The Purpose of Gifts and Callings
Romans 1:5
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“through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,” -Romans 1:5
Another way to say this is, Through [Christ] (vss. 3-4), we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake.1
The obedience of faith refers to the obedient act of believing the gospel of Christ.
“But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed… But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?”” (Romans 10:16 & 6:17).
In sum, the Apostle Paul was sent to the Gentiles to preach the gospel to them that they might believe (i.e., obedience that comes from faith) for Christ’s namesake. (See Acts 9:15 cf. Romans 11:13 Cf. Ephesians 3:8)
It is through Christ that Paul, on the road to Damascus, received grace and apostleship (Acts 9: 1-16). And, this is true of all believers. It is through Christ that each of us receive our particular gifts and callings.
“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift…And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:4-7, 11-14).
While the passage under consideration is not directly prescriptive, it should invoke a question in each of us: If God’s gifts and callings to all believers are irrevocable (Romans 11:29), how well are we stewarding those gifts we have received for the purpose for which they were given—to bring about the obedience that comes from faith (i.e., the salvation of the nations) for his namesake?
Colin G. Kruse, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, ed. D. A. Carson, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Cambridge, U.K.; Nottingham, England; Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Apollos, 2012), 49.