In returning to our verses, we should note not only what Paul does–build where no one has built–but also why he does it. He explains his desire in v. 20 by quoting Isaiah again: "Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand" (Isa 52:15). Critical in understanding Paul’s understanding of Isaiah 52:15 is the phrase "of him" or "concerning him" (peri autou).⁶ In Isaiah, the antecedent of the pronoun “him” is "my servant" (see Isa 52:13). This is the servant of the Lord, the anticipated suffering servant who will come to rescue the nation of Israel. Grammatically, the antecedent of “him” in Romans 15:21 is the person of Christ in v. 20. The message of the deliverance of God in Isaiah is again given a Christological meaning. Paul’s message seems fairly simple: the nations will enter into the salvation that the servant brings, whom we now know is Christ. It is this announcement that drives his apostolic mission. The message of Christ who brings salvation to those who’ve never heard becomes the basis for his own mission and justification for his strategy. The very God who completes his work of salvation in Christ now calls and sets apart Paul as an apostle to the Gentiles to proclaim the coming of this suffering servant of Isaiah. For Paul, he finds his own ministry “announced beforehand” in Isaiah.⁷ He is the one entrusted with the message about Christ sent to those whom the message has not yet reached.

This understanding of his place in the larger movement of God's redemptive activity is seen in his introduction to the letter. To the recipients who have yet to meet him, he introduced himself by saying, "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel....” One scholar rightly says, "Paul introduces himself in terms of his vocation, vocation not in terms of jobs but his calling and defines that vocation in terms of the gospel.”⁸ Paul cannot understand nor conceive of himself apart from this ministry founded in the redemptive activity of God. His own life and ministry are defined by his participation in the ongoing redemptive activity of God. Paul works because God is at work.

The Church at Work
One thing you might recognize in this discussion thus far is that the ministry of Paul is far from random; it is quite intentional. The area and extent of his ministry is actually thought out and his work is confined primarily to the part of the world controlled by Rome, especially around the Mediterranean. Because of this intentional ministry, some conjecture–erroneously, I believe–that Paul's geographic framework was influenced by the Old Testament prophecy in Isaiah 66:18-21.⁹ Paul is also very much a pioneering missionary. It was his principle, following the prophecy of Isaiah, to break new ground only. Moreover, we see Paul approaching each city and town in a somewhat systematic way: he begins with initial evangelism in the synagogues, initiating churches by planting them and laying the necessary foundations, and he continues to pastor them through visits, writings, and by sending co-workers. All this is to say that Paul’s missions is intentional.

If he is such an intentional missionary, what is Paul's conception of the role of the church in his own missionary activities? If God is at work, and if Paul is at work because of God, what is the role of the church in this larger picture? It has been widely recognized that Paul's writings do not include explicit appeals to be active in missions and evangelism and to work toward winning converts to faith in Jesus Christ. This despite the fact that we're always told this is what we're supposed to do. Having grown up in the CRC, I was a participant in a ministry called S.W.I.M., which some of you may recognize. This is not a sport, but what they called Summer Workshop In Ministries where they take high school students from Southern California or elsewhere, place them in a team of four, and send them to a city that they've never visited before. There, they serve the local church for a month or two. I along with three others was sent to Indianapolis. Under the guidance of the local pastor, we were sent door to door to invite them to church. We spent time in local malls where we were taught to engage mall visitors in conversation and eventually invite them to church. Does Paul or the New Testament in general exhort us to such activities?

A number of suggestions have been made. Some would argue that Paul's missionary program, specifically his lack of appeal for churches to be engaged, was affected by the conviction of the imminent return of Christ. If Christ would indeed return shortly there was no need to emphasize this point and to teach it. Others state that missionary activity would have been motivated by one's conversion; that is, missions and evangelism are natural results of one's coming to Christ. Therefore, as this reasoning goes, a direct appeal was considered unnecessary by Paul. Still another group has suggested that the missionary outlook of Paul was still developing, thus preventing any significant discussion in his writings. Finally, scholars like Paul Bowers suggest that Paul's missionary self-understanding "cannot be easily transferred to other missionaries and other ecclesial situations."¹⁰ Despite an outpouring of writings disputing his conclusions, Bowers does offer a carefully nuanced understanding that, for Paul, the growth of the church is primarily “vertical” rather than “horizontal.”

However, I dispute the notion that Paul's writings lack teachings on the role of the church in the expansion of the Kingdom of God. Although much more can and should be said, perhaps we can make some observations about Paul’s understanding of the missionary activity of the local churches and individual believers based on Romans 15. First, we can say with a fair bit of confidence that Paul has in mind, from the beginning of the epistle, a certain notion of the progress of the gospel. Paul repeatedly reminds the Romans that he has longed to visit them. Why? He longed to visit them “to reap harvest among them” (Rom 1:13) and “to proclaim the gospel to them” (Rom 1:15). Fundamental to this conviction of Paul is that the gospel implies not only a commitment to Jesus Christ but also a commitment to the progress of the gospel in the world. This is why Paul emphasizes the universal scope of his missionary activity which ultimately attempts to proclaim the gospel, not only in that localized area but to all the nations. I agree with P. T. O'Brien, a noted New Testament scholar and a former missionary, when he says, “The dynamic of the gospel’s logic meant for these believers in Rome and for other Christians, including ourselves, a deeper commitment to its ongoing, powerful advance, as well as to the person at its centre, Jesus Christ, God’s Son.”¹¹

Footnotes (on this page)

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