another perspective

Good evening friends,
Today's reading gives us a window on Paul's final travels from a different perspective: his letter to the Romans. He writes this at the beginning of his last journey to Jerusalem, hoping that after going to Jerusalem he will go to Rome on the way to Spain. As it happens, God will send him to Rome, but as a prisoner. Even in chains, Paul is faithful to his calling. May it be so for all of us.
God bless,
Sam

Romans 15:14-24

¹⁴I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. ¹⁵Nevertheless on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God ¹⁶to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

¹⁷In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God. ¹⁸For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, ¹⁹by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ.

²⁰Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, ²¹but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand.”

²²This is the reason that I have so often been hindered from coming to you. ²³But now, with no further place for me in these regions, I desire, as I have for many years, to come to you ²⁴when I go to Spain. For I do hope to see you on my journey and to be sent on by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a little while.