Righteousness shared with others
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. 31 Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there, 32 so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and together with you be refreshed.
We have previously noted the high esteem Paul places on his fellowship with brothers and sisters in the faith. We see it again here in the value he attaches to their prayer for him. Two things especially are weighing heavily on his heart and mind. First of all, he wants the matter of the collection to go well, both in its delivery and its distribution. Hence the Romans are asked to pray that Paul’s service in Jerusalem “may be acceptable to the saints there.”
But there also is another matter of grave concern, namely that of Paul’s personal safety. Recall that Christ had predicted a time when those who violently opposed Christianity would think they were doing God a service (John 16:2). Paul was encountering that very thing from his Jewish compatriots, particularly from “the unbelievers in Judea.” That Paul was not being paranoid but rather was concerned about real dangers is shown by events on the ensuing journey to Jerusalem. Along the way, in one place after another, people warned Paul that trouble and imprisonment awaited him in Jerusalem (Acts 20:22,23; 21:4,10-14). What was foretold actually happened, of course, when Paul had to be rescued from a Jewish lynch mob in Jerusalem and then fell under Roman custody for the next four or five years.
At the time of Paul’s writing to the Romans, all of this still lay in the future, so Paul very properly requested his readers’ prayers so that “by God’s will” he would arrive “with joy” and “be refreshed” together with them. As indicated above, it is entirely possible that Paul might have gotten the opportunity to go to Rome and Spain after his release from Roman imprisonment. If so, it simply came later than he was hoping for when he asked the Romans to pray for his speedy arrival to them.
33 The God of peace be with you all. Amen.
Paul closes the section with a benediction. The sentence has a note of finality, bringing the letter proper to a close. All that remains for Paul to do is attach a commendation for Phoebe (who may have been the carrier of the letter), send greetings to some two dozen acquaintances in Rome, and transmit the instruction of 16:17,18.