Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 15-16.

Today’s passage begins with Paul’s conclusion to what he wrote in chapter fourteen.  Those who are strong in faith ought to bear with the failings of the weak in order to please the weak and thus build them up.  As we do so we should seek to imitate the way in which Christ did so.  I always struggle with explaining my understanding of this, but there is a story about my father from my childhood which sums it up.  I grew up in the Mennonite Church.  When I was very little, the Mennonite Church taught that men should wear a “plain coat” rather than a more standard suit.  While I was still little it moved away from that teaching, but many men continued to wear a plain suit.  My father was one of the last in our part of the Mennonite Church to stop doing so.  When asked by one of my siblings why he still wore it, he explained to us that as long as there were men in the local church (and for him that was somewhat broader than just our congregation) who felt that it would be a sin to not wear the plain suit, he would continue to wear it so as to not encourage them to do that which they thought was wrong.

Now, I have written the above and one could easily see it as obligating us to keep silent when others teach objectionable things.  However, in Paul’s conclusion to his letter, he tells us that we should keep way from those who cause divisions and teach things contrary to the teaching we have learned.  Paul writes that the people he is warning us against use smooth talk and flattery in order to deceive naive people.  Throughout my life I have seen those who take advantage of Paul’s teaching about maintaining unity in the Church in order to undermine his teachings about human sexuality and holding our fellow believers accountable.  And not just Paul’s teaching, but Christ’s (as recounted in the Gospels) and other New Testament writers.  So, combining the two, we should not seek to convince people to do that which they think is a sin, and we should keep away from those who seek to convince us to do that which we believe it is a sin for us to do.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.