Ministering to the Saints

Paul has one thing he wants do before heading for Spain via Rome—he plans to take a monetary gift from the Gentile churches of Greece to the church in Jerusalem. It would seem that there is no real need for Paul to make this trip, that he could entrust the money for the Jerusalem church to an associate instead of taking it himself. However, this offering appears to be very important to Paul. We know that the Jerusalem church leaders asked him to arrange it, at least in a general way, when they approved his ministry to Gentiles with the stipulation that he “remember the poor,” meaning those in their impoverished church, and Paul says he was “eager” to do just that (Gal. 2:10). Perhaps he views this gift from Gentile Christians to Jewish believers as an important demonstration of Christian unity. Or he may be hoping it will justify his ministry to skeptical Jewish converts. In any case, he has arranged the offering and wants to be the one to present it to the Jerusalem church. He feels that it offers him a chance to “minister” to the believers there.

Paul notes that the Gentile churches were “pleased” to give for the needs of the impoverished believers in Jerusalem. In his mind, this reaction was appropriate, for the Gentile Christians are “debtors” to the Jewish converts in the sense that great spiritual blessings had come to them through the Jews. The book of Acts does not paint the Jerusalem church as the most missions-minded church (that distinction belongs to the church of Antioch), but God did send His message forth from it. Thus, it was good that the Gentiles, being blessed spiritually, should at least help their Jewish brothers and sisters materially.

The apostle ends this passage by expressing confidence that he eventually will come to Rome “in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.” But as Acts tells us, he would come as a prisoner of the empire—not what we would be likely to call a blessed situation. Nevertheless, this was no vain hope. As Dr. James M. Boice points out, “Paul is confident that when he comes to Rome he will do so as an appointed and consecrated messenger of God, who is therefore blessed by God in the sense that God’s good works will accompany him and prosper what he does for God.” Acts shows that God did indeed bless his time in Rome in great ways (Acts 28:30–31).