Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Coming to Rome at last

¹⁴ When I think of you, my dear family, I myself am thoroughly convinced that you are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and well able to give one another instruction. ¹⁵ But I have written to you very boldly at some points, calling things to your mind through the grace which God has given me ¹⁶ to enable me to be a minister of Messiah Jesus for the nations, working in the priestly service of God’s good news, so that the offering of the nations may be acceptable, sanctified in the holy spirit.

¹⁷ This is the glad confidence I have in Messiah Jesus, and in God’s own presence. ¹⁸ Far be it from me, you see, to speak about anything except what the Messiah has accomplished through me for the obedience of the nations, in word and deed, ¹⁹ in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of God’s spirit. I have completed the announcement of the Messiah’s good news from Jerusalem round as far as Illyricum. ²⁰ My driving ambition has been to announce the good news in places where the Messiah has not been named, so that I can avoid building on anyone else’s foundation. ²¹ Instead, as the Bible says,