February 5, 2014
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Reminders and Actions

Please see the links to our EXTRA Bible Study notes at the bottom of the page.

Opening Prayer

Loving Father, I praise You for Your gifts of peace and joy. I ask You make Your gifts of faith and hope more secure in me.

Read Romans 15:14-22

For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.

[14] I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. [15] Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me [16] to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. [17] Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. [18] I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done- [19] by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. [20] 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. [21] Rather, as it is written: “Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.” [22] This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright &copy 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.&reg Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reflect

“This is the greatest secret God has to teach us–that we are designed, not to do something to make God happy, but to let God work through us. He will do the work (18)” (Ray C. Stedman).

Remembering is a major part of our life as Christians: remembering who we are in Christ and what God’s purposes are for us. At the center of Christian worship is a service of remembering created by Jesus himself. One of the tasks of a pastor is to remind people so that their knowledge might turn into obedience. This is what Paul has been doing for the congregation in Rome. This is not a task separate from his ministry to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Paul does not dwell on remembering the past to the detriment of current ministry.

Paul takes his concept of ministry straight out of the Old Testament and sees himself as a priest presenting an offering of the Gentiles to God; not as a dead sacrifice, but that they might become the living sacrifices that he referred to in 12:1. This is what the New Testament priesthood of all believers is about: bringing others to be a sacrifice of praise to our Savior and Lord. Priesthood for Paul is not about leading church services but about evangelism.

Paul is not complacent about the work in which he has been engaged. He can claim to have preached the Gospel as far as the Adriatic Sea, an outreach not recorded in Acts. Everywhere he fulfilled his calling of preaching the Gospel where Jesus had not been known. Today, it is a rare privilege to go to such people but we will still meet many who may have only heard the name of Jesus and not understood who he is and what he has done. In many parts of the world there are unreached groups of people who still need missionaries with Paul’s ambition if they are to hear the Gospel. The task of missions will not end until Jesus returns.

Apply

What part do you play in seeing the whole world become an offering of obedience to the glory of Jesus?

Closing prayer

Mighty God, I know that Your Son was a missionary. I thank You for those who have given themselves to world evangelization and pray for Your blessing on their endeavors.

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