Bible Commentaries
Romans 15

Verses 1-13

The Strong and the Weak. (14:1-15:13)

Paul now comes to something which is a problem always and everywhere: moral questions about which sincere Christians differ. Just because Christian life cannot be managed with a brass rule, just because a slogan like "Love is the answer" or "Christ is the answer" does not untangle all problems, the Christian often has to think his problems through—only to find that other equally sincere Christians have thought the same problems through and have come up with quite different answers. Then what?

Paul mentions two such problems. We can pass by the first, the question of whether or not to observe certain special religious days (was one of them the Sabbath?), as Paul says little about it and what little he says is clear. The other question was a very thorny one. We find him dealing with it in the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 8). It had to do with eating meat. For some Christians today that is a religious question, but it was a different kind of religious question in the Roman Empire. The fact is, in a Roman market you could hardly find a steak or a roast or any kind of meat that had not come from some animal slaughtered in a heathen temple. The animal would be killed as a sacrifice; then the priests (who, numerous though they were, could not possibly eat all the animals the people offered) would sell the meat through retail outlets. This being the major source of meats on the market, the Christian shopper was faced with a problem: in buying and eating this meat, am I or am I not helping out the heathen wor­ship? Is not my witness for Christ better shown by simply not eat­ing meat at all? Some Christians answered both questions "Yes," and so would not eat any meat. Others said that meat was meat—it was people who were heathen, not beefsteaks.

Paul assumes that both sides are right, from their own point of view (14:14). Then which viewpoint is right? Paul is personally sure that the more liberal point of view is the right one. Nothing is unclean (unfit for a Christian to eat) in itself. It is quite true that a steak is only a steak; there are no steaks infected with heresy! The "strong" man, the man with the broader view, might ask Paul: Am I right? Paul would say, Yes. The man might ask, What harm can come to me if I eat such meat? Paul would say, No harm whatever. Is it a sin? Not even a tiny one.

But Paul lifts the question clear out of the self-centered level of what I think, what’s good for me, and sets it on a different level altogether, the high level of love. What will your action do to this weaker man? Remember he is your brother. Suppose he follows your example, as he is very likely to do? Then he will be going against his conscience, and that will cause his "ruin" (vs. 15). If the "strong man" complains that this ties down his free­dom, Paul reminds him that Christ did more than give up freedom —Christ died for him.

The reader will find much more in this section, but this is the main point. (The word "faith" in 14:23 clearly has a different meaning from what it had in earlier chapters. Here it means con­viction or assurance.) The chain of quotations in chapter 15:1-13 and the prayers in that chapter are along this same line of raising a moral problem out of the rulebook and looking at it in the light of the divine love. No human problem has been seen right until it has been seen in the light of God. No human problem can be wisely approached and solved apart from applying the principle of love. There will always be differing opinions, but they should not mar the harmony Christians enjoy "with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus" (15:5).

Introduction

PERSONAL NOTES AND BENEDICTION

Romans 15:14 to Romans 16:27

Where Did Romans Originally End?

Ancient Greek handwritten copies of this letter, still in exis­tence, do not agree about the arrangement of the doxology now found at the very end. That is, of course, the best place for it; but the majority of old copies have it at the end of chapter 14. One has it after 15, some have it twice—once after 14, once after 16—and a few leave it out entirely. Add to this the fact that the earliest "table of contents" we have (in Latin) of Paul’s letters, omits chapters 15 and 16 entirely. All this has led most scholars to agree that this Letter to the Romans circulated in two or three editions, as we would say; one ended with chapter 14, one with 16, and (perhaps) one with 15. Without going into the discus­sion, it seems likely that Paul wrote the letter as we have it, and that someone (perhaps Paul himself?) who wanted to circulate the letter among other churches, cut off these last two chapters because they were personal to the Romans.

We have mentioned this not because it is very important in itself either way, but to illustrate a kind of problem which has no absolutely certain answer and yet does not affect anything funda­mental. There are many variations in the thousands of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, and it is seldom possible to say with one hundred per cent certainty, for half a page together, what the original copy contained. And yet in all these variant readings, as they are technically called, there are no differences so great as to affect a single Christian doctrine in a serious way.

Verses 14-33

Hopes, Prayers, and Realities (15:14-33)

Paul has hardly been personal since chapter 1, but now the man himself speaks some final words about himself, his plans, and the Roman Christians. Again we reach a section which mostly speaks for itself, without needing a commentary. Paul emphasizes his place as "minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles" as if the Roman church were all Gentile. He speaks of his ambition to be a mis­sionary in the pioneering sense, preaching to people who never heard so much as the name of Christ. His plan for his next months and years sounded far more daring—and was—than a similar travel plan would sound today. Remember he was in Corinth when he wrote. His next main destination was Jerusalem, then Rome, then Spain. Jerusalem and Rome of course were not virgin territory for Christianity or for Paul. But he had special reasons for visiting each: Jerusalem first, because for some time Paul had been gathering an offering of money from the churches of Asia, to send to the now poor and hungry Christians in the mother-city of Judea. It was typical of Paul to wish to go to Jerusalem per­sonally with this gift. We read more about it in Second Corin­thians. The point here is that Paul was so intent on taking this gift personally that he entirely overlooked the grave danger of such a trip. It was as much as his life was worth to go to Jerusa­lem; his enemies there were more numerous, more bitter than any­where else.

Then he was going to Rome, not to "evangelize" the city—others were doing that—but to be "refreshed in your company" (15:32). Perhaps he was intending to make Rome the base of his future operations. Paul was not a rich man. To travel and work as far away as Spain would cost money, and Paul had no mission­ary society to supply what he needed. He may have hoped that Roman Christians would be that society, at least for his work. He had made it plain enough in this letter that the whole Church should be missionary. A church that is not missionary-minded is hardly a true church. But particular projects need particular sponsors, and Paul evidently was "cultivating" the interest of Ro­man Christians in the far horizons. Spain, though about as far away as a man could travel in the Roman Empire, was still a vig­orous part of the Empire. Some of the most distinguished persons in Roman life at that time were from Spain.

Jerusalem—Rome--Spain. As travel was then, it was like say­ing, "Moscow—Johannesburg—Spitzbergen." Only a wide-hori­zoned man, and a brave one, could have had such a hope.