Romans 15:27

The repetition of the: “it seemed good to them,” emphasizes still more forcibly the free-will of the churches in this course. They felt themselves impelled to pay this homage to the church from which the gift of salvation had come to them; they even judged that it was a small matter to act thus in a lower domain in behalf of those to whom they owed blessings of an infinitely more precious nature. Paul evidently enlarges thus on this subject, not only to praise the churches of Greece, or with the view of leading the church of Rome immediately to carry out a similar work, but with the intention of awaking in the hearts of his hearers the feeling of a duty which they shall also have the opportunity of fulfilling some time or other. After this episode Paul returns to his principal subject.