#2. Romans 1:8-13 - Paul's Prayer and Desires

 Part I: Introductions

First, indeed, I am thanking my God through Jesus Christ concerning all of you, that your faith is being announced in the whole world.

Verses 8 and 9 are the prayers before Paul explains what his goal is in verses 10 through 13. Note the use of through. This further reinforces my previous statement, that God and Christ are separate Beings, as well as confirms the ‘mediator’ role Jesus played in His Sacrifice.

Note also his emphasis on faith over the course of these past few verses. This is another example of Paul’s separate teachings – while the rest of the apostles spread Jesus’ tidings for their promised kingdom, Paul teaches the nations about the responsibilities and knowledge that comes with Christ – which, so far, is emphasized through faith, and nothing but faith. This opposes Jesus’ initial teachings in Matthew 5-8, which bestows rule after rule after rule on the Israelites.

For God is my Witness, to Whom I am offering divine service in my spirit in the evangel of His Son, how unintermittingly I am making mention of you in my prayers…

I believe him! The man was persecuted so many times…

He says that he “offers divine service,” here. Now – I don’t know about you, but I can’t read this and go, “Yeah, that’s what slaves do – they offer.” Indeed, the context here has changed – his spirit is submissive to the fact that he is enslaved, in the second sentence, and instead clarifies that his offering of service is in the evangel of God’s Son, and his spirit is the tool he uses to effect said service. His spirit itself is enslaved, still – he is evangelizing to the nations from God’s will, and is merely accepting that his spirit is the tool for it. His “offer,” then, is not so much an “offer” as it is the inevitable outcome of being enslaved to God. Still, the question remains: what’s so special about being enslaved to God?

Note: ‘unintermittingly’ means without pause. Thus he prays for these folk without pause. How is this possible? His spirit is in prayer, in faith, here, leading to his natural unending prayer for well-ness and understanding for all in Christ (note that prayer is a direct connection with God, and living in the faith presented in this evangel, by definition, is living in the privilege of Christ. Christ serves as the mediator, thus we have an unintermittent connection with God, whether you say “amen” at the end of a prayer or not.)

… beseeching, if somehow, sometime, at length I shall be prospered, in the will of God, to come to you.

Isn’t this incredible? He had never met these people and yet such an intimate letter is being written, that turns out to be prioritized by God as the first of His evangel! The desire for companionship in Christ is evident here; he sees it as an absolute blessing to wander into a foreign country that opposes Christ, to see the small group of people that don’t misinterpret his words and understand them for what they are.

Note that he states, clearly and definitively, that only God’s will determines the outcome of his missionary journey – not his own personal plans, thoughts or ideas.

Beseeching: to implore, or ask someone urgently to do something.

For I am longing to see you, that I may be sharing some spiritual grace with you, for you to be established…

Those in Christ long to be together… this may only be my simple perspective, but out of each relationship I’ve had, romantic, familial, or otherwise, the desire to find those in Christ, or bring those that don’t understand into this knowledge, still (and likely always will) overpower me. This is just an aside, but I really feel his mixture of pain and longing. Lord willing we won’t have to endure this world’s trials much longer.

I will be reminding you throughout this series that Romans, though cohesive, is a part of a much larger whole. The highest unfoldings in this evangel will be laid out in Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians. Thus Paul shares “some” spiritual grace, here. It should also be noted that Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians are in a unique position as being the letters that establish the grace of God during this transient period, where the evangel was not yet fully completed, but Israel is notably being sidelined for the sake of God’s evangel. This is hinted at with the word “some,” but will be exemplified at later points in the letter.

See that word “spiritual?” That’s a word that many have used metaphorically; not just in this passage, but in hundreds of others. This word “spiritual” is even added in places where it doesn’t belong, and has been the victim of abuse by man’s logic for thousands of years. Man has trouble accepting the great things to follow in this letter, and as a result, they turn this word “spiritual” into this twisted mess, something that it’s not. The spiritual here is going to be a point of contention, I’m sure, throughout this study. I’m certainly going to touch on its root, “spirit,” a number of times. The term spiritual, then, simply means that it has the quality of the spirit. The spirit itself is invisible (John 4:24, Col. 1:15,) but is the core essence of life (Gen. 2:7.) Apart from your spirit, your body can’t function, move, or exist. Spiritual, then, is the living, invisible quality by which the noun is described – and that’s as deep as I’m going to go for now.

The noun itself is translated ‘grace’ in the Concordant Literal, but many versions translate this as ‘gift.’ There is a reason for this discrepancy, and you can turn to the study on Rom. 5:15-17 (#26) to learn more about this. For now I will say that this Greek word is charisma, which is the effect of grace, which is why it is translated as a ‘gift’ in other literal translations. Paul is saying that he wishes to celebrate some of the spiritual grace-gifts with Rome, as obtaining grace and apostleship allows this.

…yet this is to be consoled together among you through one another’s faith, both yours and mine.

Here we’ve gotten into the purpose of the letter – this is for consolation purposes on both sides. We know the world we’re in is a chaotic mess, and it’s easy to get lost. We can be swept up in the fears and hopes, or swept away in trying to explain each emotion. The easiest way to get out of your head, or get out of the world’s social politics, is by relying solely on this faith, given to us by God – this faith that sees trial, ironically, as a blessing. Why should we view the world this way? I guess we must read on.

Now I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, that I often purposed to come to you (and was prevented hitherto) that I should be having some fruit among you also, according as among the rest of the nations.

This is the first presentation of “man’s will” in the evangel of God, and look at it: it fails. Sorry, bro. This statement, that he was prevented from heading to Rome due to unforeseen troubles, is not dwelled on long. He spends very little time talking about himself throughout these epistles, with notable exception taken when his life experience and contrast contributes to making a point on the nature of God’s operations.

Paul tells them that he does not want them to ‘be ignorant,’ which, in English, may sound kind of direct and rude, but the term ‘ignorant’ literally means ‘be un-knowing.’ Paul is simply trying to fill the gaps in their understanding of his actions. He will use this term ‘ignorant’ a number of other times in his letters, and it’s not with an intent to just be rude for no reason, so I wanted to clarify that here.

The goal of his reaching them is to ‘have some fruit among them also.’ The ‘fruit’ he wishes to share is a figure for that ‘spiritual grace’ we talked about a little earlier. ‘Fruit’ = ‘spiritual grace-effect.’ The fruits themselves are discussed in Gal. 5:22-23. There are fruits of ‘the flesh,’ and fruits ‘of the spirit,’ and Paul will be discussing the contrasts between the two by displaying the differences between the conduct of man, shortly, and the conduct of the saints, in chapter 12.

And, finally, the fruit is ‘as among the rest of the nations.’ This should clarify, again, that there is a radical difference in audience. Paul is not appointed to the circumcisionists, the twelve tribes of the dispersion, as Peter and James are. The message Paul gave is not exclusive to the Jews, as the message Peter and James gave is exclusive. The message Paul gives allows a spiritual grace to be shared with any who are gifted grace and apostleship, partaking of the blessings allowed by our Lord Jesus Christ.

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This is a shorter dissection. I have no clue how long some of these will be, and if I'm talking about some specific verses for too long, I plan on breaking it up into two separate studies, so you aren't here for an hour reading what I've written. Anyway, this ends "Part 1" of this Romans study, believe it or not. We've gone through all of the introductory parts, and the next part can focus on Paul's teachings for us to grow in the evangel.

I'm uploading today, and I believe I will upload on Wednesdays and Fridays as well, just to round out a "3 times a week" ideal. However, this is also not set in stone, as God's pace of revelation in my life isn't really set in stone, either. Depending on social and economic circumstances, I may post more or less than this ideal.

Thanks to any and all reading, for taking the time! This is a long project, but I get the sense that at least one person will read it and be amazed by Scripture, the same way I am.

Yours, truly,

- GerudoKing