Romans 1:13
Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, ( but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, ( but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
Paul had often purposed to visit the Christians in Rome but had been hindered and prevented from doing so. Jewish opposition had repeatedly frustrated his plans to go there to bear witness for Christ. He wanted to have some fruit among them, to win many people there to the gospel and to the truth, even as among other Gentiles.
He also hoped to labor with the help of the Roman believers in spreading the gospel onward to Spain. He eventually reached Rome in very different circumstances than he had expected, arriving as a prisoner in chains, chained to a guard. At first he feared that his imprisonment would prevent him from reaching the people he had hoped to lead to the truth and would disappoint his hope of gaining many souls there.
The verse belongs to the whole first chapter, which is to be read, weighed, grasped in its particular meaning, and set forth and declared in its full force. With the rest of the chapter it proclaims that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and women holding the truth in unrighteousness. Together with the rest of the chapter it calls preaching ministers of the Word to be sanctified through belief of the truth, calls churches to a thorough work within them, and calls every family to conversion.
With the rest of the chapter it gives a warning of true experience to families claiming to be sons and daughters of God, especially fathers and mothers. It exposes many having names on the church record who are not laborers together with God and who fail their accountability as faithful exemplary believers. It charges fathers and mothers to seek the Lord and to awaken to home responsibilities strangely left out of religious experience in home life, a work greatly neglected in the churches that cannot continue without guilt. It is to be declared in its full force to those who have failed to obey the truth in righteousness, showing those who need to become cleansed from every species of iniquity. Mere knowledge of the truth will not cleanse them, because they do not understand the home work to be done through sanctifying grace, and they claim to believe the truth while in works denying the practical truth that, if believed, would sanctify the receiver's heart.