Romans 15:23

Where all the people have already heard the gospel, Paul has no reason for laying a foundation. Observe from this that there are some desires which are good!

"But now having no more place in these parts." See how he shows that it was not from any coveting of glory from them, that he both wrote and was also coming. "And having a great desire to come to you these many years,"

"But now, having no further place in these regions, and having a desire to come to you now for many preceding years, when I set out for Spain, I hope that as I pass through I may see you, and be sent on my way there by you, when first I shall have enjoyed you in part." He seems to say these things while situated in Achaia, at Corinth, as we have already shown so far as our strength allowed in the earlier parts of the Epistle: which Achaia, of course, is neighboring and adjoining to Macedonia. Living in those places, when he had traveled through each and every region preaching the Gospel—only within those boundaries in which Christ had not previously been preached—and had filled all things with the knowledge of God, he says that he has no further place in these regions, that is, that no place remains to him empty of the preaching of Christ; and he indicates that the time is now at hand in which he ought to fulfill his desire of seeing those who are at Rome: a desire which he had conceived and carried for many years, but which had been deferred and set aside until he should fill every place in which Christ had not been preached with the knowledge of his Gospel. But what he said, "When I set out for Spain, I hope that as I pass through I may see you," is not to be taken as though Paul were held by so small a love toward the Romans that he judged they should be visited only in passing and while journeying elsewhere. For see what he adds in what follows. "When first," he says, "I shall have enjoyed you in part." In which, surely, he seems to place it in their own power when the journey he has proposed ought to be released by them: and through this he in a certain manner invites and nourishes their love toward himself, so that if they themselves are held by an insatiable affection toward the Apostle, they may know that he too has this purpose, not to depart from them nor to set out elsewhere before he has fully enjoyed the grace of their charity. Yet he foresees that this charity will be so great that it cannot be satisfied in full, but "in part," he says. For he gives warning beforehand that in all things the necessity of preaching the Gospel must be preferred. And rightly does he promise his presence and his delay more moderately to those whom he had not yet seen according to the flesh, and to whom he had not yet come in the body. For we receive more longingly…