. In true service our service isn’t an act of manipulation to receive a need, but we are humble enough to see the benefit we are getting in the relationship. And we are humble enough to know that we need relationships to grow in our faith.
Well, I spent enough time on the first reason. The second reason for Paul’s desire to visit Rome is that he longs to proclaim the gospel. I’ve already written enough, so perhaps some of you can comment on this one.
2 comments:
I'm being sarcastic (for clarity), but I feel sorry for Paul, because he really is pretty lousy at marketing. I spent the better part of the afternoon in a meeting determining how we can better reach our target market in these trying economical times. We talked about all sorts of customers. To translate it into this context, we discussed Greeks, barbarians, wise and foolish "customers" - to determine who is most inclined to buy our product. There are large groups of people we aren't even going to reach out to, because they aren't predisposed to buy our product. We need to effectively reach out only to the people that are most likely to respond. That's the corporate way... but not God's way.
Paul on the other hand looks at everyone equally. I would suppose that he isn't prejudging them to determine who will and who won't respond to the message, and he is going to preach equally to all, and let God decide and work among the people.
I'm reminded of the story I told a couple of you regarding my father. For 40 years he reached out to a friend and witnessed to him repeatedly, only to be rebuffed, rejected, and had the topic of conversation quickly changed. 40 years is starting to sound like a shorter period of time as I age, but if I were told "no" for 40 years, I think I would pretty much be giving up. My father was recently convicted about his friend one last time, and went to visit him, and on this visit his friend said something akin to, "you know I've been waiting for you to show me how to get to heaven...". What!? Now I know that over those 40 years my father shared with him the gospel, showed him the way, discussed his concern for his heart condition. I guess his friend wasn't ready. I guess it's possible he didn't "hear" the message. But when he finally was prepared to hear, he was ready. What a blessing that my father was able to share with him The Way, and confirm in prayer his acceptance of Christ.
To be openly critical of myself in contrast, I probably would have given up after the first rejection. Thinking something like "oh well, I guess this isn't going anywhere..." Instead I think Paul is showing us to share. Share here. Share there. Share again. and again. oh go ahead, share again. He even said he was EAGER to share! and by the way, when you share, don't just share with people who cut their hair like you, share with EVERYONE that you run in to on the street. That challenges me.
I think we tend to under-appreciate what a gift it is to have a gospel community, Christian family, Christian spouse, etc. I know that when I went to college, I did so with the backing of a very supportive, Christian base. I was confident in the fact that God was going to give me witnessing opportunities and make me a light in this campus. I also thought that I would not be alone. Grace be to God that this is a dark campus. Those around me are vile, wicked, have double-standards, and do not love Christ. I am no different than them, but for the grace of Christ. There is also pain here, due to the lack of someone who shares my mission.
So, I can agree with Paul here. He knows he's on a mission for Christ, which compels him to be away from those he loves and leaves him in the mire of godlessness only to proclaim Christ's love. There is a duality here. Suffer loneliness, sadness, rejection, and the like for eternal glory. I feel the same way. It would be easy to try transferring schools to a Christian school, be surrounded by Christian friends, and not share my faith. I could live in comfort. That is not what I am called for, though.
So, I love to see those of my small group, to feel the love, to return news from the front, and also to get the encouragement and tools needed for the return. It is this encouragement that sees me through the weeks. It is this encouragement that keeps my eyes on the calling I received when I accepted Christ, to go into all the world and preach the gospel.
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