Romans 15:16 : “...that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus unto the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” Paul was chosen as an apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; Romans 11:13; Galatians 1:16; Ephesians 3:8; 1 Timothy 2:7). The word here translated minister is not diakonos, the usual word for minister, or servant, but leitourgos, a word that usually had an official significance, one who performs a public service. Of its use here the Cambridge Greek Testament says, "The classical meaning of a public service performed to the community still colors the word. S. Paul adds here the name of the authority who orders the performance, and the persons to whose benefit it is directed. As compared with diakonos the pub-lic and representative character is emphasized. . . . Here the context gives it the specially religious sense." Paul was not only an apostle to the Gentiles, but also an apostle of the Gentiles; he was their apostle. By ministering the gospel to the Gentiles he converted many of them to God. These converts were his offering to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "Sanctify them in the truth: thy word is truth" (John 17:17). There is no conflict, for the words Paul used were the words of the Holy Spirit. Besides, the many signs Paul wrought in connection with his preaching to the Gentiles showed that God approved his work, and that all Gentile converts were as acceptable to God as were Jewish converts, no matter what Judaizing teachers said to the contrary. It was a decisive argument thrown in without seeming to have the Judaizers in mind at all.