Romans 15:14-33

 Romans 15:14-33

In the Protestant church, we have talked about the priesthood of all believers, that every Christian is a priest before God. Much of this has been a reaction to the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and a sort of democratic view of church leadership. Rarely do we talk about the service we all have as priests. When we do talk about the role of believers as priests, it is essentially limited to public worship service, serving communion, or some formal function in the ministry of the church worship service itself. Paul in this passage gives us a glimpse at the priestly function of the disciple, which is very different than what we see in most churches. In verses 15-16, Paul describes his role as a priest in terms of his evangelistic efforts among the Gentiles. The offering that Paul was bringing to God in his role as a priest was making disciples. Don't miss the upside-down marvel of the statement. In every other priestly sacrificial system, a physically living animal, and sadly sometimes a person, was brought before a deity where it died. Here the spiritually dead are brought to the Lord, and they are made spiritually alive. The newly enlivened sacrifice came to be the next generation of priests replicating and repeating the process.

This work is not easy but rather requires great sacrifice on the part of the priest. In verse 16 Paul uses the word “minister,” which originally was the word used to describe the patron who, for the love of his city, would pay for major public works projects, even going so far as to outfit, man, and maintain a warship. We must not imagine our role as priest is to sit comfortably in a chair and occasionally offer a prayer or read a scripture. Our role as priests is to make disciples, leading the spiritually dead to Christ where He will give them life.

Paul makes a point of telling about his future mission efforts and his hope for help from the church at Rome. The end of Acts gives us the record of what happened next for Paul, and it wasn’t what he had hoped for. But we will do well to note how Paul conducted his missions. First, Paul took the gospel to places where there was a cultural crossroads without a Christian witness. Second, he also avoided working where others did their ministry. How different we are in our churches. Nearly everything we do as believers is done in, with, and for other believers. Perhaps we should change our approach to be more like Paul’s, to go where no one speaks the good news and in that community love people into knowing Jesus.

“Lord, help me to be a good priest and minister in Your service.  AMEN”