Romans 1:14

f. These verses are naturally taken as an expansion of the thought contained in the preceding. Paul's desire to win fruit at Rome, as among the rest of the Gentiles, arises out of the obligation (for so he feels it) to preach the Gospel to all men without distinction of language or culture. If it depended only on him, he would be exercising his ministry at Rome. The Romans are evidently conceived as Gentiles, but Paul does not indicate where they would stand in the broad classification of Romans 1:14. It is gratuitous, and probably mistaken, to argue with Weiss that he meant to describe them as βάρβαροι, when we know that the early Roman Church was Greek speaking. In τὸ κατʼ ἐμὲ πρόθυμον, the simplest construction is to make τὸ κατʼ ἐμὲ subject and πρόθυμον predicate, supplying ἐστι : all that depends on me is eager, i.e., for my part, I am all readiness. But it is possible to take τὸ κατʼ ἐμὲ πρόθυμον together, and to translate: the readiness, so far as I am concerned, (is) to preach the Gospel to you also who are in Rome. The contrast implied is that between willing (which Paul for his part is equal to) and carrying out the will (which depends on God (Romans 1:10)). With this Paul introduces the great subject of the epistle, and, in a sense, of the Gospel that which he here designates δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ. The connection is peculiar. He has professed his readiness to preach the Gospel, even at Rome. Anywhere, no doubt, one might have misgivings about identifying himself with a message which had for its subject a person who had been put to death as a criminal; anywhere, the Cross was to Jews a stumbling block and to Greeks foolishness. But at Rome, of all places, where the whole effective force of humanity seemed to be gathered up, one might be ashamed to stand forth as the representative of an apparently impotent and ineffective thing. But this the Gospel is not; it is the very reverse of this, and therefore the Apostle is proud to identify himself with it. “I am not ashamed of the Gospel; for it is a power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. It is such because there is revealed in it δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ the very thing men need to ensure salvation; and that in such a manner from faith to faith as to make it accessible to all. And this, again, only answers to what stands in the O.T. It is written, the righteous shall live by faith.”