In chapter 15, Paul lays out his beliefs, goals and ambitions when it comes to world missions. In the first 13 verses of the chapter, Paul shows how God is not just the God of Israel, but through the blood of Christ, is the God of a new people group that defies ethnicity and race as we know them (Read John Piper's Bloodlines for more on this.). Through the blood of Christ, anyone is able to come to God and be a part of his people. To prove this, Paul cites the Old Testament (aka the Hebrew scriptures) to prove his point. Four passages, all of which refer to God's love for the Gentiles and the nuance that the Gentiles will worship God somehow.
Well now we know that through Jesus, anyone, Jew or Gentile, can come to know God. But this doesn't mean that everyone already has heard about him. In verse 20 Paul writes "It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known". You see, there are places, still today even, where the name Jesus Christ has no meaning. It is our job as a global church to send missionaries to these places. This is not to say that missions in places where the gospel has been heard is a bad thing, it is a great thing! This is to say that they are both important but there are fewer people going to places where Jesus is unknown. Now this is a very hard thing to do nowadays because these places are pretty much all closed to outsiders, strongholds of Islam or Hinduism and are extremely hard to get into, let alone preach Christ. Nonetheless, we need to be doing everything we can to share Jesus with the people in this places.
Paul ends with a personal message, asking for prayer. I would challenge you to keep missionaries and the people of the world in your prayers. Pick up a copy of operation world and begin praying for the nations, pick up a prayer card for a missionary at your local church. Let's work together to take the gospel where it has yet to be preached!
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