Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Romans chapter 15, verses 23 and 24.

But now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed

for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey

there by you once I have enjoyed your company for a while. Now you might think, why I pick

these verses out of all the good stuff in Romans 15 and 16? Like, why these verses about, Paul's saying,

I don't longer have any room for work in these regions?

So I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain. Well, here's why. Because these verses,

when you think about what Paul just said, are astounding and eye-opening. So they're astounding

in this sense. Paul just said he's been from Jerusalem all the way around to

Elyricom proclaiming the gospel. He's basically summarizing all the places where he shared the gospel

and planted churches. And then he says, there's no more room for me to work in these regions.

Like, are you kidding, Paul? There's no more room for work. Did that mean everybody was a

follower of Christ in those regions? Does that mean that there weren't lost people in those regions?

Does that mean that there weren't all kinds of needs to be met, like physical needs to be met in those

regions? Of course, there were all those things. There were still many people

who didn't know Christ. There were still all kinds of physical needs that needed to be met.

So why would Paul say there's no more work for me to do in those regions? Well, because Paul

had proclaimed the gospel in those regions.

People had come to Christ.

They had gathered together into churches.

And so there were churches in those regions that were now proclaiming the gospel

...