Paul and the Church at Rome | Ep50

Transcript

In Biblical times, there were two classes of people, Jews and everybody else. Everybody else classified as Gentiles.

For the first eight years when the Gospel was being preached and churches were being established, they consisted only of Jewish people. With the conversion of Cornelius and his household, according to Acts 10.1-1118, then Gentiles were being permitted to become Christians and become part of the church.

I’d invite you to listen to the podcast on the conversion of Cornelius. Two or three years after the first Gentile convert was made, Cornelius, there was a Gentile church established in the city of Antioch of Syria. I say Antioch of Syria because there was also an Antioch of Presidio, as mentioned in Acts 13-14.

In this lesson, I want to focus on several events related to the establishment of that Gentile church or that Gentile congregation. I’m going to begin by reading Acts 11-19-21. The text says, So then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephens, they made their way to Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the Word to no one except to Jews alone.

But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks, also preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. The news about them reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch.

Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord, for he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord, and he left for Tarsus to go for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year, they met with the church and talked considerable numbers, and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

I want us to think about this great church that was established in Antioch. The city of Antioch was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire. Some have said it was probably the third largest city, maybe somewhere between 200,000 and 600,000 people that lived there.

It was built on the banks of the Orontes River. It was 300 miles north of Jerusalem. Although it was in Syria, in biblical times, today that location is literally in Turkey, not Syria.

It was a very modern city with central heating, plumbing, sanitary sewage system, and lighting system, so it was a very modern city for that age. It was also considered a free city. That is, people born there were Roman citizens, but it was also a very corrupt, sinful city, which always amazes me that all and others in the gospel could go into a city that is very corrupt, such as Antioch and such as Corinth, and convert people to Jesus Christ, to get those sinful people to change their lives and live differently.

I would like to know how they did that, because that’s the challenge for us as preachers today, to get wicked people to give up their wickedness and turn to Christ and to live a Christian life. The depravity of Antioch was so well known that when the morals of Rome collapsed, one poet said that the sewage of the Orontes River had flowed into the Tabor River, which was the river on which Rome was built. My point is, Antioch was known for its great sins, great immorality, great sins of the flesh.

That’s what kind of city it was, but God was able to establish the church there. He had those men to go and preach and found hearts that were open to being taught. Someone said this about Antioch, massive in size, totally materialistic in its outlook, ungodly to the core.

Paul was the greatest missionary God has ever had. In this lesson, I want us to study Paul’s unique relationship with the church in Rome.

Paul grew up in the city of Tarsus, in the area of Cilicia. As a young man, he sat at the feet of the greatest rabbi of his day, Gamaliel.

He was a dedicated Jew who seemed to have been put in charge of persecuting Christians. When Jesus appeared to Saul, who later became Paul, on the road to Damascus, Christ told him that he was to be sent to the Gentiles, but that couldn’t happen until he became a Christian. He became a Christian when he was baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of his sins.

As you remember, Paul was sent into the city of Damascus. He asked the Lord on the road, what do I have to do? He said, go into the city and it’ll be told you what you’ve got to do. And then a man came and said, why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins.

Acts 22, 16. He made three missionary journeys, primarily among the Gentile world. His first missionary journey, in what we would call a country of Turkey today, recorded in Acts 13 and 14.

His second missionary journey began in Acts 15, 36. And this one, of course, is when he was called over into Macedonia, through Europe. He had the vision there in Troas and said, come over to Macedonia and help us.

And he went over there and preached in Philippi and Maria, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, and he came back to the church in Antioch of Syria, which was his sponsoring congregation. He then went on his third missionary journey, which is recorded in Acts 19 and 20. There he spent three years in the city of Ephesus.

And then we have recorded in the book of Acts, his journey from Jerusalem area to Rome as a prisoner. Paul had a desire to go to Rome. Of course, Rome was the capital of the world.

The Roman Empire controlled everything. And Paul had that desire to go to Rome. When Paul was finishing his work in the city of Ephesus, he said, after I have been there with Jerusalem, I must see Rome.

That’s Acts 19, 21. He had worked in Ephesus between basically 54 to 56. And so he leaves Ephesus.

And in Acts 20 and verse 2, at the left of the city of Ephesus, he stopped and spent three months, it says, in Greece, probably in Corinth. And from there, he wrote the Roman letter. I want us to read Romans 1, 13 through 16, to get his impression of what he wanted to do and accomplish by getting to Rome.

He said, I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I plan to come to you and have been prevented so far so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation, both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wives and to the foolish. So for my part, I’m eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome, for I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Let’s notice, of course, he’s writing this letter about 56 A.D. And he says, I want to come to you, but I’ve been prevented. And he said, notice this statement, I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you and have been prevented so far.

Satan prevented him. Satan prevents us. Sometimes we make our plans, and Satan has the power to disrupt those plans.

And so he goes on to say, so that I may obtain some fruit among you, also even as among the rest of the Gentiles. The fruit he’s talking about is, I want to teach and bypass some of you folks over there, just like I have taught and baptized Gentiles in other parts of the world. And then he also said, I am under obligation, both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wives and to the foolish, so that for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

It is also interesting that Paul says in verse 11, for I long to see you that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established. Of course, as an apostle, he had the power and the ability to bestow miraculous gifts on people when he laid hands on them. And so he says, I want to come and lay hands on you that you can receive miraculous gifts.

There’s no indication that there had been an apostle to visit Rome at this time. Those people could have received a miraculous gift from someone else and brought it to Rome with them. But we have no evidence that there’s ever an apostle in the city of Rome until Paul arrived there.

As we see Paul finally making preparations to go to that place, we’re going to see an interesting relationship that he has with that church. Again, in Romans 15, 22, he said that he had been prevented from coming to Rome. When he left Corinth, he returned to Jerusalem, probably intending to go on to report to the church in Antioch of Syria, but was arrested by the Jews there in Jerusalem.

That’s Acts 21, 27. And he remains in prison in Jerusalem and then in Caesarea for two years. Now, all of the rulers who tried his case, even the captain of the armed forces that arrested him, they all said he’s innocent.

He doesn’t deserve to be in jail. He hasn’t done anything worthy of death. They did not want to displease the Jews by letting him out.

So they kept him in jail two full years there. While he’s in jail there in Jerusalem, he says in Acts 23, 11, Jesus appeared to him and said, take courage, for as you have solitary witness to my cause at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also, Acts 23, 11. That probably brought a lot of encouragement to Paul because it’s going to be three years before he gets to Rome.

He could have easily have given up. He could have easily gotten discouraged about the matter. He had desired to go to Rome for a couple of years.

And now then he’s wanting to go and he can’t go. He’s in jail. And so Jesus’ message to him probably encouraged him to say, you are going to go to Rome.

God works on his own time table and not ours. Paul was ready to go immediately and Jesus is going to say, it’s going to be a while. But that statement from Jesus probably gave him a lot of encouragement that said, he said, I’m going.

And so Paul, because Paul was a Roman citizen, he had the right to appeal to Caesar. When a man who’s a Roman citizen did not feel that he got a fair trial or could not get a trial where he was and get released from where he was, he had the right to appeal to Caesar. Finally, in Acts 25 verse 10, Paul made that assertion.

He said, I want my case heard before Nero. When a prisoner said that, who was a citizen of Rome, the government couldn’t do anything about it. They had then to send him to Rome.

And so they began to make preparation to send this man to Rome. Acts 27 and 28 tell about Paul’s journey to Rome. It should have taken a few months.

They ran into a storm. They crashed on the island of Malta. They had to stay there several months.

And so it took probably almost a year before he finally arrived in Rome. It says, oh, when he did arrive in Rome, notice this statement in Acts 28, 15. As Paul approached Rome, the brethren, when they heard about us, came from there as far as the market of Apias and three ends to meet us.

And when Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage. Just imagine, here’s a man who for several years has wanted to come to their city. He is about to get there.

They come to meet him and he is encouraged. He took courage of that. He thanked God that it’s finally happening.

Why did Paul want to go to Rome? There are several reasons we could look at. He said in verse 11, chapter one, that he might impart to them some spiritual gift. And he wanted to give them the miraculous measures of this gift.

It may indicate that there had not been an apostle there. No one there could perform miracles. But he wanted to go and impart that.

That would prove to them that he was an apostle. He would also give them a means of confirming the word that they’re preaching. And so first off, he said, I want to come to you that I might impart to you some spiritual gift.

He also wanted to preach the gospel to the western part of the world. Paul probably was converted about 36 AD. This is now about 58 AD.

And so he’s worked for basically over 20 years in the Israel area, in Turkey, in the eastern part of Europe. But he has not gone yet to Rome. And so he wants to go to the western part of the world, whereas he has been working in the eastern part of the world.

Near the end of the book, Paul explained why he wanted to go to Rome. He wrote that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum, I fully preached the gospel of Christ. And thus I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ is already named, so that I would not build on another man’s foundation.

That’s Romans 15, 19, and 20. He said, I have preached in Jerusalem from Jerusalem to Illyricum. He had preached all over that part of the world.

And so he said, the gospel has been preached here. I don’t want to build on another man’s foundation. I want to go where the gospel has not been preached.

Now, of course, it had been preached in Rome. So he had more in mind than going to Rome. He wanted to go to the farthest distance from Rome that he knew about, Spain.

He said, now with no further place for me in these regions, and since I have had for many years a longing to come to you whenever I go to Spain, for I hope to see you in passing and to be helped on my way there by you when I have enjoyed your company for a while. That’s Romans 15, 23, and 24. Notice Paul’s great missionary vision.

He not only wanted to go to Rome, but he wanted to go to Spain. In essence, this was as far east as you could think of. And he said, I want to go to Spain to preach.

And notice he had this subtle hint. I want you to send me over there. It seems that in essence, what Paul is doing at this time is that he has finished his work in one part of the eastern part of the country, the world.

And he now wants to go to the western part of the country to preach the gospel to those folks. The Bible never tells us that he got to go there. Now, the church fathers who followed, they’re not inspired writers, but they were men of God who lived in the second and third century.

They spoke of him going to the farthest parts of the earth. And so that was a great desire being that missionary of God. I want to take the gospel to the farthest place I can find.

And I don’t want to just preach where somebody else has already preached. I want to preach where nobody has preached before. The last thing I want us to think about was regard to Paul and his relationship to the church in Rome.

He had a unique relationship with him long before he ever got there. As he closed the book of Romans, he names 27 people, 26 of them by name, and then he mentions a sister of somebody else that he knew who was in Rome. That’s listed in Romans 16, 3 through 16.

Think about that idea. He has never been in Rome, and yet he names 27 people he knows there. What does that say? You know, it says that people in New Testament times traveled more than we gave them credit for.

I think we tend to believe that in biblical times people never got outside of town far enough to even see the city limits side. No, it’s amazing. But people in those days traveled far, far distances.

And so here it is in the western part of the world there he knows 27 people that he’s known someplace else who have now moved to Rome. And so he addresses them and speaks of them. It is interesting also to note that there has been a problem in the church in Rome between Greeks, Gentiles, and Jews.

And Paul is going to help address that problem when he writes that letter to them. It is also interesting that as he names these 26, 27 folks he knows there, some of them are Gentiles, some of them are Jews. In essence, he says, I have been blessed for these people.

I have friends over there who are Gentiles. I have friends over there who are Jews. They love me.

I love them. You ought to accept one another. You see, there was such a great hatred between the Jews and the Gentiles that it was affecting even the Christians there in Rome.

And so he is saying, to stress this, I want you to accept one another. And the basis of all of this is going to be this statement of that the gospel is God’s power to save. He’s basically going to prove in the book of Romans that this gospel is for all and give the fundamental facts of the gospel and how God saved mankind.

God guided him through the Holy Spirit to reveal and speak these words. Paul and the church in Rome have a unique relationship. Remember that as you begin reading and studying the book of Romans.

Thanks for joining us this week and spending time in God’s word. Special thanks to Mac Graham, John Kachelman, and LightWay Media for recording, producing, and making this podcast possible. If you’re ever in the Littleton, New Hampshire area, we’d love to have you join us for worshiping Bible study on Sunday afternoons at four at the Senior Center.

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