<p>15:27- see on Rom. 15:16.</p><p><i>They were pleased to do it,</i><i> and indeed they owe it to them</i>- The believers in Achaia had to be cajoled by Paul to come up with what they had promised, according to 2 Cor. 9-11. And clearly there was much opposition from them towards Paul and his welfare project.</p><p><i>For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they owe it to them also to minister to them in material things</i>- Again this is Paul rightly perceiving that Jew and Gentile both have the Spirit within them and working through and with them; and they ought therefore to work together. See on :20,&nbsp; :24 and :25. But he seems to wish to paint a picture of this actually happening on the ground, when in fact it was not at all like that. Human dysfunction was too strong.</p><p>All nations of the land were to be blessed because of Abraham and his seed, his one special seed Jesus and also his natural descendants. His children were intended to be a blessing to the other nations who lived around them, especially in that they were intended to bring them to Abraham&rsquo;s God and Abraham&rsquo;s faith. Now this is not to say that ultimately, Abraham and his seed will not bring blessing on literally the whole planet. Rom. 4:13 interprets the promise of the land of Canaan as meaning &lsquo;the whole world&rsquo;. But this was by later development, and on account of the universal blessing achieved by the sacrifice of Abraham&rsquo;s greatest seed, the Lord Jesus. In the first instance, the blessing was to be upon all the families who lived on the &lsquo;earth&rsquo; / land (12:3). There is a paradox here. For those already living in the land promised to Abraham, their land would be taken from them but they would be blessed. God was telling Abraham: &lsquo;You will possess the land and all nations of that land will be blessed&rsquo;. They were to give up their physical inheritance to receive a spiritual one- this was the ideal. Paul applies this idea to us when he says that if Gentiles have received the spiritual blessings of Abraham&rsquo;s seed, ought they not to give their physical blessings to that same physical seed of Abraham? This is how and why he tells Gentile converts in Rome to send donations to the poor Jewish brethren in Jerusalem: &ldquo;For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things&hellip; I shall come in the fullness of the <i>blessing</i> of the gospel of Christ&rdquo; (Rom. 15:27-29).</p>