Slices
Prepare
Be curious, looking for something in the Bible that is new, unexpected or forgotten, and receive it gladly.
Bible passage
Paul the minister to the Gentiles
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 to 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 round 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.’
22 This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.
Explore
Paul was more sensitive and more considerate than he is often given credit for. Was he worried here that he might not have got the tone quite right for his audience? He fulsomely reassured them of his high opinion of them (vs 14,15) and he offered a further explanation (following 1:10–13) for why he had not visited them yet (v 22).
The main reason behind everything Paul did was that God had given him this huge privilege of ‘ministering Jesus Christ’ to the non-Jewish world (vs 15,16). Three times Paul mentions ‘proclaiming the gospel’ (vs 16,19,20). This was his over-arching joy, duty and ambition. Hence his delay in visiting Rome. He had been busy! He felt he was primarily a pioneer and therefore should prioritise places where the gospel had not yet reached (v 20).
When I was 21, someone much older implored me, ‘When you are a vicar in a new parish, please remember that God was at work there before you.’ A strong sense of call to God’s work doesn’t mean we can ignore God’s people around us. See how Paul, the great apostle to the unreached, still affirmed the brave Christians in Rome; he still took trouble to explain his plans to them (v 22) and he took care not to muscle in on someone else’s ministry (v 20).
Respond
Pray for wisdom to know when to resist other people’s expectations and when to accept other people’s advice and insight.
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Job 24–26; Luke 21
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray that as Mission Partner Faith in Schools reach out to serve Muslim schools in Newham, they may find others to support them with their Christianity lessons and in other ways. Pray for them as they try to reconnect with three schools they have worked with in the past.
