Bible Study | May 24, 2024

Hope amid differences

Hands pulling a rope
Photo by Sajak Baidhya on pixabay.com

Romans 15:1-13

One of my favorite songs is “Crowded Table,” by The Highwomen. The song imagines a home that has an expansive table where all sorts of people are brought together in love. Though the song isn’t explicitly Christian, knowing the faith of at least one of the singers I am sure the connection to the kingdom of God banquet metaphor is not accidental. One of the key themes of this song is that the crowded table is a place where everyone belongs, no matter how broken. It paints a beautiful image of a house full of people, finding community through love.

The Church of the Brethren tagline is “Continuing the work of Jesus. Peacefully. Simply. Together.” A central component of Brethren identity is the idea that we can only do faith together. In his book Another Way of Believing: A Brethren Theology, Dale Brown describes how the Brethren have historically placed a high value on the doctrine of the church, insisting that the community that gathers together as the church is “essential to salvation.” In other words, when we are called by Christ, we are not called as “isolated disciples,” but as “God’s people.” It is only together, even if just two or three people, that Brethren anticipate the presence of Jesus and the movement of the Spirit (p. 33).

For Paul, the togetherness of the church is not only the calling, but also the fruit of the calling. It is both the evidence of our faith in God and the foretaste of the hoped-for unity we are promised. For this reason, unity in the church is of vital importance and something that must be protected and pursued. To do this, Paul identifies two issues that threaten unity in the church—power and divergent views.

Strong versus weak

We often associate strength with physical ability. As a runner, I work hard to build up my strength and endurance so that, over time, I can run longer and faster. However, this is not the strength that Paul means in Romans 15:1.

Our English translations are misleading, making us prioritize the faith of the “strong” against the faith of the “weak.” The NRSVue says that those “who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak.” However, the words strong, weak, and failings in the original Greek have more to do with power and ability than physical or moral strength. In addition, the phrase “put up with” is the Greek verb bastazo, which means to bear or carry. The same word is used in Luke 14:27 when Jesus says that “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

The Common English Bible captures the original Greek best with this translation: “We who are powerful need to be patient with the weakness of those who don’t have power.” What Paul really wants to impress upon the Romans is how to deal with power differentials in the church. He wants the powerful to recognize that with great power comes great responsibility. He reminds the powerful that when compared to Christ, they are all powerless, and yet Christ was willing to carry them. With Christ as their example, the powerful in the church must also be willing to carry the powerless.

Paul echoes the words of Jesus, who levels the playing field between the greatest and the least (Luke 22:25-27). Powerful and powerless are irrelevant labels. All are to serve, welcome, and live in harmony with one another. Harmonious churches are particularly important to Paul because he knows that churches can do nothing of worth to God’s kingdom if they are at odds with one another. Not only are they, practically speaking, too busy to do the work of God if they spend all their time infighting, but they also declare something untrue about God. The church is the body of Christ, and if the church is divided, then it declares that God is not one, but divided. Harmonious churches are likely both more effective and more faithful communities.

Divergent views

Biblical scholar James Edwards outlines the themes of Paul’s letter to the Romans, placing this section of the letter among Paul’s teachings about the importance of being “gracious with other believers who differ on matters not essential to salvation.” Included in this section are concerns about when and how to abide by food purity laws, which day sabbath should be remembered, and whether followers of Jesus should participate in Jewish festivals. For Paul, these concerns are not of ultimate importance and thus have the tendency to distract the church from what is truly important.

When there is disagreement in the church of this kind, Paul provides two important insights: 1) do not judge the other for doing what they believe is right, and 2) do what needs to be done to pursue peace in the church. For Paul, it is important that faith be lived, so if someone believes that certain foods shouldn’t be eaten for theological reasons, it would be a sin if that person continued to eat them. Paul even goes so far as to say that there may be times when the church goes along with the belief of individuals in the church so as to not provide a stumbling block to faith.

For the contemporary church, it is likely not an issue of what to eat. The best example I have of this is how one Brethren pastor explained the choice to abstain from alcohol. He personally did not have issue with the consumption of alcohol; in fact, he recognized that alcohol is regularly consumed, without judgment, in scripture. However, he had walked alongside several alcoholics in his ministry and had decided that alcohol was a severe stumbling block for those individuals. Thus, for him to be able to commune with and minister to those individuals, he would need to abstain.

Such a desire for a church to avoid stumbling blocks for individuals in their midst may mean that individual congregations make differing choices on how they live out their faith. Paul’s appeal to avoid judgment thus extends beyond disagreements within a church, to other churches who disagree with our church on matters that are not essential to salvation. I wonder what disagreements we struggle with today as churches that we unnecessarily elevate to concerns “essential to salvation” when they are not, and thus “destroy the work of God” (Romans 14:20). In Romans 15, Paul argues that, for the sake of unity and building up of the body of Christ, we should err on the side of inclusion, welcome, and humility.

Foretaste

Christians are sometimes guilty of “pie in the sky” theology that saves realized hope for heaven when, in reality, faith is a way of living into hope that takes root and bears fruit even now. You don’t start reading a book and then skip over everything to get to the ending. The ending is only meaningful when you’ve allowed yourself to be invested in the middle. Similarly, we find meaning in the way hope begins to bear fruit in our faith in Jesus, today.

The church can be a foretaste of the kingdom of God when it is able to “live in harmony” with one another and with Christ. The purpose of such harmonious living is “so that [they] may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:6). In Revelation, the new heaven and new earth is made up of people from all nations who bask in the light of the Lamb (21:23-24) and who worship God and the Lamb together, forever (22:3-5).

Our unity allows us to receive now what we have been promised. We can prioritize mutual upbuilding, we can strengthen our churches so that they can worship God and the Lamb together, with one voice, even now. As the hymn “Blessed Assurance” describes, “Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!”

Audrey Hollenberg-Duffey and her husband, Tim, are co-pastors of Oakton Church of the Brethren in Vienna, Va. She is also coordinator of English-language ministry training programs with the Brethren Academy for Ministerial Leadership. This study is from A Guide for Biblical Studies, published by Brethren Press.