<p>1:15 <i>Some indeed preach Christ out of envy and strife, and some of good will</i>- Paul's ability to judge motives here may have come from direct Spirit insight. For it is not really for us to judge the motives of some preachers as being of envy. And yet it was quite clear that this category had an agenda- to make trouble for Paul and have his prison sentence extended or turned into a harder prison regime for him (:16). The believers in view were presumably those in the church at Rome. His enthusiasm to see them and be with them, as witnessed in the letter to Rome, may well have guided him in appealing to Caesar. And yet at his trial, none of them stood with him; and we get no impression that they ministered to his needs in prison. It was faithful friends from elsewhere in the empire who had to be asked to bring him a warm coat and writing materials. They may well have advertised Christianity in terms which were provocative to the Roman leadership, in order to make Paul as the high profile Christian prisoner suffer more. And this was rooted in envy or jealousy of him. Paul could have given in to bitter disappointment with the Roman church, but we never get a hint of it in his letters. He was very positive about the whole experience.</p>