Romans 1:10

Romans 1:10 [AV]
Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.

ANNOTATED NOTES:

Making request = deomai: beseeching, lovingly imploring, making known one’s strong desire, asking with urgency; Paul really, really wanted to go to Rome, to be with the believers, to bless the beloved of God - so he brought that request before God; a similar beseeching in 1 Thes 3:10 reads: “Night and day praying [deomai] exceedingly that we might see your face…”; that’s the heart of a doulos - he wants to give, to serve, to impart all that he has, just like the Master did for him (see note on doulos from Romans 1:1)

by the will of God: it’s one thing to take a journey, it’s quite another to have it prosper because it is according to God’s will, God’s timing, God’s full blessing (see Rom 15:29) (also 15:32: “That I may come unto you with joy by the will of God…”); Paul desired for such a journey to be according to God's plan, not his own (see Prov 19:20-21; 16:9; Ps 37:23; 119:133). Man can think things through and make grandiose plans, but if he is listening to God, oftentimes vital changes are made “by the will of God” (even if he isn’t listening, those plans oftentimes get changed). Paul was not wanting to be pridefully self-willed in fulfilling his own desires his own way - that’s not fitting for a doulos of Jesus Christ. A pertinent question is posed in II Cor 1:17: “…what I plan, do I plan according to the flesh [like a worldly man]…?”; Any workman has to labor, not with a trust in his own fleshly abilities, but with a trust in the Lord to guide, direct, and bless. Psalm 127:1: "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

ALTERNATIVE TRANSLATION:

Romans 1:10 [YLT]
always in my prayers beseeching, if by any means now at length I shall have a prosperous journey, by the will of God, to come unto you,

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