Restores My Soul

Historical Context

Paul wrote this letter to believers in Rome from Corinth, sometime in the mid-fifties AD. He had never been to Rome himself. By his own account he had been kept from coming for years, even though he had wanted to visit for a long time. The church he was writing to was made up of Gentile converts and believers who had come from Judaism.

That church was divided. Believers disagreed over what to eat and which days to treat as holy, and the disagreement had turned into judging and despising one another. Paul spent a long stretch of the letter telling the ones he called strong to bear with the weaknesses of the weak instead of pleasing themselves. He told everyone to accept one another the way Christ had accepted them. He went on to describe Christ becoming a servant to the Jewish people, so that the Gentiles could also glorify God for his mercy. He backed the point with a string of Scripture quotations that end with the Gentiles hoping.

After all of that instruction, Paul did not add one more command. He turned to prayer instead, asking God to give the church what he had just spent a long stretch urging them to do for each other. He was under pressure of his own: he was about to carry a gift to Jerusalem, and he asked these same believers to pray that he would be kept safe from opponents in Judea.

Reflection

Paul ends his appeal with a request, not one more rule. He asks the God of hope to fill the believers in Rome with joy and peace as they trust. Their hope would then grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Paul prays that as they believe, joy and peace will fill them, and hope will grow out of that. You do not have to build up your own hope before you come to God. You can ask him for it, the way Paul asked for the Romans, and trust him to grow it in you as you go.