Paul explains about his work among the Gentiles
14 My Christian friends, I myself am completely sure about you. I know that you are good in every way. You know everything about God's message. You are able to teach one another what is right. 15 But I still needed to write this letter to you. I have written to you strongly about some things, so that you would remember them. God has kindly chosen me to serve him in this way. 16 I am a servant of Christ Jesus among the Gentiles, to tell them God's good news. Like a priest, I offer the Gentiles to God, so that he will accept them. The Holy Spirit has made them a pure offering that pleases God.
17 So I am proud about the way that I serve God, because I belong to Christ Jesus. 18 But I will only speak about the work that Christ has let me do. He has used the message that I have spoken and the things that I have done. As a result, the Gentiles have obeyed God. 19 They have seen miracles and great things as God's Holy Spirit worked powerfully among them. In this way, I have told the good news about Christ to many people. I have done this all the way from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum.
15:19Illyricum was a region near the Adriatic Sea, north-west of Greece. Jerusalem was the capital city of Israel.
20 I want to go to places where nobody has ever told people about Christ before. I want to tell the good news to people in those places. That is what I have always wanted to do. I do not want to work in a place where someone else has already started to teach God's message. 21 This is written in the Bible about God's Messiah:
‘The people who had never been told about him
will now see.
The people who had never heard about him
will now understand.’
