- Covered In His Dust
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- Romans Chapter 1 (part 5)
If this is your first time receiving Covered in His Dust, welcome.
I’d love to hear where you’re reading from. Just reply and let me know.
Before diving into my notes, I encourage you to read Chapter 1 first.
I include all the Scripture below, but there’s something about sitting with the whole chapter first — giving yourself room to be curious.
What catches you off guard?
What doesn't make sense?
Where is that?
Who's that?
Why?
Those questions will make the notes hit deeper.
"When disciples followed a rabbi, they followed him closely so they would never be out of his sight, never be someplace where they couldn’t hear him speak. They followed him so closely that his sandals often kicked up dust."
May you be covered in His dust.
Good morning Saints! ☀️
I started studying and sending my notes on January 1st, 2024.
We’ve gone through Luke and Acts, one verse at a time.
Now: Romans.
I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t expect to go through Romans like this. I’m not even sure what I expected… but I didn’t think I’d be halfway through chapter 1 after five weeks.
This letter changed Rome, and everyone who took it seriously.
It’s already been changing me, verse by verse.
Let’s see what it does in us.
Let’s not rush it.
Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now), that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles.
He starts with a phrase he only uses when something really matters:
“I do not want you to be unaware, brothers…”
He uses it when something really weighs on him.
This isn’t just a transition.
It’s how he flags something deep.
So when he says it here in Romans, it’s not filler.
It’s not just a note about travel plans.
It’s Paul saying, “Don’t misunderstand this. I didn’t forget you. I’ve been trying to get to you. For years.”
He’s not easing into his letter.
He’s clearing something up right away:
“I didn’t just want to visit you. I had plans.”
Real ones. More than once.
“I have often planned to come to you (but have been prevented until now).”
The Greek word for planned, proethemēn, doesn’t mean wishful thinking.
It means a set intention.
Like putting it on the calendar, packing the bag, buying the ticket.
In other words, Paul wasn’t just hoping to get there someday.
He was ready to go.
But something kept stopping him.
Imagine being in Rome, reading this letter.
Paul says he’d often planned to come.
He says he was hindered until now…
Does that mean he’s already on his way?
Will he be here in a few months?
A few weeks?
Maybe they started watching the road.
Maybe they started making space in their homes.
And then…
Nothing.
No Paul in year one.
No Paul in year two.
Still no Paul in year three.
(He finally arrived, at the end of that third year, in chains.)
How many in the Roman church started to wonder?
Did he change his mind?
Did we get forgotten?
But Paul hadn’t forgotten.
God had just delayed.
That delay led to Jerusalem,
to his arrest,
to two years in prison,
to a shipwreck,
a snakebite,
a violent sea…
And then finally,
Rome.
Not as a preacher, but as a prisoner. Chained to a guard.
And still, he came.
Because God did keep His word.
Just not the way anyone pictured.
And honestly, that still messes with me.
“I’m in debt.”
That’s what Paul says here.
I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.
Not “I feel called.”
Not “I have a burden.”
Not “I’m under obligation.” (even though some translations say that)
He says he’s in debt.
The Greek word for debt is opheiletēs, the same word used for someone who owes money.
Not metaphorically.
Literally, like a person with a mortgage payment due.
That’s how real Paul’s sense of debt was.
That’s why I like the NKJV here.
It says “debtor.”
The ESV and NIV say "obligation" or "I am obligated."
They’re not wrong.
Just softer.
It doesn’t ache the way “debtor” does.
So Paul isn’t saying, “I feel pressure if I don’t go preach.”
He’s saying, “I owe them something.”
And that raises a question.
Who put Paul in debt?
The Greeks and barbarians didn’t loan him anything.
They didn’t help him.
They didn’t save him.
They weren’t even asking for grace.
So why does he owe them?
Because he received grace.
He says it back in verse 5: “Through [Christ] we received grace…”
Grace came to Paul.
Unearned.
Uninvited.
Undeserved.
And that grace didn’t just set him free.
It put him in debt.
Not to God, but to everyone else who still needs it.
God gives him a gift.
But instead of Paul owing God back…
Paul turns around and owes the people.
Because that’s how grace works.
You don’t pay it back.
You pass it on.
Imagine you’re taken hostage in a foreign country.
You’re stuck in a room with dozens of others.
Hungry.
Beaten.
Forgotten.
And then one day, someone breaks you out.
You’re free.
You’re finally free!
But as you stand outside the prison, eyes squinting into the light… you hear the voices of the others still locked up behind you.
What do you do?
Go live your new life?
Move on with your freedom?
Go back to safety and call it obedience?
Or do you go back, risking your comfort, because you can’t bear the thought of leaving them behind?
That’s what Paul felt.
Grace does that to a person.
It doesn’t leave you owing God back.
It leaves you owing everyone still in chains.
That’s our story too.
Grace kicked the door open and pulled us out, long before we even knew to ask.
You
and
I
are
in
debt.
Not to God.
But to Greeks.
To Barbarians.
To the wise.
And to the foolish.
Everyone who deserves the same free grace.
If Paul would have withheld it from anyone, it would be like saying, “I earned this. I qualified. You didn’t deserve it.”
But nobody qualifies for grace.
Not him.
Not you.
Not me.
And that’s why we preach.
That’s why we share the gospel.
Because grace doesn’t make us proud.
It makes us debtors.
The home we left behind in 2012
Before we move on to the last verse,
There’s something about Paul I can’t stop thinking about.
The biggest debt I ever had was my mortgage back in the States.
We bought our home when interest rates were high, and the monthly payment was brutal.
A Craftsman-style home from the early 1900s, tucked against a farm. Kind neighbors and a thousand memories tucked inside.
We loved it, but we shouldn’t have bought it.
Every payment was painful.
Mostly interest.
It felt like we’d never get out from under it.
That’s what debt felt like to me.
A weight.
A burden.
A constant reminder of what I owed.
But when I read Paul here in Romans 1,
I don’t hear that.
I don’t hear him saying, “This debt is painful.”
Or, “I don’t know how I’ll ever pay it off.”
It feels more like he’s saying, “I can’t believe I’ve been trusted with this debt.”
Like he’s stunned that grace didn’t just rescue him, it trusted him with something holy.
He’s not crushed by the weight or worn out by the call.
He’s
honored
to
owe.
Because what kind of God would take a man like Paul, a violent, arrogant, Christian-killing man, and not just forgive him… but call him worthy of carrying the gospel?
Paul doesn’t sound bitter.
He sounds blessed.
This isn’t ministry from guilt. This is mercy from the inside out.
He doesn’t just go in to rescue a few hostages.
Paul keeps going back.
He gets beaten, he goes back.
Shipwrecked, he goes back.
Bitten by a snake, chained, slandered…
He goes back.
Because that’s what grace does. It doesn’t leave you owing God.
It leaves you desperate to find the next person who still needs it.
Or at least it should.
So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also.
I used to skim past this verse.
I didn't see the weight of it right away.
But Paul doesn’t have throwaway verses.
Read that verse again.
What seems off?
Paul’s writing to believers.
Wait. Paul’s writing to believers?
So why is he so eager to preach the gospel to them?
Because Paul doesn’t see the gospel as the starting line.
He sees it as the whole race.
Not because they’re lost.
But because he owes them.
That kind of mercy?
It doesn’t just move your lips.
It moves your life.
He’s not correcting them.
He’s not defending truth.
He just can’t stop telling the story that saved him.
This verse isn’t filler.
It’s a window into the fire inside Paul’s chest.
He’s coming to preach the gospel—
Not just to convert,
But to anchor.
To strengthen.
To drive the roots deeper in those already walking with Christ.
“…to you who are in Rome also.”
There’s a lot of emotion in that little word “also.”
Paul’s preached all over: Jerusalem, Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth.
He’s risked everything to carry the gospel to the nations.
And now he says, “You too. Rome too.”
Even though he’s been blocked from coming.
Even though it took three years.
Even though he’ll get there in chains.
Paul still wants to come.
Sometimes I have to stop and just breathe.
I forget how alive this letter still is.
Paul’s heart is dripping off every word.
And the Spirit is still moving through them.
I’m eager to write this to you.
I’m eager to carry it.
Because I’m in debt too.
Let’s keep our pace slow enough to hear God speak.
We’re holding a letter that still breathes.
I love you,
George
Uncovering Scripture
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George Sisneros is a full-time missionary in Guatemala and the founder of Ordinary Missionaries and the El Rosario Christian Academy for Boys.
He’s been married to his wife, Vonda, for 27 years. He’s a father to nine children, five adopted.
In 2024, George and his wife expanded to Cuba, joining forces with nine pastors committed to transforming lives through the gospel.