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I myself am also persuaded about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish others.
The word for “brothers” here and where context allows may also be correctly translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”
But I write the more boldly to you in part as reminding you, because of the grace that was given to me by God,
Verse 15. and so forth I have written to you, brethren, more boldly, and so forth Saint John Chrysostom admires with what mildness he addresses himself to them, yet puts them in mind, that he is the minister, and the apostle of the Gentiles, in which he may have reason to glory, or boast.—Sanctifying the gospel of God, preaching it in a holy manner, that the Gentiles may be sanctified by it. Witham.—To be the minister of Jesus Christ among the nations, exercising in their regard the rite of sacrifice, as we read in the Greek, ιερουργουντα.—For I dare not, I shall forbear to speak of any thing but my labours: I need not mention the power of miracles and wonders, which the Holy Ghost hath done by me in many places, from Jerusalem to Illyricum, in places where Christ had not been preached by others. And now having no more place, nor occasion to preach in these countries, when I begin my journey to Spain, and so forth by which, it appears, he designed at least to go into Spain. Witham.
that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the Good News of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
I have therefore my boasting in Christ Jesus in things pertaining to God.
For I will not dare to speak of any things except those which Christ worked through me for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed,
in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of God’s Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and around as far as to Illyricum, I have fully preached the Good News of Christ;
yes, making it my aim to preach the Good News, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build on another’s foundation.
Verse 20. Saint Paul does not mean to say, that he never preached where the gospel had before been announced; this would not have been true, for he preached at Damascus, where there were already Christians, whom he formerly wished to take in chains to Jerusalem; and again in this epistle he announces the truths of the gospel to the Romans already converted by the preaching of Saint Peter. But he means to say, that on these occasions he acts not as an apostle, whose office it is to preach to infidels; but as one that waters, confirms, comforts, as he says in the beginning of this epistle: and this he did as occasion offered, as the subsequent verses shew, where he tells us his design in calling on the Romans, in his journey to Spain. Estius.
But, as it is written, “They will see, to whom no news of him came. They who haven’t heard will understand.”