Another in a series by guest writer Lucas Ward.
There is no passage in the Bible that says “accept one another” and yet that is exactly the idea expressed in Rom. 15: 1-7. There are two other one another passages in this text, which combine to give us this lesson: we are to accept one another.
A little context: the church in Rome had a problem. There was a strong racial tension. You see, the Hebrews had long known that they were God’s Chosen People. Even though the Kingdom of God had changed from a physical nation to a spiritual kingdom with the advent of Christianity, the Jewish Christians still carried that arrogance. Old ways die hard. The non-Christian Jews were even worse. The hatred of Gentiles could be vicious. One rabbi writing at about this time taught that Jews should not help an ailing pregnant Gentile woman. If help was given, it would just result in more Gentiles. Far better, he thought, to let her miscarry and die in the process. One less current Gentile and no new ones either. It is no wonder that the Gentiles generally hated the Jews.
In Rome, it was even worse. Here the “Chosen People” butted heads with the rulers of creation. The Romans were an understandably proud people for having conquered most of the known world. They considered themselves the greatest people and now they have to put up with a rag-tag band from a backwards province claiming to be God’s only chosen people? Tension rose. Even in the church there was discord. Then, in circa A.D. 49, Claudius Caesar expelled all the Jews from Rome. (This was why Aquila and Priscilla were in Corinth when Paul got there, Acts 18:2.) On Claudius’ death, the edict was rescinded, and the Jews returned. The Jewish Christians rejoined the church and expected to regain their prominence as those who best knew the OT. The Roman Christians were loath to bow to the Jews, as they had just had years of getting along fine without them. Dissension ruled.
Paul’s letter to the Roman church was largely aimed at ending this strife. For instance, in chapters 1-3 he emphasized to the Jews that they would be just as lost as the Gentiles without Christ, and so had no reason to be holier-than-thou. In Chapter 11 he tells the Gentiles that they have been grafted into the tree the Jews were naturally part of, and so could not afford to be anti-Semitic. These are two of numerous examples of Paul quelling the fight. Chapter 15 is the summation of this instruction.
Rom. 15:1-2 “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.”
Paul is almost teasing them here. He knows full well that neither side is going to admit to being the weaker side, and so he puts the onus on each of them to bear with the failings of the other. He almost admits to as much when he says “let each of us” in verse two. He knows that they will each strive to prove themselves strong, and thereby forget pleasing self in order to please the neighbor. Which is what he (and the Holy Spirit) wanted. The strength that each has is not to help themselves, but to be used to help, and build up (edify), those who are weaker. The strength can also be used to bear with the failings of the other. Contrary to all the fun revenge movies out there the strong one isn’t the person who wreaks vengeance, but the one who accepts the failings of his brothers and helps them to be better. Unsurprisingly, the Lord is a perfect example of this.
Rom. 15:3 “For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”
The Lord didn’t use His considerable strength for His own pleasure, but instead used it to help the weak. Who can forget His prayers in Gethsemane? “Let this cup pass from me.” He wasn’t having fun when He was nailed to the cross. Instead, He was willingly taking our burden, bearing with our failings, building us up, as He took the reproach due us upon Himself. The quote is from Ps. 69.
Rom. 15:4 “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
Paul quotes the scriptures both to solidify his point and to show that the Jews were useful, as they knew these scriptures better than the Gentile converts. These scriptures are for our instruction. It is not just the scriptures, however, that leads to hope, but endurance also. We have to keep going. We have to keep bearing with the weak. We have to keep pleasing others rather than self. It is the scriptures plus endurance that leads to hope. Notice that in the next verse he calls God the God of endurance.
Rom. 15:5-6 “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The double emphasis on endurance is interesting. Perhaps Paul is admitting to both sides that he understands that bearing with the other won’t always be easy. He prays that God will help them to live in harmony with one another. They are to get along. He describes the harmony that they should experience as being “in accord with Christ”. Clearly a reference to verse 3, Paul is saying they should be willing to bear reproach for each other, as Christ did for them. Their own pleasure is less important than harmony, as Christ’s pleasure was less important than their salvation. The end goal is that they be able to come together to together glorify God. A summation is offered in verse 7:
Rom. 15:7 “Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”
Welcome, greet, accept. We are to welcome each other. Notice how this verse essentially sums up the previous six. Vs. 1-2 are about bearing with each other and pleasing the other rather than self. That is welcoming each other. “As Christ has welcomed you” is a reference to verse 3, that Christ pleased others by bearing their reproach. “For the glory of God”, shows the end result mentioned in verse 6.
God is glorified when His people forget their differences and come together to worship Him.
In the next 5-6 verses, Paul reminds the Gentiles that Christ came to fulfill the promises given to the Jews and reminds the Jews (by quoting their own Scriptures to them) that He also came to give mercy to the Gentiles. Again and again, there should be no dissension.
One reason that there was discord was that the Jews and Gentiles worshipped a bit differently. This is covered somewhat in chapter 14. The Jews kept certain holidays and celebrated new moons, etc. all as a holdover from the old law. The Gentiles had no cultural reason, and no teaching from any authority, that they should do such things. One side thought the other weird and the other thought the first lax. Paul told them to get along, despite this. This is something we can learn from today:
Predominantly black churches of Christ tend to worship a bit differently from predominantly white churches of Christ. Their song services are maybe a bit more. . . soulful. Their preachers are a bit more animated. (In general. I’ve been to predominantly black churches in which, if I closed my eyes, I’d have guessed they were predominantly white.) There is nothing unscriptural about any of this. It might make me feel a bit uncomfortable for cultural reasons, but it shouldn’t for Christian reasons. If our church gets a large group of black Christians as visitors and we notice that the building is swaying a bit more than usual during the song service and the sermon generates more “Amen!”s than usual, should we get upset and ask our brethren to quiet down? Of course not! We are to “welcome one another”.
Despite racial differences, cultural differences, and even differences in the worship (as long as the basic scriptural pattern in being followed) we are to live in harmony with one another. We are to welcome one another as brethren in Christ. We are to accept one another.
God is glorified when His people forget their differences and come together to worship Him.
Lucas Ward
There is no passage in the Bible that says “accept one another” and yet that is exactly the idea expressed in Rom. 15: 1-7. There are two other one another passages in this text, which combine to give us this lesson: we are to accept one another.
A little context: the church in Rome had a problem. There was a strong racial tension. You see, the Hebrews had long known that they were God’s Chosen People. Even though the Kingdom of God had changed from a physical nation to a spiritual kingdom with the advent of Christianity, the Jewish Christians still carried that arrogance. Old ways die hard. The non-Christian Jews were even worse. The hatred of Gentiles could be vicious. One rabbi writing at about this time taught that Jews should not help an ailing pregnant Gentile woman. If help was given, it would just result in more Gentiles. Far better, he thought, to let her miscarry and die in the process. One less current Gentile and no new ones either. It is no wonder that the Gentiles generally hated the Jews.
In Rome, it was even worse. Here the “Chosen People” butted heads with the rulers of creation. The Romans were an understandably proud people for having conquered most of the known world. They considered themselves the greatest people and now they have to put up with a rag-tag band from a backwards province claiming to be God’s only chosen people? Tension rose. Even in the church there was discord. Then, in circa A.D. 49, Claudius Caesar expelled all the Jews from Rome. (This was why Aquila and Priscilla were in Corinth when Paul got there, Acts 18:2.) On Claudius’ death, the edict was rescinded, and the Jews returned. The Jewish Christians rejoined the church and expected to regain their prominence as those who best knew the OT. The Roman Christians were loath to bow to the Jews, as they had just had years of getting along fine without them. Dissension ruled.
Paul’s letter to the Roman church was largely aimed at ending this strife. For instance, in chapters 1-3 he emphasized to the Jews that they would be just as lost as the Gentiles without Christ, and so had no reason to be holier-than-thou. In Chapter 11 he tells the Gentiles that they have been grafted into the tree the Jews were naturally part of, and so could not afford to be anti-Semitic. These are two of numerous examples of Paul quelling the fight. Chapter 15 is the summation of this instruction.
Rom. 15:1-2 “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.”
Paul is almost teasing them here. He knows full well that neither side is going to admit to being the weaker side, and so he puts the onus on each of them to bear with the failings of the other. He almost admits to as much when he says “let each of us” in verse two. He knows that they will each strive to prove themselves strong, and thereby forget pleasing self in order to please the neighbor. Which is what he (and the Holy Spirit) wanted. The strength that each has is not to help themselves, but to be used to help, and build up (edify), those who are weaker. The strength can also be used to bear with the failings of the other. Contrary to all the fun revenge movies out there the strong one isn’t the person who wreaks vengeance, but the one who accepts the failings of his brothers and helps them to be better. Unsurprisingly, the Lord is a perfect example of this.
Rom. 15:3 “For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”
The Lord didn’t use His considerable strength for His own pleasure, but instead used it to help the weak. Who can forget His prayers in Gethsemane? “Let this cup pass from me.” He wasn’t having fun when He was nailed to the cross. Instead, He was willingly taking our burden, bearing with our failings, building us up, as He took the reproach due us upon Himself. The quote is from Ps. 69.
Rom. 15:4 “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
Paul quotes the scriptures both to solidify his point and to show that the Jews were useful, as they knew these scriptures better than the Gentile converts. These scriptures are for our instruction. It is not just the scriptures, however, that leads to hope, but endurance also. We have to keep going. We have to keep bearing with the weak. We have to keep pleasing others rather than self. It is the scriptures plus endurance that leads to hope. Notice that in the next verse he calls God the God of endurance.
Rom. 15:5-6 “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The double emphasis on endurance is interesting. Perhaps Paul is admitting to both sides that he understands that bearing with the other won’t always be easy. He prays that God will help them to live in harmony with one another. They are to get along. He describes the harmony that they should experience as being “in accord with Christ”. Clearly a reference to verse 3, Paul is saying they should be willing to bear reproach for each other, as Christ did for them. Their own pleasure is less important than harmony, as Christ’s pleasure was less important than their salvation. The end goal is that they be able to come together to together glorify God. A summation is offered in verse 7:
Rom. 15:7 “Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”
Welcome, greet, accept. We are to welcome each other. Notice how this verse essentially sums up the previous six. Vs. 1-2 are about bearing with each other and pleasing the other rather than self. That is welcoming each other. “As Christ has welcomed you” is a reference to verse 3, that Christ pleased others by bearing their reproach. “For the glory of God”, shows the end result mentioned in verse 6.
God is glorified when His people forget their differences and come together to worship Him.
In the next 5-6 verses, Paul reminds the Gentiles that Christ came to fulfill the promises given to the Jews and reminds the Jews (by quoting their own Scriptures to them) that He also came to give mercy to the Gentiles. Again and again, there should be no dissension.
One reason that there was discord was that the Jews and Gentiles worshipped a bit differently. This is covered somewhat in chapter 14. The Jews kept certain holidays and celebrated new moons, etc. all as a holdover from the old law. The Gentiles had no cultural reason, and no teaching from any authority, that they should do such things. One side thought the other weird and the other thought the first lax. Paul told them to get along, despite this. This is something we can learn from today:
Predominantly black churches of Christ tend to worship a bit differently from predominantly white churches of Christ. Their song services are maybe a bit more. . . soulful. Their preachers are a bit more animated. (In general. I’ve been to predominantly black churches in which, if I closed my eyes, I’d have guessed they were predominantly white.) There is nothing unscriptural about any of this. It might make me feel a bit uncomfortable for cultural reasons, but it shouldn’t for Christian reasons. If our church gets a large group of black Christians as visitors and we notice that the building is swaying a bit more than usual during the song service and the sermon generates more “Amen!”s than usual, should we get upset and ask our brethren to quiet down? Of course not! We are to “welcome one another”.
Despite racial differences, cultural differences, and even differences in the worship (as long as the basic scriptural pattern in being followed) we are to live in harmony with one another. We are to welcome one another as brethren in Christ. We are to accept one another.
God is glorified when His people forget their differences and come together to worship Him.
Lucas Ward
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