19. Our relationship to one another: love in the family of God
A number of commentators have noticed that Paul’s sequence of thought in Romans 12 resembles that in 1 Corinthians 12 – 13. ‘The logic is that of 1 Corinthians 12 – 13,’ writes J. A. T. Robinson: ‘from the fact of the body of Christ (vv. 4, 5 = 1 Cor. 12:12–27) to the diversity of ministry within it (vv. 6–8 = 1 Cor. 12:28–30) to the absolute and overriding requirement of love (vv. 9–21 = 1 Cor. 13).’
Without doubt agapē love now dominates the scene. So far in Romans all references to agapē have been to the love of God – demonstrated on the cross (5:8), poured into our hearts (5:5) and doggedly refusing to let us go (8:35, 39). But now Paul focuses on agapē as the essence of Christian discipleship. Romans 12 – 15 is a sustained instruction to let love govern and shape all our relationships. Soon Paul will write about love for our enemies (12:17–21), but first he portrays it permeating the Christian community (12:9–16). This is clear from his use of the words ‘one another’ (three times in verses 10 and 16), ‘devoted to one another in love’ (10, philadelphia) and ‘the Lord’s people’ (13). Some commentators can see in verses 9–16 only a jumble of miscellaneous instructions, a series of pithy commands with little or no connection with each other. But in fact each staccato imperative adds a fresh ingredient to the apostle’s recipe for love. It seems to have twelve components.
1. Sincerity: Love must be sincere (9a). The word ‘sincere’ translates anypokritos, ‘without hypocrisy’. The hypokritēs was the play-actor. But the church must not turn itself into a stage. For love is not theatre; it belongs to the real world. Indeed love and hypocrisy exclude one another. Yet there is such a thing as pretence-love, which was displayed in its vilest form in the betraying kiss of Judas.
2. Discernment: Hate what is evil; cling to what is good (9b). It may seem strange that the encouragement to love is followed immediately by a command to hate. But we should not be surprised. For love is not the blind sentiment it is traditionally said to be. On the contrary, it is discerning. It is so passionately devoted to the object being loved that it hates every evil which is incompatible with his or her highest welfare. In fact, both verbs are strong, almost vehement. Love’s ‘hatred’ of evil (apostygeō, unique here in the New Testament) expresses an aversion, an abhorrence, even a loathing, while love’s ‘clinging’ to what is good (kollaō) expresses a sticking or bonding as if with glue.
3. Affection: Be devoted to one another in love (10a). Paul brings together in this verse two family words. ‘Be devoted’ translates the adjective philostorgos, which describes our natural affection for relatives, ‘typically, love of parent for child’. The other word is philadelphia, ‘brotherly love’, which denotes the love of brothers and sisters for each other. Both words were applied originally to blood relationships in the human family, but Paul reapplies them to the tender, warm affection which should unite the members of the family of God.
4. Honour: Honour one another above yourselves (10b). This is the second ‘one another’ exhortation in the same verse. Love in the Christian family is to express itself in mutual honour as well as in mutual affection. We are to accord to each other the highest possible honour.
5. Enthusiasm: Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord (11). Religious ‘enthusiasm’ is often despised as fanatical. The word was applied in a derogatory way to the early Methodists in the eighteenth century, and R. A. Knox perpetuated the caricature in his historical study Enthusiasm. He portrayed ‘enthusiasts’ as perfectionists, given to exaggeration, who will tolerate ‘no weaker brethren who plod and stumble’. But Paul has something different in mind when he bids the Romans not to flag (literally, ‘be lazy’) in zeal, for zeal is fine so long as it is according to knowledge (10:2). In telling the Romans to be ‘aglow with the Spirit’ (rsv, reb), he is almost certainly referring to the Holy Spirit, and the picture is not so much of a glowing lamp as of a boiling, bubbling pot. The additional clause (serving the Lord) may well be meant as a ‘control or check in what might otherwise be interpreted as an invitation to unbridled enthusiasm’. Practical commitment to the Lord Jesus, as slave to master, will keep zeal rooted in reality.
6. Patience: Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer (12). At the heart of this triplet is the reference to hope, namely our confident Christian expectation of the Lord’s return and the glory to follow (cf. 5:2; 8:24f.). It is to us the source of lasting joy. But it also calls for patience, as meanwhile we endure hardship and persevere in prayer.
7. Generosity: Share with the Lord’s people who are in need (13a). The verb share is koinōneō, which can mean either to share in people’s needs and sufferings, or to share out our resources with them. Koinōnokos means ‘generous’. We are reminded of the koinōnia in the early Jerusalem church, whose chief expression was that its members ‘had everything in common’ (koina) in the sense that they shared their possessions with those more needy than themselves.
8. Hospitality: Practise hospitality (13b). If generosity is shown to the needy, hospitality is shown to visitors. Philadelphia (love of sisters and brothers) has to be balanced by philoxenia (love of strangers). Both are essential expressions of love. Hospitality was especially important in those days, since inns were few and far between, and those that existed were often unsafe or unsavoury places. It was essential, therefore, for Christian people to open their homes to travellers, and in particular for local church leaders to do so. In fact, Paul did not urge the Romans to ‘practise’ hospitality, but rather to ‘pursue’ it.
9. Good will: Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse (14). Although our persecutors are outside the Christian community, and this verse anticipates verses 17–21, yet the call to bless them is a necessary challenge to Christian love. ‘Blessing’ and ‘cursing’ are opposites, wishing people respectively good or ill, health or harm. Paul must have known that he was echoing the teaching of Jesus, who told us not only to ‘bless’ those who curse us, but also to ‘pray’ for them and to ‘do good’ to them. There is no better way to express our positive wishes for our enemies’ welfare than to turn them into prayer and into action.
10. Sympathy: Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn (15). Love never stands detached from other people’s joys or pains. Love identifies with them, sings with them and suffers with them. Love enters deeply into their experiences and their emotions, their laughter and their tears, and feels solidarity with them, whatever their mood.
11. Harmony: Live in harmony with one another (16a). The Greek sentence reads literally: ‘Think the same thing towards one another.’ That is, ‘be of the same mind’, and so ‘live in agreement with one another’ (reb). The phraseology is almost identical with Paul’s appeals to the Philippians to be ‘like-minded’ and ‘one in spirit and of one mind’. Once again we note the fundamental place occupied by our mind. Since Christians have a renewed mind (2), it should also be a common mind, sharing the same basic convictions and concerns. Without this common mind we cannot live or work together in harmony.
12. Humility: Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited (16b). Few kinds of pride are worse than snobbery. Snobs are obsessed with questions of status, with the stratification of society into ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ classes, or its division into distinctions of tribe and caste, and so with the company they keep. They forget that Jesus mixed freely and naturally with social rejects, and calls his followers to do the same with equal freedom and naturalness.
What a comprehensive picture of Christian love Paul gives us! Love is sincere, discerning, affectionate and respectful. It is both enthusiastic and patient, both generous and hospitable, both benevolent and sympathetic. It is marked by both harmony and humility. Christian churches would be happier communities if we all loved one another like that.