outlined above) that is most germane. Can we account for the pattern and
sequence of Paul’s church-planting activity without appeal to concepts of
territoriality, planning, strategy, and so on? Can Paul’s evangelizing move-
ments be understood simply as the product of more mundane factors such
as the availability of work, particular modes of travel, transportation net-
works, accepted patterns of itinerancy, the degree of reception or opposi-
tion to the message, etc.?
Such factors are certainly important, and we will return to them in
due course (see below, The Gritty Realities). But first we need to acknowl-
edge that several of Paul’s own statements seem to bar the way to any
such interpretation. Taken at face value, 2 Corinthians 10:13–16 and espe-
cially Romans 15:15–29 seem to suggest that, at least at this stage of his
career, Paul was operating with some conception of an overarching terri-
torial task to be completed: that is, he had a missionary consciousness, in
the sense that we have defined the term.
Admittedly, these statements by themselves do not necessarily mean
the end of Vaage’s demolition project. Rhetoric is not necessarily reality.
Rather than providing evidence for the self-understanding that produced
and shaped Paul’s work to this point, Romans 15, for example, might be
accounted for without remainder simply in terms of the constraints of the
rhetorical situation vis-à-vis Rome, e.g., as a retrospective conceptualization
constructed solely out of Paul’s desire to preach in Rome (cf. Rom. 1:15).
Still, there is the desire itself to go to Rome (and thence to Spain), which
represents a territorial goal of some kind. And Paul’s justification of these
plans raises questions that would need to be addressed before any assess-
ment of the implications of Romans 15 might be made. In particular, how
can Paul say that his work in the east is “complete” (vv. 19, 23)? How has
the desire to preach in Rome (and Spain) emerged in the context of his pre-
vious work in the east? Romans 15 provides us with a convenient point of
entry into the Pauline material.
Romans 15:19, 23: Tension between Claim and Reality
In Romans 15:19, as he looks back on his Gentile mission to this point,
Paul makes a startling claim: “from Jerusalem around to Illyricum,” he
grandly declares, he has “completed the gospel of Christ” (peplêrôkenai to
euaggelion tou christou). The language is as extravagant as it is equivocal;
how the gospel can be said to be “filled up to completion” is not immedi-
ately clear. A few verses later, Paul repeats the claim in language that equally
mixes the categorical and the ambiguous: Paul “no longer has room (mêketi
topon echôn) in these regions” (Rom. 15:23). These are no mere passing
comments. The statements are made in explanation of his decision to jour-
“The Field God Has Assigned” 113