Love In Action
LOVE IN ACTION
ROMANS 12:14-17
As Christians, we are not to retaliate.
The curse referred to in verse 14 is the formal threat of divine vengeance, an Eastern practice. Psalm 137, for example, envisages a harassed group, meeting, as Jews did when in exile, by the river (Acts 16:13), and menaced by a hostile Babylonian crowd. The small threatened group may have saved their lives by the act of calling on their foes the evil their foes had inflicted on them. The psalm is a cameo drama, and is not to be judged out of context. The precept forbids the Christian such forms of self-defense.
12:15. To laugh with those who are happy is easy. To weep in true fellowship with the distressed puts a stronger strain upon love and sincerity (John 11:35f.). Pity is best taught by fellowship in trouble, and pity is a Christlike virtue. And nothing but Christ’s pity suffices for the tragedy of those who are self-tormented.
12:16. The Christlike sympathy of the last verse calls for understanding, and understanding is never found in the self-centered, because it grows from the habit of considering another’s point of view. Paul is asking for the likemindedness he commended to the Philippians (2:2; 4:2). Selfish personal ambition wrecks such fellowship. Therefore, the second command. There must, of course, be leadership, and Paul set some in charge of the churches he founded. Nor were they to be denied respect and deference. But that is not to promote the active quest for dignity and office in those not called to it. True eminence, however, is not self-conscious. It moves easily among all ranks. The New Testament condemns conceit uncompromisingly. Conceit is the child of pride, and pride is a fundamental sin.
12:17. “Repay no one evil for evil. Practice good before all.” The commands follow naturally. Paul suggests by the verb he uses that the return blow might well have been deserved. But a policy of “tit for tat” is not Christian. Moreover, there is no time or occasion for such petty vengefulness if the preoccupation of life is the active doing of good.