Spain Matters

Over the past few weeks, I have been spending some time in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. What a document! Luther considered it “the most important piece in the New Testament.” Melanchthon judged it the “summary of all Christian doctrine.” I have found that it is not the easiest book to read with understanding, however – even for middle-aged pastors and mission administrators. One commentator confesses that the letter “overwhelms the reader” by its “density” and “sublimity.”

Over the next couple of months, I would like to offer a simple outline of this wonderful letter. My outline is not so very dense and it may not be at all sublime. But it reflects, I think, the underlying purpose of the document. Paul had an eminently practical purpose in mind, as far as I can see. He didn’t set out to write a treatise for Melanchthon. His purpose was deeper – and maybe more simple, too. He set out to mobilize the Roman church for mission.

The Book of Romans is a kind of missionary tract. Paul writes to the Romans in order to enlist them in mission – and, in particular, an upcoming mission to Spain. “I desire… to come to you when I go to Spain,” Paul writes. “For I do hope to see you on my journey and to be sent on by you” (15:23,24). Paul pictures a partnership in missionary concern, apparently, for the unreached peoples of the Iberian Peninsula. “I will set out by way of you to Spain” (15:28).

So here is the first item in my simple outline: for the Apostle Paul, Spain matters.

Paul has in view, of course, the Roman province at the western end of the Mediterranean – viz., geographical Spain. But his view is far more expansive than this. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Paul declares (3:23). “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (10:13). Spain matters for the Apostle Paul because fallenness matters. It matters that the fallen ones have an opportunity to hear the good news, wherever they are in the world. It matters that the lost are found. The gospel is for everyone, Paul reminds his readers; it matters that everyone hears.

Paul seems quite fond of this little word, “all.” He employs the word 460 times throughout his epistles – more than one third of all New Testament occurrences (1226). One commentator observes that the usage indicates the largeness of Paul’s vision. “He was not apt to concentrate on some insignificant segment of any matter with which he was dealing.”

As for us moderns, however, we are much less comfortable with sweeping language of this sort – especially with regard to statements of faith. They seem to us rash and uncharitable. That “all” have sinned (3:23) – that “no one” is righteous, “not even one” (3:10) – statements like these make us uncomfortable. Yet for Paul, they are the simple outworking of his faith. In the word of the gospel, Paul has found “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith” (1:16). It is a gospel that makes him forever a “debtor” – to proclaim this good news to all peoples (1:14). Paul is utterly uninterested, in fact, in any smaller gospel. The gospel he has come to know is complete and comprehensive – large enough to lead him into all the world and to command his entire life.

This is exactly why Paul undertakes his correspondence with Rome (cf. 1:15). This is why he layers his letter with theological insight and reasoning. Paul is not writing a convenient “summary” for Melanchthon, if you please. He is developing a logic and an appeal that will enlist the church in Rome, he hopes, for the sake of the unchurched in Spain.

“Mission is the mother of theology,” Martin Kahler once said famously. It is certainly true for Paul’s Letter to the Romans. The Apostle’s missionary heart fueled his theology throughout the book. Good theology, I have often thought, needs a “mother” like this if it is not to wander off into pious irrelevance.

Because Spain matters.

[Next month: Rome matters, too!]

Other posts in this Mission Matters series:
Spain Matters • Rome Matters • Jerusalem Matters • God’s Kingdom matters