This is our final lesson from Romans – even though it is not the final chapter.

But here Paul is wrapping up perhaps the most important of all his letters. If we look back it is hard to believe what Paul has explored in one letter, isn’t it? Look at the topics he has covered:

The sinfulness of all men or what we call today total depravity
The nature of the world that has turned the truth of God into a lie
Natural Law
Righteousness by faith
Peace with God
The transformation of the mind
Christians and government
The new life of the Spirit
The formation of the universal Gentile church

This one letter probably has had more impact on Western Civilization and the life of the church than any other he wrote. Paul’s influence on the church at Rome while he was imprisoned there provided the foundation for the institution that filled the vacuum after the fall of the Roman Empire. St. Augustine was converted by reading it. Martin Luther was inspired by it to start the Reformation. The theology that allowed the eventual spread of the church beyond Judasim is defined here. In some ways, the concepts of natural law which led to the founding of this country are here. It’s hard to imagine history without this one letter to the church at Rome. It’s much more than a book in the Bible. It became the foundational document of an entire civilization.

1. How does he begin this final section? He begins with a compliment but not flattery. He says he is “convinced” even though he has never been there. It’s the same word he uses earlier in Romans to say that every one should be fully convinced of their position – even though they may disagree. How could he be convinced when he has never met them? I think Chapter 16 gives us a clue. Paul greets 29 separate people – not including various groups and households. Church consultants tell us that the average member only knows 40 people well in a congregation whether it is large or small. Paul knew nearly that many from the outside. Over the course of his ministry he has acquired a deep network of relationships and those relationships are often with people who have moved – either voluntarily or been forced – from place to place with him. Look at one relationship in particular – Priscilla and Aquila. Paul has known them for years and they have traveled with him. In Ephesus they were the couple who took Apollos aside and instructed him in the doctrines of the faith. So, when they vouched for the church at Rome Paul knew he could depend on their judgment along with so many others.

Of what was he convinced? What had Aquila and Priscilla told Paul about the church?

First, they were full of goodness. That word is “agatha” and we often translate it to mean “kindness” or “loving kindness”. It does not mean perfection but it does mean the quality in a life that makes everything it touches better than it was. Kindness is not grand gestures or proclamations. It is a thousand small acts that are often invisible but invaluable. Oscar Wilde said, “The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.” I think what James Boswell said about friendship is true of kindness as well. “We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over. So in a series of acts of kindness there is, at last, one which makes the heart run over.” Proverbs 19:22 says, “What a person longs for is kindness…” It is unexpected and while it does not overwhelm us it changes us in time because kindness is almost always most appreciated in looking back on it. It is not just being pleasant but doing good without desiring notice. This class is full of kind people. The church at Rome was as well and that is the first thing his friends had to say about their church. The people here are kind to each other.

Second, they were complete in knowledge. That is not the same as being full of useless knowledge or trivia. It is not the same as being puffed up with knowledge that makes one feel special or smarter than other people. Paul wrestled with the church in Corinth (from where he was writing) on that issue as they felt there were classes of Christians – those who had special knowledge and those who were not the elite. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” This completeness is being filled with the kind of knowledge that makes one loving, kind and mature. The more you know the more humble you are. The more you know the less you think of yourself. The more you know the more you realize the grace of God.

Third, they are competent to instruct one another. I like the word competent. It means you have the power to do something. It means you are practiced and experienced and not just holding a degree. You can do what you say you will do and not disappoint anyone. It’s the same word Paul uses when he says that Abraham believed God had the power to do what he had promised. God is competent. Competence is always the sign of the mature fellowship and incompetence always produces the same effects – jealousy, quarreling, disputes and controversies. These things are always present whenever there is a lack of competence.

Instruction is not lecturing or nagging. It is the word meaning building up the mind. It is exhorting, challenging and sharpening. And it is not one person doing the instructing, is it? It is the whole fellowship having the competence to sharpen and build up each other by both teaching and learning from each other. It is not a hierarchy but a fellowship that is moving everyone toward maturity. The whole body grows.

2. Paul goes on to say that it has always been his ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that he would not be building on someone else’s foundation. After that, he could come and visit the church in Rome not to stay but on his way to Spain. Now, there is no more work for him to do. He has planted seeds all over the Mediterranean and those churches are now able to grow. There is plenty of work for the pastors – like Timothy – he has left in place but no more work for him. He is a fisher of men and not a keeper of the aquarium as someone once put it. His role is to proclaim the gospel but not be the long term pastor. Paul was not irresponsible as an explorer and evangelist. He did not abandon what he started. He laid the foundation and then found those who could build on it. He found leaders and managers.

But he did use these letters as management tools in his own way. He addressed issues, personalities, disputes and misunderstandings with them. As well, he kept up his relationships through them. This is how the British Empire managed India for 200 years with very few people – less than 1,000 – in civil service.

“The organization structure was totally flat. Each district officer reported directly to the “COO,” the provincial political secretary. And since there were nine provinces, each political secretary had at least 100 people reporting directly to him, many times what the doctrine of the span of control would allow. Nevertheless, the system worked remarkably well, in large part because it was designed to ensure that each of its members had the information he needed to do his job.

Each month the district officer spent a whole day writing a full report to the political secretary in the provincial capital. He discussed each of his principal tasks—there were only four, each clearly delineated. He put down in detail what he had expected would happen with respect to each of them, what actually did happen, and why, if there was a discrepancy, the two differed. Then he wrote down what he expected would happen in the ensuing month with respect to each key task and what he was going to do about it, asked questions about policy, and commented on long-term opportunities, threats, and needs.” Peter Drucker

I don’t think anyone knows how many letters Paul must have written but I believe it is far more than what we have – probably hundreds or more. Someone must have filed them – like the Dead Sea Scrolls – and then forgotten about them. Or they thought of them as ordinary correspondence and once they were read – except for a very few – they were probably washed clean and the parchment reused for other letters.

3. But first, he must go to Jerusalem to deliver the offering he has been collecting for the church there. We read about this offering in 2 Corinthians 9 but there is something added here that we do not read there. Here, Paul says there is something we owe and not merely volunteer. “For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.” We don’t like to think about our giving as something we owe. We like to think about it as coming voluntarily or, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians, not reluctantly or under compulsion. But, if you look closely at that passage it is clear that Paul is not saying, “Decide whether or not you are going to give.” Instead, he is saying it is up to each person to decide how much they are going to give. Giving is not an option because, as he says here in Romans, it is something that is owed. It is a debt and not a free will offering. I wrote about that this week and realized that we have so overemphasized the aspect of discovering our passion for what interests us in our giving that we have disregarded the obligation to give. We give because we owe and there is no choice – only the amount. We are not merely grateful. We have a debt to be paid.

Of course, what would our faith be without the Jew? There could be no exclusive Gentile faith. That is what Paul is saying. We would have no concept of sin without the Law. We would never have had the opportunity to believe had they not been stubborn in their disbelief. We share the heritage of Abraham. We are grafted into the root and Jesus, the means of God’s reconciling the world to himself. We have peace with God because of the Jew. Everything we have has come through Israel and God’s covenant with them.

4. And now, with his work done and his task of raising the offering for the poor almost complete, he is on his way to Spain. Paul always had plans and dreams but they were subject to God’s change. He was not a fatalist thinking he had no choices. But he knew he served God who could change his plans and interrupt his life at will – sometimes for years. He never sat and waited for God’s perfect will but he knew everything somehow was worked together for God’s will.

We can always be headed toward our own “Spain” in our lives…but sometimes we pass through a time in Rome in ways we don’t expect. Our dreams are interrupted or sent in a different direction and God offers no explanation. “I’m finished with my work here and I’m excited about my plans for the new work and I’ll pass through quickly on my way.”

What actually happens? He comes to Rome in chains and lives under house arrest for two years. Yes, he gets there but not as planned and not just passing through. He is under house arrest and has just enough freedom to realize how constrained he is.

We all face the reality of Rome on the way to Spain, don’t we? We have plans and dreams for our lives once we have finished with the tasks at hand. We have things we want to do once we have been freed of hindrances but then:

A sick spouse
Aging parents
Children come home
Finances change
We have new and unexpected responsibilities
Our health will not support our plans

We begin to realize, as did Paul, that our dreams and plans are always subject to change and the issue for him – and us – is how to use the change. Do the changes derail us or only delay us? Do we resent them or realign our lives around them?

Acts 28:30: “For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.” His purpose was not hindered by his circumstances.

But more than that Paul’s two year imprisonment was a turning point in the history of the church and Western civilization. Roman law required a court trial within 18 months. His failure to go to trial could mean that there was no case and this gave the Christian movement a quiet and unofficial legal approval. That would have allowed it during those two years to spread throughout Rome and the Empire until the persecutions of Nero.

In other words, we cannot know how God will use what we can only see as a prison or a hindrance. We cannot know what the power is of a single letter that survives against the odds. What we see as an inconvenience is God’s intention.

And what about the dream of doing new work in Spain? Did he ever get there?

One church tradition says he was released after those two years and preached in Spain until he returned to Rome and to martyrdom by beheading. But what a life!

In 1903, a young, bright man named William Borden graduated from high school – a millionaire. He was the heir to the Borden Dairy fortune. Following graduation, William traveled around the world. Everywhere he went he was touched by the needs of people. He eventually wrote his parents to announce he would give up his fortune and devote his life to missionary service. In his Bible he wrote two words: NO RESERVES.

After enrolling in Yale in 1905, William quickly became the spiritual leader of the entire campus. He spearheaded a revival movement that led, by his graduation, to 1,000 of Yale’s 1,300 students becoming involved in weekly Bible fellowships. He led off campus, inner-city ministries as well.

Upon graduating from Yale he repeated his intention to be a missionary and enrolled in seminary. Upon receiving his ministerial degree he decided to take a one-way trip to Egypt where he would learn Arabic in order to reach Muslims with the Gospel. Leaving all his fortune behind, he set sail. On the way he wrote two more words in his Bible: NO RETREATS.

He arrived in Egypt full of anticipation and immersed himself in the tasks at hand. But within days of his arrival he became very weak and was soon diagnosed with spinal meningitis. A short time later, William Whiting Borden died at the age of 25.

Human logic can never understand his death, yet an ocean away hundreds were impacted because of his joyful, willing, sacrifice. That’s the way William would have wanted it. During the last fleeting days of his life, in labored handwriting, he had penned two more words in his Bible: NO REGRETS.

No reserves. No retreats. No regrets.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Timothy 4:7