Romans 15:25

But now, I say, I go unto Jerusalem, ministering unto the saints. For it hath been the good pleasure of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints that are at Jerusalem.

Paul could not, even at that time, go on unto Rome, for he was committed to the task of delivering the funds which he had helped to raise for the poor saints in Jerusalem. Many commentators have expressed surprise, and even such a thing as disapproval, of Paul's interruption of his great ministry to raise money, take up collections, and personally deliver the funds to the poor in Jerusalem. Thus, Murray wrote:

It may surprise us that Paul would have interrupted his primary apostolic function for what is apparently secondary and concerned with material things. We think so only when we overlook the dignity of the work of mercy.[19]

This noble concern for the poor on the part of Paul was not an occasional or expedient thing with him at all. On the occasion of that confrontation in Jerusalem with Peter, James, and John, the harmonious communique which closed the disputation was summed up thus by Paul:

They gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision; only they would that we should remember the poor; which very thing I was also zealous to do (Galatians 2:9,10).

An implied disapproval of Paul's fund-raising is in this:

There is a note of pathos in the fact that this apostle who proclaimed so eloquently God's acceptance apart from works should seek to secure his own place among the Jerusalem Christians with his collection for the poor.[20]

Two things of great interest challenge the attention in such a remark as that just quoted. Paul did not preach acceptance "apart from works' but apart from "works of the law of Moses" and "circumcision," Paul's position being exactly that of James that the "obedience of faith" is always absolutely required. Moreover, there is no cause for viewing Paul's fund-raising for the poor as "pathetic." It was not a mere strategy of Paul's to try and win favor in Jerusalem. He accepted the mission of aiding the poor in that city upon the basis that the Gentiles "owed" it to them (Romans 15:2); and his undertaking the personal delivery of that bounty was in order that he might seal "this fruit" to the credit of them that had given it.

Paul had long advocated, encouraged, and promoted the collection for the poverty-ridden Christians in the great Jewish capital, finally delivering the money himself; and it would be impossible to find a nobler example of the scriptural status of a man who raises money for worthy ends than the one given here. Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ, perhaps the greatest preacher ever to set foot on earth; and he was not above the prosaic business of asking the brethren for money, not for himself, but for others. Ministers of the gospel who are loathe to touch such a thing as fund-raising forfeit all resemblance to the greatest apostle and preacher of them all.

For the poor among the saints ... identifies the object of Christian charity from the viewpoint of apostolic Christianity. It was not the "poor in Jerusalem" but "the poor saints in Jerusalem" who were the objects of this charity, reminding one of the words of Jesus regarding "these my brethren" (Matthew 25:40), such words are limiting the obligation of the church, at least in some degree, to the poor Christians, and not to the poor generally.

Admittedly, where there is ability and opportunity to aid the alien poor, it may indeed be a righteous and effective work of the church; but, as regards the obligation, that begins with the household of God. The Gentile Christians of the ancient Roman Empire were not laid under tribute for the purpose of helping to support the relief load in the city of secular Jerusalem; and, likewise, the church of the present time should plan some nobler work than that of merely carrying the bed-pan for a sick society, a role to which some sociologists would restrict the holy mission of the church.

In regard to the suggestion, already noted, that Paul was in any sense acting out of harmony with his doctrine of justification in the sight of God, apart from works, by his long and difficult fund-raising efforts for the Christian poor of Jerusalem, it must be said that Paul's diligence in the discharge of such a Christian work, even though it seriously interfered for a time with his missionary journeys, demonstrates in the most dramatic manner possible that "faith" in Paul's usage of it was impossible of standing "alone," but required absolutely the type of obedience which alone could validate it as a saving experience. It was precisely for this reason that "obedience of faith" was made by Paul to be both the beginning of this epistle (Romans 1:5), and the validating seal upon its conclusion (Romans 16:26).

[19] John Murray, op. cit., p. 218.

[20] Richard A. Batey, The Letter of Paul to the Romans (Austin, Texas: R. B. Sweet Company, 1969), p. 183.