Romans 15:14-16
14 I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. 15 Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
17 Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. 18 I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— 19 by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. 20 It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. 21 Rather, as it is written:
“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand.”
Christmas Preaching
The Apostle Paul wrote a mighty treatise and passionate document to a group of Roman Christians. In this letter, most likely read in public in many house churches, he addressed his passion for preaching Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected. In Romans 15:14-21 we see how he explains his understanding of God’s mission for him. In verse 16, he stated that his purpose was bound up in, “the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” The Apostle Paul was very sure of his mission.
He was also very sure that God’s grace extended far beyond the boundaries of the Jewish world. In the book of Acts and in further letters written by Paul, we see his commitment to preach the Gospel in places others had not yet gone and some that others would not dare to go. And yet go he did while preaching the Gospel.
What drove Paul was his own conversion experience—a direct encounter with the Person of Jesus Christ. (Acts 9:1-19, 22:6-21, 26:12-18, Galatians 1:11-24, 1 Corinthians 9:1, 15:8) How old Paul, formerly Saul, was when Jesus Christ was born can only be estimated. But just over thirty years after the Bethlehem shepherds bowed before the infant Christ, the voice of the resurrected Christ stopped him in his tracks, reframed his Jewish experience into the New Covenant light, and set him on the trajectory to be part of the distribution of the Gospel message until the whole world would know.
Paul was planted in the estimated middle-story of the earthly kingdom of God. Whether or not his time was the actual middle we cannot know (Mark 13:32), but what we do recognize is that Paul and his companions, and the many who have come after them, are an essential part of the Gospel reaching all peoples.
You and I may not know the joys of our deeply spiritual Christmas experiences today if someone had not to preached or presented the Gospel to us. Take time today to thank God for those who shared the Gospel with you.
Author: ReeAnn Hyde
Other Scriptures for today:
- Psalm 21
- Isaiah 41:14-20
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