Paul's Great Ambition in Romans 15:20

For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ; and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”
Romans 15:18-21 ESV

Why was Paul so intent on preaching the Gospel where nobody else had been? To avoid building "on someone else's foundation"? This sounds like he's treating his ministry as a competition, but when you realize that he saw himself as fulfilling the prophecy he quotes in this passage, his statement takes on another character. It wasn't a competition, but a great blessing from God, and he wanted to honor that blessing with his whole being!

Thumbnail background image adapted from an original work by Cristiano64 at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Claudio_41_-_54dC_jpg.jpg under CC 3.0 license.

From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).

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