Eager Rom 1:15
Meaning of Eagerness
Gk prothumos προθυμον ; I have a ready mind. (Adam Clake) a willingness or eagerness. Paul was consumed with his passion to preach the gospel (Sproul). How blessed is the readiness, yea, eagerness, of this holy apostle to pay his debt, to preach the good tidings to those also in Rome (William Newell) . . . he feels he must give it (the gospel) (Jones). In v 14 he says he “has to”, in v. 15 he says he “wants to”. . . his heart is in it. (Lawson).
Motivation for Eagerness
There are multiple factors that can be identified for Paul’s eagerness to share the gospel in Rome. The obvious ones from the text are Paul’s indebtedness to Jesus for receiving the gospel and this debt to world to preach the gospel (v. 14), and the power of the gospel for salvation for all to whom he preaches (v 16). In the text there are several elements that dictate Paul’s eagerness to preach the gospel. They are his conversion, his calling and his consistency.
1) Conversion to Jesus I am The phrase “I am” really details a transformation that his conversion accomplished. It radically changed everything in his life. Saul the persecutor became Paul the preacher. He was moved from legalism to grace. He was turned from antagonism toward Christ to adoration of Christ. His desire to destroy Christians shifted into a delight in discipling those in the church. His distain of and distance from the Gentiles rotated to delight in and fellowship with them. Paul is eager to share the life changing hope that he experienced when he went from “I am” Saul the antagonizer of the church to “I am” Paul the apostle of Christ. Countless times in his writing he would speak of this transformation (Acts 9, 22:3-21, Acts 26:12-32, Phil 3:4-7) . . . there was his consciousness of what this glorious gospel had done for him. As he had experienced the joy and the peace and the happiness that it had brought him, he was anxious that all others should enjoy the same benefits (Lloyd Jones).
When we lose sight of our deliverance will lose the desire to share it those in darkness and the marvelous light is extinguished.
2) Calling of Jesus
The calling of Paul had two dynamics: the people to whom he was called and the purpose for which he was called.
People to you . . . in Rome
Paul feels he must give them the gospel . . . his call, his commission. . . . The Lord had commissioned him on the road to Damascus. He had sent him out to preach. Paul will have to render up an account of his ministry and of his stewardship (2 Corinth 5:10-1) (Lloyd Jones). It was this great burden of indebtedness (v. 14) that made him ready, and even eager, to proclaim the Good News to those who were at the heart of the empire in Rome. (Peter Pett). He has an eagerness of desire. "I am ready and desirous to preach the Gospel even at Rome, though it be the capital of the world, a place of the greater politeness and grandeur, and a place where it might seem peculiarly dangerous to oppose those popular superstitions to which the empire is supposed to owe its greatness and felicity: yet still, at all events, I am willing, I am anxious to come and publish this divine message among you, though it should be at the expense of my reputation, my liberty, or life." (Coke). Paul was sent to be a witness to “all people” (Acts 22:15), but was specifically called and appointed by God to be his “chosen instrument to take his name to the Gentiles, Kings, and Israelites” (Acts:9:15, also, 22:21), to go to the Gentiles (including Rome) “to open their eyes so they can turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. . . . . “(Acts 26:18). Paul affirms that his calling is to take the gospel in obedience to Christ commission “where Christ has not been named” (Rom 15:20). Paul hears from people in Rome, and he immediately thinks, “This is a gospel opportunity.” The Romans are Gentiles with a very different world and life-view. The Romans are a people who value military might. Rome was the cosmopolitan center of the world. They were pagans who worshiped the emperor as a god and participated in a number of idolatrous temple cults. What Paul sees when he considers the Romans is a people in need of the gospel. What we observe in this text is a Jewish man desiring to cross cultural and ethnic lines to make the gospel known to a specific people group unknown to him.
Paul is the kind of Christian who labors most where Christ is known least.
Purpose to preach the gospel Gk euaggelizo – literally a well or good messenger. To bring or announce good news. To evangelize, proclaim the good news concerning Jesus. Paul was called “to preach the gospel”. Whenever you come across anything in any realm of life which pleases you and gives you great satisfaction, you feel you are bound to tell people about it, and you do. Whatever it is, we always feel we cannot keep it to ourselves; we always want to share our blessings (Lloyd Jones). Jesus illustrated this passion to proclaim good news in the parables of lost things (Luke 15). The women who lost a coin and found it went and told her neighbors. The shepherd who lost his sheep upon finding it told everyone about it. The father who lost his son told everyone about his return and even had a feast to proclaim the good news that his son was lost, but now is found. Paul’s only concern was to fulfill the plan of God and the ministry God had given to him and really, that was everything he lived for. . . . Life had only one purpose. There was only one value in life to Paul and that was to do God's work; consumed by that, he was eager to preach (John MacArthur). The plan of God is that by the foolishness of preaching, men and women will hear the message that rescues them. The gospel must be taught before it is caught. Christ must be proclaimed if he is going to be possessed. There must be the use of words if men will ever know the wonder of God’s love for a sinful world. When Paul boils down his missionary method to its bedrock foundation, he always talks of preaching and teaching the gospel. He builds everything — his entire missionary agenda — on this one essential method. . . . too many Christians wrongly think Christ can be made known without the use of words. That’s false. And too many missionaries give so much time to strategies for getting in and remaining in countries that they sadly never get around to proclaiming Christ. Strategy has a necessary place. But strategy never saved anyone. The gospel does. So all our strategy must aim at the preaching of the gospel. Strategy must position us to proclaim. We undertake every strategy in order to herald Christ. And we risk everything else in order to make Christ known. (Thabiti Anyabwile –cross conference).
3) Consistency proclaiming Jesus you also
The term “also’ implies two things. First, there is an assumption that there is a consistency in the life of Paul. He wasn’t someone who shared the gospel sporadically, but regularly. Everywhere Paul went he shared Christ. He didn’t just share on “mission trips” and not at home. He didn’t just communicate the gospel at “church” functions, and not during his everyday actives. . . . Wherever Paul was he shared the gospel. He was eager to preach in Ephesus. He was eager to preach in Corinth. He was eager to preach in Derbe. It was not a geographical thing. Wherever Paul was, he was eager to tell the people about the Lord Jesus Christ (Steve Lawson). I have preached it at Antioch, at Athens, at Ephesus, at Corinth, &c.; and I: am ready (if God permit) to preach it in the most splendid city of Rome likewise (Peter Pett). Paul had a lifestyle of sharing Christ that was constrained by the love of Christ (2 Cor 5:14) He is like a man in a vice, and the vice is being screwed up and tighten up, until life is almost pressed upon him. What is pressing on the Apostle? The love of Christ! This amazing thing! This gospel of reconciliation! This love of God! This love of God that sends His only Son, and makes Him to be sin for us! Paul has seen it, and he wants everyone else to see it and to rejoice in it, and to glory in it, and to participate in it. (Lloyd Jones). Second, there is an affirmation that Paul was saying that the gospel is needed in Rome as well. There is not place where the gospel is to be excluded. Regardless, of the danger, ridicule, rejection, or risk the gospel must be preached to every tongue, tribe and nation.
In verse 15, Paul says, “I am eager . . .” He’s eager. He has a keen interest. He has an intense desire or a restless expectation. Paul is like a dog pulling hard on his master’s leash trying to chase every animal with the bark of the gospel. He’s straining forward in the gospel. And why shouldn’t he be eager? The gospel is the best news in the universe! There ought to be in us the same eagerness, zeal, and burning to herald’ this happy news. We should be dogs pulling on our Master’s leash, barking to make Christ known — eager, anticipating, desirous that our Lord’s glory should be known.
So we ought to ask ourselves: Am I eager? Am I eager to play my part in the plan of God to reach the nations? We must pursue God’s plan with eagerness. (Thabiti Anyabwile –cross conference).