In “Mary Poppins,” Julie Andrews sang “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” Laying aside more recent concerns about the consumption of sugar, it’s not a bad rule of thumb. It certainly makes sense when applied to interpersonal communication.
You’ve been a little tough on someone, maybe your son or daughter, maybe someone who works for you, maybe a friend. So after you’ve spoken words of friendly advice, critique, discipline, whatever you might call it or was needed, you offer some softer, gentler words to help the “medicine” go down easier. That’s what Paul does in Romans 15:14 as begins the “personal” section of his letter to Rome.
Our text for this week, Romans 15:14-22, is meant to explain Paul’s attitude toward the Romans, to make it clear that he does not mean to step on their toes.
Verses 14 begins by explaining that Paul does in fact see much good and much knowledge in the Roman church. Paul at this point had never been to Rome. The people he is writing to had been evangelized by someone else. Tradition says it was the apostle Peter. So after all the instruction, both theological and practical, he has been offering them, he wants to make it clear that he does not believe they are either morally suspect or ignorant. No, he says, you are “full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.” He’s almost acknowledging that his instruction to them is unnecessary.
Then in verse 15 he softens things further by suggesting that though he’s written rather boldly on some fronts, particularly in regard to interpersonal relations between the “weak” and the “strong,” it’s all been by way of reminder. “I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know,” could be the paraphrase.
Paul’s purpose in talking in this gentler way is unfolded in the rest of the text. He wants them to know that he does not mean to horn in on the work of other ministers of Jesus Christ, not by Peter or by anyone else. In the next section he will repeat his desire to come to Rome, already expressed in chapter 1, verse 10. But he doesn’t mean to come in his usual role of evangelist. Someone else has done and is doing that work. No Paul wants to get to Rome in order to receive assistance on toward his next goal, which is to bring the Gospel to Spain.
So Paul outlines his previous ministry, trying not to boast of himself, he says, but only in Christ. He’s preached the Gospel all the way from Jerusalem to Illyricum, a great arc of evangelism reaching almost to the Adriatic Sea. Now he wants to push that arc to what was for him the western edge of the world, Spain.
In it all, Paul’s goal and God-given mission, as he says in verses 16 and 18, has been to win the Gentiles to Christ. In the process, he says in verse 20, he has deliberately avoided building “on someone else’s foundation.” He wants to reach people who have never heard the good news of Jesus. He wants to extend the building of the Church of Jesus Christ to new ground. So Rome is not a focus for his ministry, it’s a pit stop on the way.
Might we learn something from Paul’s desire for new ground? Where might God be directing us so that we can build something new for Him from the ground up? Perhaps it could be the building of something as small as a new space of devotion in the midst of a too busy life. Maybe it’s a call to some distant mission field. Overall might it not be a general attitude of being open and willing to receive whatever new moment, be it trial or blessing or ministry, to which our Lord calls us?
Where’s the new ground for me, for you? And who will be God’s appointed helpers for us to reach it, like Rome was for Paul?