for Macedonia and Achaia have been well pleased to make a certain contribution for the poor of the saints who [are] in Jerusalem.
Paul is about to leave for Jerusalem with money raised in the churches of Greece, and he tells the Christians in Rome about it. Two questions follow: why were the believers in Jerusalem poor, and why did churches hundreds of miles away want to help?
Macedonia and Achaia were the two Roman provinces that together made up Greece. The order in which Paul names them is not accidental. The record of the early church also explains why the need arose.
We find a reference to this collection for the saints in 1 Corinthians 16:1-4, and again at much greater length in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. If you read those passages, you can see at once why the Apostle here places Macedonia before Achaia. The Philippians were poor compared with the Corinthians, yet they were far more generous. They talked less and gave more. The Acts of the Apostles gives two reasons for the need. There was a famine in those days (Acts 11:27-30). The believers in Jerusalem had also grown especially poor through the "Christian communism" they practised at the beginning (Acts 2:44-45).
The word behind "contribution" is one the New Testament usually uses for something else.
The word "koinonia" means to share a thing in common. The New Testament translates it nineteen times — twelve times as "Fellowship," four times as "Communion," and once each as "Communication," "Contribution," "Distribution."
The words "it pleased them" set a principle for Christian giving. Liberty rules out force, but it does not cancel what is owed.
If you take the trouble to read Romans 15:26, you will find that "Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem." So on this point, the principle recognised in the word of God is the full liberty of the saints, and under certain aspects their moral obligation. "It pleased them." So when it pleases us, we do it, often acknowledging that it is an obligation. If you wish to see the spirit in which the thing was done, you can read 2 Corinthians 8 where the apostle says he does not speak this as a command.
So why did the Greeks owe anything? Paul points to what they had already received.
Meanwhile he was on an errand of compassion for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. Long before this, the Romans had divided Greece into the two provinces of Macedonia and Achaia. The saints there had raised money to help their brothers. The apostle treats this as a debt of love rather than as love simply flowing out. If the Gentiles shared in the spiritual privileges of the Jews, should they not remember their poor saints in material things? They were pleased, he repeats, but they are their debtors.
The gift did more than relieve hunger. It worked against a split that was opening in the early church.
In those days Jew and Gentile tended strongly to fall apart, and teachers from Jerusalem who pressed the law of Moses made the split worse by their scheming. So Paul clearly saw this collection as very important, and he insisted on carrying the money himself. He knew well the danger he was running. Verses 30 and 31 of this chapter show that he sensed trouble coming.
Commentators differ. One leaves the question open and looks instead at how the journey ended.
Whether he was really right in going to Jerusalem has been a much discussed question. We need not try to answer it here. But note that God answered the prayer Paul asked the Roman Christians to join in, though not in the way he hoped. He was delivered, but not as a free man. His imprisonment by Caesar's officers delivered him from his persecutors.
Another writer reads Paul's silence about any spiritual motive as telling.
No doubt it was a sweet testimony of affection and unity — so valuable at the time. Yet we may be sure that this was not all that moved Paul's heart. He has already told us (Rom. 10:1) of his deep longing for Israel's salvation... Why then does he not speak of it here? Can it be that he mentions no spiritual reason for going because he had a sense that it would bear no spiritual fruit? Indeed, we know from elsewhere that he did not have the direct leading of the Spirit of God to go to Jerusalem — in fact the Spirit warned him not to go. Another brother could just as well have carried this practical service to the poor saints.
- Debt — Spiritual blessing came out of Jerusalem to Greece. So Paul treats the money going back as a debt of love, not just love overflowing.
- Pleasure — No one ordered the debt paid. "It pleased them" — full liberty, with moral obligation beside it.
- Sharing — The word translated "contribution" is the word for fellowship. The gift was shared life, not charity from a distance.
- Bond — Jew and Gentile were pulling apart. This collection tied them together, and Paul carried it himself.
- Cost — He knew the danger and asked for prayer. God answered, but delivered him as a prisoner, not a free man.
They have been well pleased indeed, and they are their debtors; for if the nations have participated in their spiritual things, they ought also in fleshly to minister to them.
Paul is heading to Jerusalem with money collected from believers in Macedonia and Achaia for poor Christians there. This verse gives his reason, and it raises a question far bigger than one relief fund: when does a gift become a debt?
Paul says two things at once about the same collection. It pleased the givers, and they were under obligation. One commentator notes how he refuses to leave it at spontaneous generosity:
Meanwhile he was busy with an errand of compassion for the poor believers at Jerusalem. The believers of Macedonia and Achaia had raised money to help them. The apostle treats this as a debt of love rather than simply love flowing out. If the Gentiles shared in the spiritual privileges of the Jews, should they not remember their poor believers with physical things? They were pleased, he repeats, but they are their debtors.
The obligation is not just sentiment. It rests on where the gospel came from:
The Gentiles were in some sense debtors to Jerusalem. "Salvation is from the Jews," and the gospel had started in this favoured though guilty city. So if spiritual blessing had come from there to the Gentiles, it is only right — and a chance to show thankfulness — that when the Jews are in need, the Gentiles gladly serve them with material things.
The words "owe" and "ought" here come from one Greek verb. It is the language of accounts, not of advice:
Bengel says that the Greek word opheilo means "obligation," while the word dei means "necessity." Opheilo means to be under moral obligation, bound by duty, one ought — and especially in personal matters. Opheilo, and the words built from it, is with one exception the word for "owing" and for what is owed. In Romans 15:27 the older translation renders it "debtor" and "duty."
The older translation says "carnal things." That can mislead a reader today, since the same word carries a moral sense elsewhere. Here it means physical:
In Romans 7:14 the word means "fleshly" in a moral sense — the state of a newborn soul under bondage, doing the things he hates. In Romans 15:27 it means "fleshly" in a physical sense.
The need at Jerusalem had a traceable cause, and the relief did more than feed people:
The Acts of the Apostles gives us two reasons for the need. There was a famine in those days (Acts 11:27-30). The believers in Jerusalem had also become especially poor through the "Christian communism" they practised at the beginning (Acts 2:44-45). Their poverty, however, gave the occasion for building strong practical bonds of Christian fellowship between Gentile and Jew.
Giving was only half of it. One writer weighs what receiving such help admits:
When one church receives financial aid from another, that is a full and complete recognition of practical fellowship, founded on the confessed unity of the body.
Paul does not leave the principle with Macedonia and Achaia. He hints rather than presses when he turns to the readers at Rome:
This points to an important principle. If the Gentiles get blessing in spiritual things, they ought to treat it as their duty to give from their material things. There is a kind of obligation here. The apostle gently suggests to the believers at Rome that they might send a little help to their Jewish fellow-Christians in their present need.
Commentators read this verse as a working principle, not a one-off. One writer applies it to those who teach the word:
What the apostle commands is that the one who is taught the word should share his "good things" with the teacher. That is, the one taught has the privilege of meeting the teacher's material needs. The apostle states the same principle from another angle when he says that if the Gentiles have shared in the spiritual things of the Jewish believers, it is their duty to serve them in material things too. It is for the reader, not the writer, to say whether people generally recognise this obligation.
- Received — The Gentiles got the gospel through Jerusalem. Salvation is from the Jews, and the blessing travelled outward from that city.
- Owed — Paul's word is the language of debt: moral obligation, bound by duty. The older translation renders it both "debtor" and "duty" in this one verse.
- Willing — Yet the givers were pleased to give. One commentator calls it a debt of love rather than simple generosity — both, not either.
- Repaid — Not in kind. Spiritual things came down and material things went back. "Fleshly" here means physical, not sinful.
- Bonded — The money did what argument could not. Relief for believers hit by famine built practical fellowship between Jew and Gentile. The same rule still binds those taught to support those who teach.