Saturday 8^th December

Romans 12:9-21

Paul continues his encouragement, in verse 13 and onwards, of putting the ‘sacrificial love’ into practice both in everyday basic needs but by also blessing your enemies. In verse 13, Paul highlights that offering practical brotherly love to the ‘saints’ (Christians) is not only living out Christ in our lives but serving others is also a way to serve God. In Paul’s time, the early church shared all they had and distributed their needs evenly (Acts 4:32-37). Many of the Apostles like Paul would often travel through dangerous towns and cities and would have to rely on the hospitality of the saints to both protect, feed and shelter them. This is true real love being put into practice.

But Paul takes this teaching beyond our comfort zones and challenges us in verse 14 to bless those who persecute us and not to curse them back. Paul again is echoing Jesus’ words in His sermon on the mount. Yet the importance of this message takes us beyond theological understanding but into true Christ-like living. It is so hard when someone wrongs you to then bless them and pray for them, yet if it was not possible then would Paul not have left it out of the standard of a Romans 12 Christian? The truth is that this is only achievable when the Holy Spirit is living in us and showing Christ through us, not in our fleshly weakness but in Christ’s strength. Again in Christ’s death on the cross, did He not practice what He preached in asking the Father to forgive His killers? It is because Christ was victorious in all things that we can overcome our struggles when we call on His help.

In verse 15 Paul encourages the believers to join in one flesh and one body. He teaches that we should rejoice when others rejoice but equally mourn with those who mourn. In daily living there are many situations were we could put this into practice. Sometimes we feel we should always have a word for someone or give them Godly advice but Paul dispels that ideology here by saying that we should show our love by practically getting alongside one another. When they are weak just be with them, when they are happy be happy with them. One act of genuine love is worth more than 10,000 words. That is not to say that we shouldn’t encourage each other, rather encouragement doesn’t always have to come in the form of words.

In Old Testament the thought that we could repay an ‘eye for an eye, or tooth for a tooth’ was often taken literally but both Paul in verse 17 and Jesus in Matthew 5:38-42 states that this should not be the case. This law or practice was intended to keep the peace between each other simply to stop revenge being taken into someone’s own hand. In truth there would be no end to this revenge, as someone would always have the upper hand. Yet here we are simply told that if love has no record of wrongdoing (1 Corinthians 13:5) then we must not think that it is our duty to repay wrongdoings with an equally cruel retribution. Love in it’s fullness is self-sacrificing even when we feel its our legalistic right to seek revenge.