Paul’s Pioneering ministry
So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written:
“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand.”
This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you. Romans 15:19b-22
In 15:16-22 Paul explains the nature of his ministry, highlighting three features. He has firstly described it as a priestly ministry (15:16,17) and a powerful ministry (15:18,19a). And finally:
(3) it is a pioneer ministry (15:19b-22)
What Christ has accomplished through him is this: ‘from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ’ (15:19b). This is Paul summary of ten years of apostolic labour. ‘All the way around’ means ‘in a circle’ or ‘in a circuit.’ Although the first missionary journey was launched from Antioch (Acts 13:1ff), the Christian mission itself began in Jerusalem (Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8). After his conversion and commissioning, Paul preached in Jerusalem (Acts 9:26ff). Luke in Acts gives no account of Paul preaching in Illyricum but he leaves room for it because there is a gap in his narrative of somewhere round two years between Paul leaving Ephesus and leaving for Jerusalem (Acts 20:1ff). While in Macedonia at that time he could easily have walked west along the Egnatian Way from Thessalonika to Illyricum.
This would justify Paul’s claim to have ‘fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ’ (15:19). Paul’s wording can equally be translated ‘completed the preaching of the gospel of Christ.’ This doesn’t mean Paul had ‘saturated’ the area with gospel-preaching. His strategy was to evangelise the populated and influential cities, plant churches there, and then leave to others the evangelisation of the surrounding villages.
Having plotted on a map the arc which represented his ten years of missionary outreach, Paul now explains his pioneer policy which lay behind it. ‘It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known (literally: not named, i.e. not honoured), so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation’ (15:20). Paul was quite clear that Christ calls different disciples to different tasks, and endows them with different gifts to equip them. His own calling (and gift) as apostle to the Gentiles was to pioneer the evangelisation of the Gentile world, and then to leave to others the pastoral care of the churches. He uses two metaphors, one agricultural and the other architectural, to illustrate this division of labour, especially as it related to himself and Apollos in Corinth. ‘I planted the seed, Apollos watered it’ (1 Corinthians 3:6) and ‘I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it’ (1 Corinthians 3;10). In keeping with this policy Paul would evangelise ‘only where Christ was not known’ (15:20) to avoid ‘building on someone else’s foundation’ (15:20).
Paul then quotes Isaiah 52:15. ‘“Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand”’ (15:21). The prophet was writing about the mission of the Servant of the Lord to ‘sprinkle many nations’ so that they would see and understand what had not been told them. Paul sees the word fulfilled in Christ, the true Servant, who he is proclaiming to the unevangelised.
‘This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you’ (15:22). Paul earlier wrote that he had ‘many times’ planned to visit them but had so far ‘been prevented’ (1:13) without saying how he had been prevented. Now he does. Because he was concentrating on pioneer evangelism elsewhere, he could not come to them. And further, because the Roman church was not founded by him, Paul did not feel the same liberty to come to them as he would for a church he pioneered. But he does hope to visit them, as he will soon explain, though only ‘passing through’ on his way to Spain.
So Paul has described his ministry in three ways:
(1) it is a priestly ministry (15:16,17)
(2) it is a powerful ministry (15:18,19a)
(3) it is a pioneer ministry (15:19b-22)