Romans 15 - 16

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Romans 15 - 16

In these chapters, Paul addresses tensions in the church regarding different sets of convictions, urging Christians to accommodate and bear with one another. He emphasizes the importance of putting the interests of others ahead of self-interest and receiving each other just as Christ received them. Paul also discusses the value and limitations of mental health professionals and encourages seeking counsel from fellow believers who are knowledgeable in God's Word. Finally, he warns against false teachers and emphasizes the importance of obedience and peace in Christ.

Transcript

As we begin Romans chapter 15, we really are clearly continuing with the discussion of chapter 14, which was devoted to dealing with the tension that existed in the church of Rome and truly exists in the body of Christ wherever Christians are found, between those who have one set of convictions and those who have another set of convictions. And Paul's libertine attitude himself was that he said, well, you don't have to succumb to somebody else's convictions. You have liberty, but more important than your own liberty is your love for your brother.

And if your exercise of liberty is going to stumble your brother, then you should restrict your liberty, at least in that person's presence, so as not to stumble him. And that's what he's been saying right down to the end of chapter 14. And he continues in chapter 15, we then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves.

Now, once again, the weak are those who have a tender conscience, those who are fragile, that they're easily stumbled. They have a somewhat more legalistic temperament, perhaps, and their conscience doesn't give them so much freedom. They are weak in their conscience.

Those who are strong are those whose consciences are not tender or fragile or easily overthrown. They know what they believe, they know they have liberty, and they're not worried about it. Now, obviously, the ones who are weak can't be asked to bear with the strength of the strong because they're weak.

Their very weakness makes it impossible to require them to do what only strong people can do. So the stronger party must bear with the weaknesses of the weak, must accommodate them. Just as it's true you can't expect a child to support its parents, the parents have to support the child.

The weaker one is dependent on the strong. And so if you happen to be one with greater liberty in your Christian life than someone else has, then it's your place to accommodate the one who doesn't have quite that much liberty. He's saying, we who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves.

Pleasing ourselves would be saying, well, why should I let him restrict my behavior? I like to drink wine. I like to dress the way I want to dress. I like to eat meats that they think they shouldn't eat.

Why should I restrict myself? He says, because you're not here to please yourself. You're here to please God, not yourself. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification.

That is, we should put our neighbor ahead of ourselves. Now, more than even our neighbor, we should put God ahead. And of course, if you were in Sunday school as a little child, you would have learned the secret of joy is to put things in this order, Jesus and others and you.

Pleasing Jesus first, pleasing others second, pleasing you last, priority. That's how to be happy in Jesus. That's the secret of joy.

J-O-Y, Jesus, others, you. And so, Paul really would argue that pleasing God, pleasing Jesus is the most important thing, but even on the human level, pleasing others should be ahead of pleasing yourself. He says, don't please ourselves, let's please our neighbor ahead of us.

For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. This is a quotation, obviously from the Old Testament, Psalm 69.9, and it's a messianic psalm that Christ accepted the reproaches of those that were reproaching God. A person can distance himself from God and therefore be in the company of people who reproach God, but they don't fall on you because you're not associated with him.

But by associating with God, you're accepting the reproach that comes upon him as to come upon yourself too. You share in the sufferings of Christ by associating with him. Christ did that toward his Father.

So, as Christ didn't please himself, he took on unpleasing circumstances due to his pleasing God, and the persecution and reproaches that came upon God were now trickling down to him because of his association with his Father. So, we also have to have the mind of Christ that pleasing ourselves is something we have to sacrifice sometimes in order to please God and others. Because for us to please others above ourselves is pleasing to God.

Now, to say please others, we have to be careful not to take that the wrong way. Paul, in Galatians 1.10, indicated that he doesn't please men. He says, if I were pleasing men, I wouldn't be the servant of Christ.

What he means by that, of course, is he knows what he has to do in preaching the gospel. And if what he's preaching doesn't please people, well, so be it. He's got to obey God.

Even if it doesn't please people. Peter said the same thing when the Sanhedrin was very displeased with him preaching the gospel. They said, don't preach anymore, and he said, well, we must obey God rather than men.

When it comes to pleasing God or men, we must please God, not men. When it comes to pleasing men or just ourselves, we ought to put others ahead of ourselves. God is the priority.

We must please Him, even if it means we displease people. But if we could please people by simply sacrificing our own pleasure, then that's the higher road to take. Please others instead of just ourselves.

For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we, through the patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope. Now, the things that were written before no doubt is referring to the scripture he just quoted that was written before in Psalm 69. And it's essentially written about Christ, but it's written for our instruction, for our learning.

We, after all, are trying to be imitators of Christ. We are seeking to have His attitude. And these scriptures that tell us Christ's attitude are written to instruct us in our attitude.

We should imitate Him. And frankly, apparently, all the things that are written in scriptures are for our benefit, for our learning. Because Paul said that also in 2 Timothy 3, and he was certainly talking about the Old Testament when he said in verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable.

Profitable to us. For what purposes? Well, he said for teaching and for reproof and for correction and instruction in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and he goes on in 17, so that the man of God might be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures are profitable for teaching. We know, by the way, that 2 Timothy 3 is talking about the Old Testament scriptures because the previous verse, verse 15, says that Timothy had been instructed in those scriptures since childhood. And there weren't any New Testament scriptures that Timothy had available to him.

So, it was the Old Testament scriptures he had been taught by his Jewish mother. And Paul says, you were instructed in the Holy Scriptures from childhood and we know that all the scriptures are given by inspiration of God and profitable. So, he is referring to the profitableness of the Old Testament scriptures.

And here he says, those things that were written before, meaning the Old Testament, was written for our learning. This is an important point because lots of Christians say, well, since we are under the New Covenant and not the Old Covenant, why not just read the New Testament? Who needs the Old Testament? Well, the Old Testament is the only Bible Jesus ever had or used. The Old Testament is the only Bible Paul or the Apostles ever used.

They quoted profusely from it. Apparently, they thought it was relevant. It is relevant.

It is simply not relevant in the same way to us as it was relevant to those under the Old Covenant. It is relevant to us in a different sense. Those under the Old Covenant had to keep the laws in it.

We do not. But only a small portion of the Old Testament is laws. Only part of the Pentateuch is law.

The rest is history and wisdom literature and the Psalms are worship material. There is prophecy. There is a lot of prophets in there.

There is a lot of Old Testament that is not law. So, even though we do not have to keep the laws and the Jews in the Old Testament did have to keep the laws, in all other respects, it is very similar. We still benefit from God's revelation of His heart and of His mind, of His values, of His priorities.

Everything Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount can be found in the Old Testament. Jesus did not teach radically different things. Everything He taught there can be found either in the Psalms or in the Proverbs or in the prophets or in the law.

And so, you know, Jesus obviously was teaching us things that we must do. They are not new things. The Old Testament was written for those purposes too.

However, Jesus did not teach or repeat everything that the law said. He did not require us to offer animal sacrifices, for example, which the law did. He did not require us to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem like the law did.

He did not require us to abstain from certain foods or keep holy days like the law did. There were laws that Jesus did not confirm, but everything that He did affirm was also part of what God had revealed in the Old Testament. All the Old Testament is useful for us.

It is all profitable for instruction. But when we read the laws of the Old Testament, the profit that they are to us is different than to the Jew, because the Jew was told to offer animal sacrifices. Their duty was to do it.

Ours is to appreciate that these sacrifices foreshadow Christ and to see in them spiritual truth. After all, the Jews were told in the law, do not plow with an ox and an ass together in your field. I hardly think that is a necessary thing to observe now, but it did have a spiritual meaning.

And Paul said, don't be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, as a very clear application of that principle. An ox and an ass are a clean and an unclean animal. You don't put them under the same yoke to plow.

And Paul saw that clean and unclean animals were symbolic of clean and unclean people. You, a clean person, a Christian, don't be unequally yoked with an unbeliever, an unclean person. So there are laws that were given as such as laws, even agricultural rules.

Though it may not be required of us to keep those rules, even they are instructed in principle. Paul was talking about the support of ministers and he said, it is written, and he quotes the law, do not muzzle the ox as it treads out the corn. Once again, an agricultural rule, they couldn't put a muzzle on the ox as it worked.

Paul quotes that in 1 Corinthians 9, he says, now does God care for oxen or did he say it altogether for our sakes? And then he went on to say, this is to instruct us that those who labor shouldn't be restricted from having their needs met. And so he used that as an argument for supporting people in ministry. But you see, those were things in the law.

We're not under the law. However, the law does have spiritual lessons in it, which Paul was able to draw from it, and which I'm sure we can too many times. Whatever is written in the Old Testament is written for our instruction, our learning.

It doesn't mean we're supposed to keep all the laws in it, but even those have spiritual principles in them that are for our learning. Jesus didn't come to destroy them, but to fulfill them, he said. And so the Bible that Paul and Jesus used was the Old Testament.

And apparently the Roman Christians were to use it also, and recognize that what was written before in the Old Testament is for our learning. All right. Now, verse 5. Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus.

Now, like-minded, he doesn't say like-minded with one another, although that's not a bad thing either, but he's saying a different thing. Be like-minded toward one another, but like-minded with whom? With God. He's a God of patience and comfort.

You should have that mind also. Remember he says in Philippians 2, let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, and he describes Christ's attitude. Here he says God is a God of comfort and he's a God of patience.

You be like-minded with him toward each other. You have those mentalities that God has, and you exhibit them toward each other. Be patient.

Be comforting toward each other. That God's mind will be your mind, and exhibit it in your relationships with each other, according to Christ Jesus. That you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now if you're patient with each other, and you comfort each other, and you're being sensitive to each other, it will not cause the kinds of divisions that will prevent you from having unified worship, unified praise to God, and unified Christian service. That's what he says, so that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore receive one another just as Christ also received us to the glory of God.

Now how did God receive us? On what basis did he receive us? Well, it was on the basis of our belonging to Christ. Because if we're in Christ, God receives us in him. Well then, we're to receive others on the same basis.

If they're in Christ, we receive them. As God receives us in Christ. What this means, of course, is that we are not entitled to make somewhat more narrow criteria upon which to receive or reject people into our fellowship, into the family.

If God receives them, we must receive them. If they've come to God on the same terms that we've come to God, and God has received us on those terms, we can't withhold our fellowship and our love from people who are received by God on the same basis we are. So this is a really important thing to bring up every time there's Christians who are having trouble with each other, saying, I don't know if we should fellowship with this kind of person.

The real question is not, how much are they like me? The real question is, does God receive them? Have they met the conditions of discipleship and faith in Christ that would guarantee God's acceptance of them? If so, then I have to accept them even if they do keep some holy days I don't keep. And they do restrict their diet in ways that I don't, and have other things about them that are different from the way I see things. We receive one another just as Christ has received us to the glory of God.

Now, I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision, the Jews, for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy. So Christ has not rejected the Jews. He's actually come as a servant to the Jews, to the circumcision, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, to confirm them by their fulfillment, to prove them correct by being the fulfillment of those promises.

He has served the Jew, but He also has served the Jews so that the Gentiles can be saved. Remember that God never chose the Jews just to be His own special people for nothing. He chose the Jews to reach the Gentiles.

The promise made to Abraham was that his seed would be one through whom all the nations would be blessed. So all the nations, all the Gentiles would be blessed through Abraham's seed. The Jews never really quite saw it that way.

They thought they were just chosen for privilege, not for an assignment. When they thought of themselves as the chosen people, they thought that just meant that God favors us above all other people, and so we're in and everybody else is out. They didn't understand that what He chose them for was for a mission to the Gentiles.

Christ has come and fulfilled that mission. First, He fulfills the promises made to the fathers, and the result also is that the Gentiles are going to be included, and the Romans to whom this is written are mostly Gentiles in all likelihood. But perhaps the quotation of the scriptures that follow is for the benefit of the Jewish reader, because Paul is showing from the Jewish scriptures that it was always God's plan to include the Gentiles.

It was never His plan for the Jews to be the only people. They were to be the people first that God revealed Himself to, so that they could take that information to the Gentiles, so the Gentiles could praise God with them, and God could be the God of all people. That was Israel's mission.

And so he says in verse 9 that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy as it is written. Now there's a number of verses quoted here, four to be exact, in the next few verses. The first one is from Psalms, then there's one from Deuteronomy, then there's another one from Psalms, then there's one from Isaiah.

So we've got the law and the prophet and the Psalms all bearing witness to one fact, namely that God always intended the Gentiles to be included, not excluded. He says, for as it is written, for this reason I will confess to you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. So Israel's spokesman, the Messiah, would confess Him to the Gentiles, meaning He'd be preached to the Gentiles, and of course that would mean that they are expected to be responsive to that testimony, and to become Christians or followers of the Messiah also, and sing to God's name.

That quote, by the way, is from Psalm 18, verse 49. That psalm is found twice in scripture. It's also found in the story of David, who wrote it, in 2 Samuel 22.50. That verse is found, but it's from Psalm 18.

He says, and again he says, rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people, that is with Israel. Gentiles and Israel together rejoicing, it is to be understood rejoicing in God, rejoicing in the blessings of God, the Gentiles and the Jews rejoicing in God's blessing together. This was in Deuteronomy 32, verse 43.

So going all the way back to Moses, the suggestion that the Gentiles and the Jews are not going to be mutually exclusive groups, one accepted and the other lost, but they're both going to be God's people, Jews and Gentiles, together, praising God. Then in verse 11, he says, and again, praise the Lord, that is Yahweh, all you Gentiles. Laud him, all you peoples.

This is a quote from Psalm 117, the first verse. Psalm 117, 1. This verse is saying that the Gentiles are called to worship Israel's God, Yahweh, which of course never happened in any significant numbers until the gospel was preached to the Gentiles. That's just the point.

Paul is saying here that his ministry to the Gentiles is based on not some new, strange policy that God has now adopted to now include the Gentiles where he never really had them in mind before, but rather it's entirely what the Jewish scriptures said would happen. He could quote a lot more than these, but he's given a pretty good sample from a variety of parts of the Old Testament. And why? Well, because he must assume that some of his readers, and they most likely be the Jews, would not be finding this an easy pill to swallow without sufficient scriptural support.

It might even be encouraging to the Gentiles to see this, because they themselves might in some cases feel like, well, we were the Johnny-come-lately's. God always was working with the Jews. He must not like us as much.

And Paul would say, well, even back then God was saying you Gentiles are going to be involved in this. But I think his citation of these scriptures is largely for the benefit of the Jew to remove any kind of prejudice that would make them think that there's something inappropriate about the Gentiles being in the same body with the Jews worshipping God and Christ. Verse 12 is the last verse along these lines he quotes.

And this one is from Isaiah 11, 1. It's actually a combination of two parts of Isaiah 11. Part of it's from verse 1 and part's from verse 10. He says, There shall be a root of Jesse.

He shall rise to reign over the Gentiles. In him the Gentiles shall hope. This is kind of a paraphrase of two verses in the same chapter of Isaiah.

By the way, it makes it clear that a chapter like Isaiah 11 is talking about the inclusion of Gentiles in the church. And one reason I point that out is because Isaiah 11 is one of many chapters in the Old Testament that we would regard as chapters about the Messianic Age. There's a great number of passages in the Old Testament that are Messianic Age passages or Kingdom Age passages.

They describe the Kingdom of the Messiah. And there's a controversy of course, has always been for a long time, whether this Messianic Age is the church age or whether it is a future millennial age. And the difference arises over whether we are supposed to have seen this Messianic Age inaugurated at the first coming of Christ or at the second.

It's obvious that the Messianic Age is about Jesus and his coming is what causes it to happen. But is it his first coming or his second coming? Premillennial thinkers believe the Kingdom Age or the Messianic Age will happen when Jesus returns. The dispensationalists among them, because they are premillennial, dispensationalists believe that Jesus actually came and offered the Kingdom Age but the Jews rejected it and it got postponed until the millennium.

So that Jesus came to bring this age but didn't do it. It didn't happen. And that age now has been postponed until the millennium.

So all the passages like Isaiah 11 and the many others like it that talk about this particular period, this age of the Messiah, they are all attributed to a future millennium by premillennialists which would include dispensationalists. The other view is the view that the church held through most of its history and that is that Jesus fulfilled these promises at his first coming. That he is the Messiah.

He didn't postpone it. He didn't fail to bring it in. He fulfilled the prophecies that God made about it and he is the one who established the Kingdom of God.

And these Kingdom passages are about the order that has been established by Christ at his first coming which we would often refer to as the Church Age, the present age. Now, what I have always argued is whenever you find any of these passages about the Kingdom Age quoted in the New Testament, the apostles who quote them are always applying them to the Church Age. In other words, the apostles believed that these Kingdom Era passages were inaugurated by the first coming of Christ which is the same reason the church always taught this.

Not always, but through most of its history. At least three quarters of church history it was the official view of the church, all churches that I know of, that Jesus inaugurated this era at his first coming and that when you read of these Kingdom Age passages you're reading about the present age of the church. It's only in the first few hundred years of the church that some people also were pre-millennial.

There were both views. Then the pre-millennials disappeared for about 1500 years and reappeared in 1800 or so. And the pre-millennialists brought in the view that Jesus did not fulfill the prophecies.

Jesus did not inaugurate this. The Kingdom Age has been postponed and is not here and it will come when Jesus returns. And most of us have been raised under a dispensational teaching that we would tend to see it that way.

Just that's the way that American evangelicalism has for the most part seen it although it's out of sync with the way the church throughout history saw it. It's also out of sync with the way Paul saw it because Paul clearly is here talking about the Gentiles in the church with the Jews praising God as one body. And he quotes Isaiah 11 as having a fulfillment in the present time where it talks about how the shoot will rise up from dry ground that the son of Jesse Christ and the Gentiles will hope in him.

Well that's what we're doing right now. That's what Gentiles all over the world are doing. They're hoping in Christ.

They put their trust in Christ. They're Christians. And so Paul is not giving any information here about eschatology.

He's talking about justifying the fact that Gentiles are in the church on the same basis as Jews. Paul sees therefore the messianic passages as does Peter and frankly all the New Testament writers who quote from those passages. They see them as fulfilled in the church, not postponed until another time.

So Paul says in verse 13, Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now this seems like sort of a final benediction. The Lord bless you and keep you and make his face shine on you.

That kind of an ending. It's like this is the end of the letter. And it kind of is.

It really is the end of the body of the letter. What remains is what I think I referred to yesterday as scraps, miscellaneous things. He wants to talk about his, some things about his ministry, about his travels, what his plans are, where he's going next, when they're likely to see him and things like that in the rest of this chapter.

In chapter 16, most of it is sending greetings to people. Now it's not as if there's not stuff of value or interest in these passages and we will see there is. At the same time, we must realize that we're done with the major argument of the book and we're now just picking up the pieces before he signs off and says, that's all folks.

And so he says in verse 14, Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren, that you are also full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. He's confident that the Christians can admonish one another. What does admonish mean? There's one translation of this verse that has the last line that you're competent to counsel one another, which is not a bad translation.

Admonish means a whole range of things, to warn and to instruct and things like that, basically to help people stay on the right path. Counsel is not a bad English word. And that translation that says competent to counsel one another was taken as a title for a famous book in the 1970s called Competent to Counsel.

I borrowed from this verse where J. Adams, a Reformed theologian, wrote about how to counsel, how Christians should counsel each other. And he basically said that he was trained in seminary to use psychology of various kinds to counsel, but what he actually had seen of psychology indicated that it really didn't jive with Christianity that well. And often had very different presuppositions about what people's problems really are.

But that the Bible teaches people's problems have to do with problems in their relationship with God. They're not mentally ill. There's a problem in their relationship with God.

And so his book really advocated people counseling each other according to the scriptures, about bringing their lives into sync with what the Bible teaches so that they'd have better, healthier relationships, healthier attitudes, and things like that. His book sparked a whole revolution called Newthetic Counseling. I think I mentioned that John MacArthur's Masters College has a whole department of Newthetic Counseling, which is following J. Adams' ideas, and I think it's a good one, frankly.

I think he's right. The point he makes at the beginning is that we have come to think there's a whole category of specialized problems that people have called mental illness, and that we can't help them because we need to send them off to professionals who've been trained for this kind of thing. He pointed out that when he was in seminary, he was taught, as most pastors are, that you shouldn't try to help people like that.

You should refer them to mental health professionals. If somebody's really kind of messed up, you pastors, you're not trained for this kind of thing, refer them to a mental health professional. And he was saying that's not what Paul said.

Paul said he thought the Christians were capable to counsel each other. It didn't take a professional to tell you what you're doing wrong in your relationship with God and what God's Word says about that. If you're knowledgeable about God's Word and you're walking with God and you have Christian wisdom, well then you're like these people who are full of goodness and filled with all knowledge and able to counsel each other, admonish each other.

Anyway, I bring that up because it's a major shift in evangelical thinking that took place around 1970 with this book, Competent to Counsel. Although there's still plenty of evangelicals who still would advocate psychologists and psychiatrists and mental health professionals, there's also been this surge of what I think is a healthy alternative of saying, you know, Christians, we have the Word of God. We have the Spirit of God.

We should be able to counsel each other. The areas people have problems in their life are areas where their relationship with God is out of sync. Either they're disobedient or they're fearful or they're anxious or they're, you know, something like that.

And those are spiritual problems. Those are not mental health issues. Those are spiritual conditions.

And for many centuries, Christians didn't have mental health professionals to help them walk with God. They had only what God provides in the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit and the grace of God and all that. So, this movement sort of liberated people to realize that, hey, I don't have a sickness I'm going to just manage with drugs and counsel for the rest of my life.

I've got patterns of life that I need to bring into conformity with God's Word and then I won't have these problems anymore. There's hope here. You see, the problem with the whole mental health mentality is no one can cure it.

Psychiatrists don't ever try to cure it. They treat it. They give you drugs to manage it.

If you're a schizophrenic, they don't have any cure for that. If you're a bipolar affective disorder, they don't even believe they have a cure for that. They just have drugs they can give you to manage it.

It's like giving you an aspirin for a headache. It doesn't cure whatever's causing the headache. And so, in a sense, the mental health profession gives the impression that you just have something wrong with your brain.

Your brain's broken. A chemical imbalance or some kind of bad wiring in there and something and you're just going to have to be managing that with drugs for the rest of your life. And the Christian view is more hopeful.

No, you've got a problem in your behavior and your relationships because there's things that God said to do that aren't... your life's not lined up with them. Let's work on those things. Then you won't have these problems anymore.

You don't just have to manage an incurable problem. You can actually become sanctified. You can actually become a mature, well-balanced Christian.

Anyway, that's what J. Adams drew from this verse. And I think he was not... I don't think he was going beyond what Paul would have suggested about this same subject from this passage. Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points as reminding you, because of the grace given to me by God, that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, I have reason to glory in Christ Jesus in the things which pertain to God. For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me in word and deed to make the Gentiles obedient, in mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation, but as it is written, To whom he was not announced, they shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand.

This is a quotation of Isaiah 52, 15. Now, what Paul has said here is, it's not that I don't think you guys are smart enough to correct each other. I've written you a long letter.

It might seem to indicate that I don't think you guys are smart and you need to be corrected and you need me to straighten you out. Actually, I don't have that attitude. I believe that you guys have plenty going for you.

You're full of goodness and knowledge, and I believe you can admonish each other. But I wrote to you anyway, because it's kind of my duty. I'm an apostle sent to the Gentiles, and there's no one who's more Gentiles than the Church of Rome.

And so, of course, even though I've never been to Rome myself, he says, I have seen you as within the sphere of ministry that God has assigned to me. So, I'm writing to you not as someone saying, you guys are a bunch of dummies and you need to hear what I have to say. I think you already have a lot of this under your belt.

But I still feel responsibility to make sure that I've made clear the gospel to you, which is my assignment, to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. And to make sure that no one's getting off on anything, so that the offering of the Gentiles that I offer can be acceptable to God. He says that in verse 16.

He says that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. He refers to the Gentiles that he's leading to Christ as an offering. He's offering to Christ.

Remember he talked about presenting your body, a living sacrifice? Well, he's presenting their bodies as living sacrifices too. He's offering them up to God. Here's people who are heathen, and through Paul's efforts and sacrifices, he has made Christians out of them.

He's offering them as an offering to God, the fruit of his labor. It's another offering we offer. People we bring to Christ are part of our spiritual worship, part of our presentation of a sacrifice that we've made to bring people and present something to God of value in the persons of the Gentiles.

His statement of the offering of the Gentiles, almost all Bibles that have cross references will point out that he's alluding to Isaiah chapter 66, and therefore, of course, telling us what he thinks about Isaiah 66. Once again, there are people who have different opinions about this section of Isaiah, but Paul quotes from this section, I'd say chapter 60 through 66 of Isaiah, numerous times, and he applies it differently than many would popularly apply. He applies it to the church, and some would apply it to the millennium or something else.

Now, what he's referring to in this particular verse is verse 20, Isaiah 66, 20. He says, Then they shall bring all your brethren for an offering to the Lord out of all nations. This is referring to evangelizing the nations, Paul says.

He is doing this very thing. He's bringing the Gentiles as an offering to the Lord, and he's alluding to the fact that God said that the Gentiles would be brought to God from all nations as an offering to the Lord. So he sees himself as the one who's carrying this out and offering the Gentiles to the Lord through his efforts.

So that wording that he chooses in Romans 15, 16 is borrowed from that idea. He doesn't boast about things that he hasn't done. He wants them to know what he has accomplished through signs and wonders.

It's what God has wrought through him, he says, not himself. And he says he's tried to avoid preaching where others preach because that's not necessary. He wants to lay foundations of the gospel everywhere, and if someone's already laid a foundation before him, he doesn't go there to build on another man's foundation.

He'll bypass it and spend his time in places where there hasn't been gospel preached. That's what his policy is, and he quotes Isaiah 52, 15, that says, to whom he was not announced, they shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand. He takes that as his commission.

The ones who have not heard, that's the ones that are going to understand it from me. They're going to hear it from me, the ones that he has not been announced to. So I'm not going to go places, if I can help it, where someone else has already preached and they've already heard.

And he says, however, I have preached the gospel all the way from Jerusalem to Illyricum, he says in verse 19, which means just about everywhere between Jerusalem and Rome. Now, he doesn't need to go to Rome because the gospel's been preached there. But further west of Rome, there's Spain, and the gospel's not been preached there, so he's going to hit that area next.

And he'll be passing through Rome on the way. So even though Rome is not a target ministry area for him, per se, because someone else is behind that church, not him, he's going beyond Rome and he'll stop by there. In all likelihood, he's planning to establish a new outreach base from Rome.

He does say later on he expects them to kind of help him along in the ministry, and maybe it would even mean send him out, support him, maybe some of the church in Rome could go with him as team members, not knowing what he exactly needs. His base of ministry has been Antioch until now. He was sent out from Antioch, but now his field of ministry is moving so far west, Syria is pretty far away to have your home base.

So I think he's saying, I'm leapfrogging all the area, over all the area that I've already evangelized, and I'm going to maybe set up a base here in Rome, and you can help me along in further outreach westward. He mentions that he wants them to do that in the next section. Verse 22, he says, For this reason I also have been much hindered from coming to you, because there's been so much territory to go to first where the gospel had not been preached yet.

But now, no longer having a place in these parts, that is, no longer any virgin territory that hasn't been preached in, he's covered all the area, and having a great desire these many years to come to you, whenever I journey to Spain I shall come to you. For I hope to see you on my journey and to be helped on my way there. You see, he wants some help, some support for the mission to Spain, and very possibly he'd be, from that point on, seeing Rome as his base of operations for points further west.

Now, this probably never actually happened, because he didn't get to Rome as he expected to, a free man on his way to Spain. He came to Rome in chains and was chained up there for two years in non-trial. He did get released and do some more ministry, but whether the Roman church became his base or not, we don't know.

We don't have exact information. None of it is in the Book of Acts, because the Book of Acts doesn't go that far beyond the Roman imprisonment. But he says, I'd like to be helped on my way to Spain by you, if first I may enjoy your company for a while, but now I'm going to Jerusalem, the opposite direction, to minister to the saints.

That is, he's bringing money to the poor saints. It's money that was collected among the Gentile churches to support the poor Christians in Jerusalem. It says it has pleased those from Macedonia and Achaia, that's Greece, to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints who are in Jerusalem.

It pleased them indeed, and they are their debtors, for if the Gentiles have been partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister to those in material things. Now, it says that the Gentile Christians have a duty to support the Jewish ones, because we have benefited from spiritual things that have come from them, and it's only right that we should, now that they have material needs, help them out. I don't know if this is still said as much as it was in the 70s.

It probably is in some circles. But when I was a dispensationalist, I had been taught, and I understood this to mean, that Jews, we have an obligation to Jews, period. We Christians do.

We have received from their spiritual bounty. After all, they gave us the scriptures. They gave us Christ.

What makes us Christians is something we receive from the Jews, so we ought to support Israel. We ought to support them economically, militarily, whatever. We are their debtors.

We are debtors to the Jews, because we benefit from their spiritual things. And this verse was used to prove that point. The main problem with that use of this verse is that Paul isn't talking about the Jews in general, but the Jewish believers.

The Gentile Christians had been evangelized by Jewish believers, like Paul. Therefore, they were directly in debt to them for giving the gospel to them. Now, it is true that we could, in one sense, we could say the Jews gave us the scriptures, the Jews gave us Jesus, and even the apostles.

But that's not quite correct, because actually God gave us those things, and the Jews tried to keep us from having them. They chased Paul around, not letting him preach to the Gentiles. The Jewish establishment didn't want to share those things.

They didn't give us Jesus. They killed Jesus. They didn't give us the prophets.

They even killed the prophets. God gave us the prophets and gave us Jesus, despite the Jews' resistance. But there were Jews, a remnant of them, who followed Christ, and to them we are indebted, to the apostles and the church in Jerusalem.

And he says they are the ones who are poor. He's not taking a general gift to the government of Israel to help build up the military. He's sending aid to the poor Christians in Jerusalem, who are the ones who first sent out missionaries to reach these churches.

And so he says you have a debt to them, because you've benefited from their spiritual things, and to minister in material things is only right. Therefore, when I have performed this and have sealed to them this fruit, I shall go by way of you to Spain. But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.

He didn't know that when he came to him, he'd be in chains. But that doesn't prevent him from coming in the fullness of the blessing of Christ, because even in chains, Paul was filled with the Spirit. He was even leading people to the Lord, whole villages to the Lord, while he was a prisoner.

On his way to Rome, you might remember, he was shipwrecked in Malta. And he was bitten by a venomous snake, and it didn't hurt him. And so all the people were converted when they saw that he wasn't hurt by the snake.

And the ruler of the island was sick, and he went and healed him. And so even the ruler became a believer. So here's Paul in chains on his way to Rome.

He's definitely still ministering. He's still coming in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ, even though his circumstances are not as desirable as they might otherwise be. That didn't prevent him.

The gospel was not bound. Verse 30, Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, that I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you. Now the God of peace be with you all.

Amen. Now, he's saying, Pray that I will be delivered from the unbelievers in Jerusalem. It didn't happen.

He wasn't delivered. He was arrested by them. He was put in jail for two years by them.

And then he went to Rome in chains. Did these people not pray? He said, Pray with me that this will not happen, that they won't hurt me, that they won't stop me, they won't slow me down. Well, they may not have prayed very well, or it may be that it was just not according to the will of God, that God wanted him to come in chains.

It's hard to know. It's interesting, though, that he's, it's sad when we realize he's reading this, not knowing how things are going to turn. I mean, he's writing this, not knowing how things will turn out in Jerusalem.

But we have the book of Acts. It tells us how they turned out. It was much, much, much less satisfactory than what he was anticipating at this time.

And it's kind of sad to see how optimistic he was. But he knew there was some danger. He said, Pray for me that I'll be delivered from these people.

He knew there was a risk. He also knew that Agabus, well, actually he didn't know it when he wrote this, but on his way to Jerusalem after he wrote this, Agabus the prophet bound himself with Saul's belt and said, So shall the man who owns this belt be bound by the Jews when he comes to Jerusalem. Agabus did this after Paul wrote this letter.

So Paul wrote this letter with some optimism that he wouldn't be bound and wouldn't be hindered. But before he got to Jerusalem, he was warned by Agabus that it was going to happen and that's what did happen. We read it in Acts.

Now it looks like the epistle ends there. There's an Amen at the end there. However, there's another chapter.

But it's sort of bits and pieces of various business. Let me just get into it here. We needn't take a long time with it.

He says, I commend you, Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the church of Centuria, that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and assist her in whatever business she has need of you. And indeed, she has been a helper to many and to myself also. Now, when Christians would travel around the empire, if they were well-known in one church and they're going to another area where they're unknown, a letter of commendation would often be sent with them.

This is especially true of teachers and preachers. If they were known in one church, but they're going to an area to preach where the church doesn't know them, they're a stranger, how does the church know to trust them or not? Well, if the church that's coming from sends a letter and says, receive this man, he's been ministering in our church, we know him well, his character is good, he's reliable in his doctrine, accept him. Well, with a credible letter of commendation from a respectable church, this man could come into the new area fully, you know, with the credentials that he was known to have in the other church.

But if he was a stranger without such a letter, then he'd have to start from scratch in earning their respect and trust and so forth. So, letters of commendation were a common thing. And in this case, a woman named Phoebe is receiving a letter of commendation from Paul.

She's apparently traveling from Centria, which was one of the two seaports of Corinth. Paul was writing from Corinth. And she was going to Rome for some reason.

Now, there's not any reason to believe she was going there to live. Maybe she was, but she might have been going on a brief trip on some business because it says that you assist her in whatever business she has need of you. What her business may have been, her purpose for going to Rome, we don't know, but she was well respected and Paul wanted them to know that.

She was a servant. The word servant is deacon. And many translations translate, she was a deacon in the church in Centria.

And she may well have been. Because when Paul talks about deacons in 1 Timothy 3, he mentions qualifications for men deacons and then also for women deacons. So, there were female deacons.

But the word deacon in the Greek, diakonis, is simply the word for servant. So, whether to translate it as deacon or servant would depend on whether it's talking about her as some kind of having an official role in the church or whether she's just a good Christian servant person. Everyone should be a servant.

And to say she's been a real servant here in the church could just be commending her as an ordinary member of the church who's been very helpful. In fact, he said, she's been helpful to me in many things. And I hope you'll be helpful to her in any business she has.

On the other hand, if she actually was a deacon, she might be traveling to Rome on church deacon business. She might be there to, I mean, deacons handled practical matters for the church. I don't know what kind of things.

Maybe she had to go to Costco and get some folding chairs for the church because they're growing too fast and needed some help carrying them to the car or something. I don't know what kind of business a deacon would be doing in another city than their own home city. But it may be well that he's saying, listen, she's one of our deaconesses here in Corinth.

And she's coming to Rome on some business. I hope you'll cooperate with her. She's trustworthy.

She's a helper and, you know, helper with any business that she has need of. In any case, she's going with this letter of commendation from Paul. Then there's a bunch of greetings.

Actually, Paul greets no less than 26 people in this church. It might seem strange that a church where Paul had never visited would have 26 people that he knew well. In fact, he seems to address five separate house churches in the names of the people who lead them.

It almost sounds like he's writing to some church he's very familiar with the details of. For this reason, some have suggested maybe this last chapter got attached to the Book of Romans accidentally and it was really originally sent to a church that Paul was very familiar with. But that's not necessary.

People from all over the empire traveled to Rome. Sometimes they relocated there. Sometimes they stayed there on business for a while.

And it's not difficult to imagine that Paul would have as many as 26 people that he'd met in other parts of the empire who might be at the Roman church at the moment, either because they've moved there like Priscilla and Aquila did. Last time we read about Priscilla and Aquila, they were at Ephesus. And they had a church in their home.

Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 16 that Priscilla and Aquila had a church in their home in Ephesus. And that's the last place we see them in the Book of Acts. But now they're in Rome and they have a church in their home there too.

Wherever they go, they open their home and churches gather there. He says in verse 3, Likewise, greet the church that is in their house. So they have a house church.

There are some others that he's going to mention probably. There are some groups that are probably house churches. He has in mind.

Scholars usually assume it. But here are his friends Priscilla and Aquila. They had been banished from Rome in 49 AD and came to Corinth.

They were banished because all Jews were banished from Rome. And they were believing Jews in all likelihood. They came to Corinth and Paul came to Corinth and met them and worked with them because they were all tent makers.

When Paul left Corinth to go to Ephesus, they went with him. And they set up a church in their home in Ephesus. And Paul went on to Jerusalem and then came back to Ephesus and then moved on to other places.

But by this time, apparently because Claudius was dead, who had banished the Jews from Rome, they were now back in Rome. They moved back to their own home in Rome. And they had a home church there again.

And so Paul sends greetings to them. They had risked their lives for him. We don't know exactly in what circumstances.

But they were with him in Ephesus. And his life was in danger in circumstances in Ephesus. He tells Timothy that he had wrestled wild beasts in Ephesus.

We don't know who those wild beasts were. Maybe it's metaphorical for bad people. Or he could have actually been thrown to the lions.

And probably not. But the point is his life was in danger in Ephesus. And Priscilla and Aquila were his associates there.

They could well have been in danger with him. He says, they've risked their own lives for my sake. Greet the church that's in their house too.

Also, verse 5, Greet my beloved Epineatus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia, in Christ. The older manuscripts say the firstfruits of Asia. Probably the first convert that Paul made in Ephesus when he first came there.

Asia is probably better. Because the household of Stephanus was the firstfruits of Achaia. Paul says that in 1 Corinthians 16, 15.

He says, you know the household of Stephanus, that they are the firstfruits of Achaia. Achaia is southern Greece. The first converts in southern Greece were the household of Stephanus.

The first convert in Ephesus, in all likelihood, was this man, Epiphanius. So the older manuscripts don't say Achaia, but Asia. They probably preserved the original better.

Greet Mary, who labored much for us. We don't know who this Mary is. There are six different Marys in the Bible.

We don't know which one this is. Probably not the mother of the Lord. Probably not Mary Magdalene.

And probably some Mary we don't otherwise know. Greet Adronikos and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. Now we know nothing about these two.

Many have thought these are two men, and that Junia should be Junius, a male name. But others think it's a married couple. Adronikos the husband, Junia the wife.

And there seems to be more evidence in the ancient Roman documents for a female Junia, rather than a male Junius. And therefore, it is thought by most that this Junia is a woman, and probably the wife of Adronikos. Now they are kinsmen of Paul's, which may only mean that they're Jews, like he is, rather than close relatives.

They were saved before he was, it says. And they've also been imprisoned with him. We know nothing about this history of these people.

The thing that is often discussed is his statement that they are of note among the apostles, which some feel means the apostles appreciate these people. They're notable in the sight of the apostles. But the language seems to support more the idea that they were apostles.

Among the apostols, those that are called apostles, these two are notable cases. They're of note among the apostles. This is often brought up in order to support women in ministry, because if Junia was a woman, and if she was one of the apostles, then it suggests there were female apostles.

This is thought to support the idea that there should be female pastors. But even if Junia was a female apostle, it may have been only in the sense that a number of Paul's fellow workers were called apostles because they traveled in the apostolic band. That a wife would travel with her husband, who is himself a missionary, would make her a missionary also.

It doesn't mean they had apostolic authority like the apostles of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul mentions another tier of apostles who are apostles of the churches, as opposed to himself was an apostle of Christ. This would mean he was sent out by Christ.

They were sent out by the churches. They were missionaries from the church. And Junia might have been a female who was like with her husband, a missionary.

That's not a problem. There is some ambiguity in the wording, but it's not a problem. It would not change the fact that when Paul was talking about an entirely different kind of ministry, namely that of the elders of the church, he said, I don't let a woman teacher have authority over a man.

And that an elder must be a husband of one wife, he says. So Paul clearly restricted the local church elderships to male candidates. And that's not changed, even if he recognized the husband-wife team as in some sense missionaries.

That's a different kind of ministry. He says in verse 8, We don't know anything about these people. Urbanus is a word that actually comes from the word urbs, like in suburbs or urban, means city.

Urbanus means a man of the city. And there are actually a number of Romans who have that name documented in secular documents, just a man who's probably a native of the city of Rome, an urban dweller. Greet apelles, approved in Christ.

Greet those who are of the household of Aristobulus. Now, the household of Aristobulus may possibly mean a house church in the home of Aristobulus. We don't really know.

It is sometimes thought this is so. Greet Herodian, my kinsman. Again, we don't know anything about Herodian, and he may only be a Jew, and therefore a kinsman.

Greet those who are of the household of Narcissus, who are in the Lord. Again, the household of Narcissus could be a home church group, but it's not known for sure. Greet Triphena and Triphosa.

Names like this, they're so close to each other, almost like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, you know? It was not uncommon for twins to be given names similar to each other like this, and these are female names, and some scholars feel that this might be some twin sisters in the Roman church, Triphena and Triphosa. The name Triphena is known from other Roman documents, not the same person, but other people by the name Triphena. Triphosa, not so much documented, but if they're twin sisters, parents giving one of them the name Triphena might choose a name very similar-sounding for her twin.

And it says, They have labored in the Lord. Greet beloved Persis. Persis actually means woman of Persia, and it probably was a woman who was from Persia and was so named, who labored much in the Lord.

Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine. Now this is an interesting verse because although there are many people named Rufus, he only says Rufus, so this is a well-known Rufus. There may not have been more than one Rufus in the church of Rome.

We don't know how big the church of Rome was, and even though Rufus was a common Roman name, there might have only been one Rufus or one very notable Rufus in the Roman church that Paul would greet. But what's interesting about that is the Gospel of Mark, as scholars agree, was written to Roman Christians. When Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark, his audience were Roman, and he wrote it in the second generation, probably, of Christianity in Rome.

And in Mark 1521, when Jesus was carrying his cross and was unable to carry it all the way to Golgotha, it says in Mark 1521, Now they compelled a certain man, Simon, a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country and passing by to bear his cross. Cyrenian means he was from an African region that was black. He was a black man of Cyrene.

And it's interesting that in the church of Antioch at a later time, one of the elders there was named Simon called Niger, which means the black man. And it's possible that this Simon of Cyrene became one of the elders of the church of Antioch along with Paul, because in Acts 13.1 we read of these five leaders in the church of Antioch, including Simon the black man and Paul and Barnabas and a couple of others. Now it's interesting because Paul speaks of Rufus and his mother.

Rufus' mother would be Simon's wife. And Paul says, Rufus' mother is like a mother to me too. She's like my mother too.

It's possible that when Barnabas went and collected Paul from Tarsus and brought him to Antioch, and they ministered for a year there in Antioch together in Acts 11, at the end of Acts 11, that, and this is not known to be so, if Simon of Cyrene was one of the elders in Antioch, he and his wife might have taken Paul in as a lodger and they served as leaders in the church together. It's possible that Simon's wife would have been like a mother to Paul. We don't know any other circumstance where a woman of the Roman church might have been like a mother to Paul, but if they had formerly lived in Antioch and if it was Simon of Cyrene's wife that's being talked about, and Rufus is Simon's son, then he says, greet Rufus and his mother who's like a mother to me too, essentially he's saying.

Now, it's likely that it's the same Rufus because Mark is writing to Roman Christians and he mentions there's a man who has chosen to carry Jesus' cross, Simon of Cyrene. He's, you know, he's the father of Alexander and Rufus. The assumption is you might not know Simon, you no doubt know his sons.

The Simon I'm talking about is the father of Rufus and Alexander, well, in other words, Rufus was a known Christian in the church of Rome when Mark wrote this. He expected the Roman Christians to know Rufus more than Simon, so he uses reference to Rufus to identify who Simon is. And Paul writes to an otherwise undesignated Rufus as well who had a mother who was special to Paul.

How could a woman in Rome have ever been special in Paul's life unless she had lived somewhere else where Paul lived? Antioch is a possibility. She might have been the wife of Simon of Cyrene and therefore Rufus and Paul both could look to her as sort of a mother figure. Greet them all.

Then he names some more names. Greet Asyncretus, Phlegon, Hermas, Petrobus, Hermes, and the brethren who are with them, possibly a home church led by that group of people. Those who are with them are distinct from everybody else in Rome.

There's people in this one group. Greet Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympus and all the saints who are with them. So another group.

There are people who are with the group in verse 14 and there's people with the group in verse 14. There seem to be different groups of Christians, probably separate congregations in different homes. Greet one another with a holy kiss.

The churches of Christ greet you. Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the teaching which you learned and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the simple.

For your obedience has become known to all, therefore I'm glad on your behalf, but I want you to be wise in what is good and simple concerning evil, and the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

Come to another amen here. Now this urging is to not hang out with people who tend to divide the church over different teachings than those which the apostles have taught and that the church had earlier heard. They divide, they cause divisions and offenses contrary to the teaching.

Now the teaching, remember, in the Greek is didache, the didache, and that's the teaching that we read about in chapter 6 where it says we have conformed to that form of teaching that we're delivered to. The teaching, when Paul talks about didache, the teaching of the church, he usually is talking about the practical instruction. We find this in the other cases where he uses that term in 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus especially.

And so people who would come in and teach you that you don't have to live the way Christ says you should live, those people are going to divide the church over moral issues. Now as far as theological issues, we don't know what theological issues may have been brewing in the Roman church because Paul didn't talk about many. He talked about the wrong attitude of Jews about their own circumcision, but he really never got into any false doctrines that were being taught in the church specifically.

And so it may be behavioral teaching he's thinking of as the teachings that the division is over. He doesn't identify proper or improper doctrines in the sense of theology in the book too much unless it's perhaps a works righteousness kind of theology as opposed to grace righteousness. That certainly would be something that has been discussed in the book.

But people who brought false doctrines usually had an ulterior motive and they would usually be given people permission to do things that were sinful which is what drew crowds. People like a religion that gives them permission to be selfish. Whether it's promise you health and wealth or freedom to sin or whatever, things that the flesh wants, preachers who offer them are going to draw crowds.

These preachers are not serving Christ, they're serving their own belly, that's their own appetites. They're getting fed, they're getting paid, they're taking advantage of people. They're deceiving the hearts of simple minded people.

The wise ones will not fall for them but simple ones will. And therefore these teachers are a danger to the simple and you need to not associate with them. Mark them, avoid them, he says.

And as you do this, he says, the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. This may simply mean that as you are doing this, avoiding the false teachers, continuing in the right way yourself, Satan will be defeated among you in short order. He sends greetings from several other names.

We know Timothy, we know a few of the other names but we don't know Tertius, interestingly, verse 22. I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, greet you in the Lord. Clearly the one who is Paul's secretary writing the epistle, otherwise unknown to us.

He mentions Gaius, my host. Now Paul wrote this from Corinth and we read in Acts 18 that a man named Gaius hosted Paul in his home then. And this is probably at a later point, but maybe it's not, maybe this is during that same visit.

But the point here is that we do know of Gaius who was the host of Paul. And he says he's the host of the whole church. His home is open to everybody in the church.

He's very hospitable, he greets you. Erastus, the treasurer of the city, greets you. Interestingly, there is a secular confirmation that there was a man named Erastus who was the treasurer of Corinth where Paul was.

The treasurer of the city, Corinth, where Paul was writing from, is sending greetings to the church in Rome. There is a pavement that archaeologists have found in Corinth that says this pavement was laid by Erastus, the city, I forget the term, something equivalent to treasurer, who laid it at his own expense, it says. So this Erastus, a Christian brother who held a local office in the city of Corinth, his existence and the office he held is confirmed by archaeology separate from any Christian sources.

But of course archaeology doesn't tell us he was a Christian man in Corinth and a friend of Paul's in sending greetings to the Roman church. And it says, and Quartus, a brother. Now why does it say Quartus is a brother? Aren't all the people he's talking about brothers? Why mention this guy's a brother? Does it simply say, I can't think of anything more remarkable about this guy than he's a brother like the rest of you.

I mean, that seems unnecessary. You could just say Quartus. Or is he a brother of somebody, a sibling of somebody who's been mentioned earlier? No one knows, but it's interesting that the word Quartus means fourth, like the fourth one.

The word Tertius, who's writing there, means the third one. Tertius means the third. Quartus means the fourth.

It's possible that somebody had four children and Tertius and Quartus might have been brothers, the third and fourth child in the same family. This is not known to be the case and it's possibly not so, but why does Paul call Quartus a brother, which it seems to go without saying. And if he doesn't mean a sibling, an actual biological sibling of somebody, then why just mention he's a Christian brother? All the people are that he's writing about.

Anyway, those are some interesting things about those names. Finally, verse 25, Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now has been made manifest and by the prophetic scriptures has been made known to all nations according to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to the faith, to God alone be wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.

This is about the third time Paul has come to an amen. He's had several doxologies. One was back in chapter 15, verse 13.

There was no amen there, but there was at the end of chapter 15. And then there was one in chapter 16 earlier that we saw. Anyway, the point here, yeah, verse 24 and verse 20.

And now we go to verse 27. There's a lot of amens. It seems like Paul keeps thinking he's finished and he's not.

And add some more stuff, another appendix. But one thing I'd point out here is that the gospel, he raves on in a very long and complex sentence here. But what he says about the gospel is the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but has now been made manifest.

And, of course, Paul says this about his gospel in several of his epistles, in Ephesians and Colossians. He refers to it as the mystery of God that was not made known to former generations, but has now been made known to the holy apostles and prophets through the Spirit. And that's the same thing he's saying here.

It was hidden before, but it's made known now. God knew about it. God even hinted at it, but it wasn't really understood until it was revealed through the Holy Spirit to the apostles and prophets.

Paul also said the same thing in 1 Corinthians 2. He was talking about the secret wisdom of God that was not made known. I had not seen, eared, not heard, nor had it entered into the mind of man, but God has revealed it to us, he says, by his Spirit. That is to Paul and the apostles.

And so this gospel that he's preaching, if any part of it, was unfamiliar to the ears of the readers. He affirms that it's not new or novel or innovative on his part. It's something that God had in mind from the beginning.

It was a mystery he hadn't revealed, but it was there, under wraps, that he's now revealed it and now being declared to all nations for the obedience to the faith, he says. So he had mentioned the obedience to faith at the very beginning of the book. He said that he had received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among the Gentiles.

The faith is to be believed and obeyed. Obedience to the faith. The faith is simply the message of the gospel, and it has imperatives.

It's something to be obeyed. It's not just doctrines and propositions to be affirmed. And thus we come to the end of a fairly long study in a fairly long book.

Hopefully all those things are... You've got them all memorized now, so anytime you read Romans, you'll remember all those things that we considered. All right.