Romans 15
Bear with one another as Christ bore with you; Gentiles glorify God for his mercy; and Paul finally reveals his plan: Jerusalem, Rome, Spain.
Summary
Romans 15 opens as the conclusion of the strong-and-weak section. The strong — those whose conscience is clear — are instructed not to please themselves but to bear with the failings of the weak and build up their neighbor. The model is Christ, who did not please himself; Paul cites Psalm 69 as a prophetic description of Christ bearing reproach for God. The whole purpose of scripture, he says, is instruction — so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. The prayer that follows is one of Paul's most quoted: may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
The chapter then moves into Paul's own account of his mission and his plans. Christ has become a servant to the circumcised to confirm the patriarchal promises, and so that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy — four Hebrew Bible quotations follow in support, each predicting Gentile praise. Paul describes his priestly role as minister of Christ to the Gentiles, offering up the Gentiles as an acceptable sacrifice, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. He has completed the preaching of the gospel from Jerusalem around to Illyricum — a vast arc across the eastern Mediterranean — and it has always been his ambition to preach where Christ has not yet been named. Now he plans to travel west: to visit Rome on the way, and then to Spain. First he must go to Jerusalem with the collection. He asks the Roman community to pray that he will be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea and that his service will be acceptable to the saints — and that he may come to them in joy, by the will of God, and be refreshed in their company.
- Romans 1Chapter 1 is the opening of a long letter to a community Paul did not found and has not yet visited.
- Romans 2Chapter 2 is the turn in Paul's argument.
- Romans 3Chapter 3 is the hinge of the letter's first movement.
- Romans 4Chapter 4 is Paul's exegetical demonstration of justification by faith, built entirely from the figure of Abraham.
- Romans 5Chapter 5 opens the second major movement of the letter (chapters 5-8), which draws out the consequences of the justification argued in chapters 1-4.
- Romans 6Chapter 6 opens with Paul's most pointed rhetorical question: Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? The question follows logically from the last verse of chapter 5, where he said grace abounds where sin increases, and it is the objection he expects.
- Romans 7Chapter 7 addresses the role of the law in the new life.
- Romans 8Chapter 8 is the climax Paul has been building toward since chapter 1.
- Romans 9Chapter 9 opens the three-chapter meditation on Israel — the hardest sustained argument in the letter.
- Romans 10Chapter 10 continues the argument of chapter 9 but shifts from divine sovereignty to human responsibility.
- Romans 11Chapter 11 brings the three-chapter meditation on Israel to its resolution.
- Romans 12Chapter 12 opens the practical movement of the letter with the word therefore, gathering everything from chapters 1-11 into a single imperative.
- Romans 13Chapter 13 contains the verses that have generated more controversy in the history of Romans' reception than any other passage in the letter.
- Romans 14Chapter 14 addresses a concrete dispute in the Roman church.
- Romans 15Chapter 15 continues directly from chapter 14.
- Romans 16Chapter 16 is the longest closing greeting in any of Paul's letters.