Paul wanted to see them in order to give them a spiritual gift. Now "spiritual gift" is often used to refer to tongues, prophecy, healing etc, but it can also be used in a much wider sense, and that is its use here. There is no reason to believe that the Roman Christians could not speak in tongues, or did not have the gift of prophecy. But Paul wished to strengthen them. As Christians we are not to walk just in our natural strength and abilities. The Holy Spirit enables us to do much more than that. He brings new abilities, such as those listed in 1 Corinthians 12, He enables us to have special effectiveness in the "natural" things that we do. Jesus told His disciples that the Holy Spirit would bear witness to Him, but that the disciples also must testify about Jesus. When we preach or teach the Spirit also witnesses to people, and that is what makes it effective. The Holy Spirit can bring understanding in our hearts that totally transforms how we see a situation, and how we cope and react within a particular set of circumstances. When we meet with each other in Christ we impart spiritual understanding to each other.
As well as blessing the Romans, Paul expected to receive encouragement from them as well. We too should have this mutual expectation of bringing blessing to others, and them bringing blessing to us.
Paul stresses that the fact that he had not yet been to Rome was not through any lack of desire. He was in no way neglecting the Romans.
No comments:
Post a Comment