Romans 15:30-33 (NIV)
I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there, so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and together with you be refreshed. The God of peace be with you all. Amen.
Paul ends this section of his letter with three specific prayer requests for the Church at Rome.
The first is that he will be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea. Those would be the powerful members of the Sanhedrin, both Pharisees and Sadducees. They had fiercely opposed all Christians, including Paul, and even though Paul felt that God it was God’s calling for him to go to Jerusalem, he knew that it was not safe for him there.
His second request was that his ministry in Jerusalem, both the gift that he was taking and the evangelism and discipleship that he was planning on doing while he was there, would be acceptable to the saints. Paul was zealous for the kingdom of God, and that zeal was not always accepted by the Christians. His very public methodology sometimes brought him into powerful conflict with the Jewish leaders, and that often spilled over into unwanted attention from these Jewish leaders focused on the Church as a whole. He was praying that this trip wouldn’t be marred by that kind of persecution reaching the Christians.
His final request was that he would be able to come and see the Roman Christians in person soon. He was anxious to start westward, and he planned on Rome being his first major stop. It would turn out to be the better part of three years before Paul reached the city, virtually all of that time spent in prison, and he would arrive in chains. But that possibility didn’t matter as much to Paul as the realty of moving the kingdom forward.
Before moving on to introductions and greetings, Paul bestowed a blessing on the Christians in Rome, those living and serving God in the very heart of the pagan empire. His prayer was that the God of peace would be with all of them. Nero had been emperor of Rome for about three years at this point, and while it had been a time of relative peace, there was always the persecution that was brought to the Christians by the Jewish members of the community. And above that, the shadow of the first great persecution under Nero, which would begin in less than seven years, loomed.
Father, Paul prayed for other Christians and Churches a lot. But at the same time, he heavily relied on the prayers of the Churches for him. He was always on the front edge of the battle, always pushing forward, and never retreating. And, because of that, he experienced a lot of fallout, and a lot of the sharp edge of persecution. His body was literally covered with scars. But You continued to preserve his life through all that, and that was enough to keep him powerfully moving forward. Lord, help us to keep on praying, not just for our health and the diseases and injuries that come around from time to time. Help us to also pray powerful prayers for strength, for courage, and for victory as we march forward and push back the boundaries of darkness in our communities. Amen.