Romans 15:3

The church in Rome was made up of Jewish and Gentile believers, and each brought its own customs and sensitivities into the one fellowship. Many Jewish believers still valued the food laws of Moses and the Sabbath and feast days, and Gentile believers, who had never kept them, sometimes looked on them as needless. This caused friction, and Paul wrote the letter, from Corinth around A.D. 57–58, partly to settle it, to give the whole church a common foundation of teaching, and to prepare for his visit and his mission to Spain. His teaching on the strong and the weak fills Romans 14 and runs on through Romans 15:1–13.

The strong are the believers who understood that Christ had set them free in these matters: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free” (Galatians 5:1). The weak are believers whose consciences still felt bound by such rules, perhaps because of their former Jewish practice, perhaps because their faith was new. Paul counts himself among the strong. “We then” is the emphatic hēmeîs, “we”, with dé, a small connective that the KJV gives as “then” and that ties this verse to all of chapter 14. The word for strong, dynatós, means strong, mighty or able, and the weak are the adýnatos, the same word with a prefix that makes it mean unable.

Their “infirmities”, asthénēma, are scruples of conscience. They concern matters God has left to each believer’s freedom, sometimes called adiaphora, and they mark the places where a believer’s faith is still unsure of that freedom. Paul treats them as a weight for stronger believers to help carry.

The same thing happens in any church where one believer enjoys a food, a holiday, or a kind of music or film with a clear conscience, while another, because of his past or his convictions, finds it a stumbling block. The first is the strong believer this verse speaks to.

“Ought”, opheílō, names a moral obligation, a duty the strong owe. To bear, bastázō, is to lift or carry, and the word is also used for enduring, sustaining and receiving. The strong take the scruples of the weak on themselves as a load to carry, and they make room for them even when it costs them some convenience or a right they could lawfully use. Chapter 14 told them to stop judging their brothers, and this verse moves on to active help.

“And not to please ourselves” names the motive that has to go. Freedom in Christ is given so that we can build others up, and Paul says so in other letters too. He warns, “But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak” (1 Corinthians 8:9), and he says that if eating meat made his brother offend, he would go without meat as long as the world stands (1 Corinthians 8:13). All things may be lawful, he says, and each believer is still to seek the good of the other (1 Corinthians 10:23–24). To the Galatians he writes, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2), and to the Philippians, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others” (Philippians 2:3–4).

So spiritual strength shows itself in self-giving service, above all to believers who are vulnerable or struggling in their faith. Christ is the supreme example of it, as verse 3 goes on to say. He had all power and wisdom, and he took on our human weakness and bore our sin.

“Let every one of us” widens the charge from the strong to every believer. To please, aréskō, means to be agreeable to someone, or to seek to be. Our plēsíon, neighbour, is the one close by, and here that is the fellow believer in the same church. The command applies the second great commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:39), to the life of the church.

Two phrases set the measure of this pleasing. “For his good” makes the neighbour’s true welfare the aim, and especially his spiritual welfare. “To edification” names the result. The word oikodomḗ is a building, or the work of building, and Paul uses it for building up believers in faith, character and maturity, and for strengthening the church as one body. “Let all things be done unto edifying,” he tells the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 14:26), and he applies it to speech as well: “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers” (Ephesians 4:29). The aim of our life together is that each believer is built up and the whole church grows strong.

“For even Christ” gives the reason for everything before it. Christós means the Anointed, the Messiah, the Deliverer God appointed and promised. Verses 2 and 3 use the same verb, aréskō: we are to please our neighbour, and Christ “pleased not himself”. His whole life was given to the Father’s will and the salvation of his people, as he said: “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38). “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). Though he was infinitely glorious, he emptied himself, took on human form and shared our frailty (Philippians 2:5–8). Peter says that Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, and that “when he was reviled, reviled not again” (1 Peter 2:21–23).

Paul proves his point from Scripture with “as it is written”, quoting Psalm 69:9: “The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me.” In the psalm a righteous man speaks to God. He is zealous for God’s house, and he suffers for it. “Thee” is God, and “me” is the one who suffers. Paul hears Christ in these words, so that the insults people aimed at God came down on Jesus. The word for reproaches, oneidismós, means insult, scorn and public disgrace, and the verb for “fell”, epipíptō, means to fall upon someone or to seize him. The scorn of a world hostile to God pressed upon Christ, and he bore it.

At the cross this reached its full depth. God “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21), and Christ “offered himself without spot to God” (Hebrews 9:14). His resurrection declared him to be the Son of God with power (Romans 1:4). So the Christ who lived for others is our example and also the ground of our salvation, and his willingness to suffer for us is what enables his people to live the same way.

“Whatsoever things were written aforetime” takes in the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures, from Genesis to Malachi. The verb prográphō means to write beforehand. Those things were set down long ago, and Paul says they were written “for our learning”, which in Greek is eis (for, marking purpose), hēméteros (our) and didaskalía, teaching or instruction. So the Old Testament was written for us as well as for its first readers, to teach us God’s character, his dealings with people, the nature of sin, the way of righteousness and the unfolding of his plan to save. Paul says the same of Israel’s history: “Now these things were our examples” (1 Corinthians 10:6). He tells Timothy, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). The psalmist says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).

What the Scriptures produce in us is patience and comfort. Patience, hypomonḗ, is steadfast endurance and perseverance under trial, and it comes from a verb meaning to remain under. Comfort, paráklēsis, is encouragement, consolation and exhortation, and it comes from a verb meaning to call someone alongside. Both come “through”, diá, the scriptures, graphḗ, a word that in the plural means the sacred writings as a whole. “That”, hína, gives the purpose: “that we... might have hope”. Hope, elpís, is expectation, a looking forward with confidence. Paul ties patience and hope together elsewhere: “tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope” (Romans 5:3–4), and “if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” (Romans 8:24–25).

This hope looks forward to the full working out of God’s plan, with the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead and his eternal kingdom. It rests on God’s character and his promises, and the Old Testament shows him keeping them through all its history. “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast” (Hebrews 6:19).

All of this points to Christ, who came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets: “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (Matthew 5:17). He is the great example of patience, who “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2–3). He sent the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, who teaches us all things and brings his words to our remembrance (John 14:26). And “all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Verse 5 turns to prayer. Paul names God by two of his qualities, and they are the same two words as in verse 4, hypomonḗ and paráklēsis, though the KJV renders the second “consolation” here. The patience and comfort that reach us through the Scriptures come first from God himself. He is enduring in his faithfulness and long-suffering toward people, and he draws near to his people to strengthen and console them. Paul calls him “the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort”, who comforts us in our trouble so that we can comfort others (2 Corinthians 1:3–4).

“Grant”, dídōmi, means to give. Paul asks God to give his readers this unity, so the life together that the church needs is God’s to give, and Paul prays for it after teaching it. God gives it through his Spirit, whose fruit includes “longsuffering” and “peace” (Galatians 5:22–23), and through his word, as verse 4 has just said. Christ promised the Spirit as “another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16).

“To be likeminded” translates phronéō, to think, to be minded, to be disposed in a certain way. It means a shared disposition and purpose, the same attitude “one toward another”, and in Rome that meant between the strong and the weak. “According to Christ Jesus” gives the pattern, which is unity shaped by his humility, his self-giving love and his obedience to God’s will (Philippians 2:5–8). Paul makes the same appeal to the Philippians (Philippians 2:1–2), and to the Ephesians, “endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1–3). Christ himself prayed for his followers, “That they all may be one” (John 17:21), and the church grows up into him as its head (Ephesians 4:15–16).

Verse 6 gives the purpose of the prayer, introduced by “That”, hína. “With one mind” translates homothymadón, which means with one accord, by common consent. The book of Acts uses it of the first believers in Jerusalem, “continuing daily with one accord in the temple” (Acts 2:46). “One mouth” is heîs, one, with stóma, the mouth and, by extension, what the mouth speaks. One mind is the agreement within, and one mouth is the single voice of praise and confession that comes from it.

To glorify, doxázō, is to honour God and declare him glorious, acknowledging the majesty and worth that are already his. Unity serves that end. Paul gives the same aim for eating and drinking, the very matters the Romans disagreed about: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

God is named “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Here theós is God, patḗr is Father, kýrios is Lord, and Iēsoûs and Christós are Jesus and Christ. The phrase shows the bond between the Father and the Son, and that worship goes to the Father through Christ. Through Christ, Jew and Gentile come to the Father together: “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us” (Ephesians 2:14–16), and “through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:18). So the one voice of this verse is Jewish and Gentile believers praising the one Father together.

Paul draws the next step from it at once: “Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God” (Romans 15:7).

These six verses give the church both its pattern and its supply. The pattern is Christ, who had every right to please himself and bore the reproaches aimed at God for our sake. The supply is God himself, the God of patience and consolation, who gives through his Scriptures the endurance, comfort and hope that life together needs, and who grants the unity his people pray for.

Strength in faith is given to be spent on others. A believer who knows his freedom in Christ has something to carry for a weaker brother, and the pleasing that counts is the kind that builds that brother up. Jesus said that this love marks his people: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34–35).

The end of it all is praise. When believers of different backgrounds and consciences bear with one another, their one voice glorifies the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and their life together is the light Jesus spoke of, by which others “may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).