In passing we see, with instruction, that St Paul made many plans which came to nothing; he tells us this here without apology or misgiving. He claims accordingly no such practical omniscience, actual or possible, as would make his resolutions and forecasts infallible. Tacitly, at least, he wrote "_If the Lord will_," across them all, unless indeed there came a case where, as when he was guided out of Asia to Macedonia (Acts xvi. 6-10), direct intimation was given him, abnormal, supernatural, quite _ab extra_, that such and not such was to be his path. But now, he is not only "_homesick_" for Rome, with a yearning love; he feels his obligation to Rome, with a wakeful conscience. [Sidenote: Ver. 14.] =Alike to Greeks and to Barbarians, to wise men and to unthinking, I am in debt.= Mankind is on his heart, in the sorts and differences of its culture. On the one hand were "_the Greeks_"; that is to say, in the then popular meaning of the word, the peoples possessed of what we now call "classical" civilization, Greek and Roman; an inner circle of these were "_the wise_," the literati, the readers, writers, thinkers, in the curriculum of those literatures and philosophies. On the other hand were "_the Barbarians_," the tongues and tribes outside the Hellenic pale, Pisidian, Pamphylian, Galatian, Illyrian, and we know not who besides; and then, among them, or anywhere, "_the unthinking_," the numberless masses whom the educated would despise or forget as utterly untrained in the schools, unversed in the great topics of man and the world; the people of the field, the market, and the kitchen. To the Apostle, because to his Lord, all these were now impartially his claimants, his creditors; he "_owed them_" the Gospel which had been trusted to him for them. Naturally, his will might be repelled alike by the frown or smile of the Greek, and by the coarse earthliness of the Barbarian. But supernaturally, in Christ, he loved both, and scrupulously remembered his _duty_ to both. Such is the true missionary spirit still, in whatever region, under whatever conditions. The Christian man, and the Christian Church, delivered from the world, is yet its debtor. "Woe is to him, to it, if" that debt is not paid, if that Gospel is "hidden in a napkin." Thus he is ready, and more than ready, to pay his debt to Rome. [Sidenote: Ver. 15.] =So= (to render literally) =what relates to me is eager, to you too, to the men in Rome, to preach the Gospel.= "_What relates to_ me"; there is an emphasis on "_me_," as if to say that the hindrance, whatever it is, is not in him, but around him. The doors have been shut, but the man stands behind them, in act to pass in when he may.