Romans 15:20Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"And so I was eager to preach the Gospel ... where Christ had not been named." Here is yet another distinction of the Apostle. He not only preached the Gospel to many nations and converted them, but also did not come preaching to those who had already been taught. He was so far from drawing another's disciples to himself and doing this for his own glory that he taught only those who had not heard the preaching. Therefore he did not say, "where they had not believed in Christ," but, more significantly, "where Christ had not been named." Why did he take such care over this? "Lest I should build on another man's foundation," he says. By these words he proves that he is free from vainglory.

I not only preached the Gospel to these many nations and converted them, but I also did not go to those people to whom the name of Christ had already been proclaimed. Thus I am far from subjecting another's disciples to myself and doing this for my own glory. Therefore I wrote to you not from a desire to win glory among you, but because I am fulfilling my ministry. He calls the teaching of the Apostles "another's foundation," not because they were foreign to him, nor because they preached something different. He says this with regard to reward, because the reward for their labors was foreign to Paul and did not belong to him.

For I do not wish to preach the Gospel where the name of Christ has already once been proclaimed. Rather, as it is written, "Those to whom He was not announced shall see Him." I desire that this be accomplished through me. I will proclaim Him where they have not heard of Him, so that I do not build on another's foundation. That is, I do not enter and preach in the place where my companions have already penetrated.

Paul says that it was not without reason that he strove not to preach where the name of Christ was already known. He knew that the false apostles did not teach about Christ as they ought. They went about in order to spread other teachings among the nations under the name of Christ, which were then very difficult to correct. Compare 2 Cor 11:12-15. Therefore he wanted to arrive there first, so that he might hand on to his hearers the words of uncorrupted preaching.

This means that the Apostle did not spare his labors. He took fields not yet cultivated, tilled them, sowed them, and made them abundant harvests. By this he brought the prophecy to fulfillment.

This thought, Paul says, and the aim of such zeal have so far prevented me from coming to you. I knew that your teacher was the Apostle Peter, while the people here still had no one to tell them about Christ.

"Lest I build on another's foundation." The desire for the swift spread of the preaching, and the fear of disputes among Christians not yet firm in the faith over the advantages of one or another founder's preaching, as we see in Corinth (1 Cor 1:12), compelled the Apostle Paul to preach in places where no one had yet preached. In this, among other things, the Apostle sees the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that those who previously did not know Christ would come to know Him (Isa 52:15).

As a new reason for his encouragement and boldness in the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle points to his usual success in preaching. He speaks of “bringing the Gentiles to the obedience of faith by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God.” “Thus,” the Apostle adds, “from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum, I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ.”

After indicating the great purpose of his epistle, the Apostle prevents anyone from thinking him self-confident. He says that his calling to preach is confirmed by the many signs of apostolic ministry. He also says that fruitful seeds of Christian teaching were sown by him over an immense expanse, from Jerusalem to Illyricum on the Balkan peninsula. His preaching was heard chiefly where no one had preached before. But in Rome the Gospel proclamation had already been sown earlier. Therefore the Apostle of the Gentiles, though he desired to be there, did not venture to go. Such a visit would have broken his custom of preaching chiefly to those who had not heard of Christ.

"And so I was eager," φιλοτιμούμενον, that is, με. That means: I made it a point of honor, counted it my honor, and regarded it as the work of apostolic honor, to preach the Gospel not where Christ the Lord was already known, but where He was not known. I did not allow myself to press into another man's sphere of labor, lest I should reap the fruit of their labors. Praise belongs not only to him who has laid the foundation, but also to him who has completed the building. Yet in the work of evangelization, laying the foundation, that is, sowing faith somewhere, is much harder than bringing the work to completion. If I had pressed into another's territory and, seeing a foundation already prepared, completed the building, I would have appeared to consume the labors of others.