Romans 15:27

Romans 15:27. For they thought it good (namely, to make this contribution); and their debtors they are. The Apostle emphasizes by the repetition the willingness of the Grecian Christians, but adds another statement to mark the reasonableness of such contributions: they were a matter of repayment.

They owe it also to minister, etc. The word ‘minister' is that used of priestly service (comp. ‘minister of Christ Jesus,' Romans 15:16), not that found in Romans 15:25. To such priestly service belongs the privilege and duty of providing for the poor saints. This thought is the more emphatic in view of the antithesis between spiritual things and carnal things; the former referring to the gifts of the Holy Spirit which came to the Gentiles from the mother church at Jerusalem (comp. Acts 11:20); the latter including those things which pertain to the external, material side of man's nature. The reference to the Holy Spirit does not require the ethical sense in this contrast, though the reverse is true.