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RECONCILIATION AND PRACTICAL TEACHING133
Romans 12 and 13
A1
12:1,2. Love to God.
a Your bodies.
b Acceptable service.
a Your mind.
b Acceptable will.
B1 12:3-8. Relation to fellow believers. - `Gifts'.
c Grace given me.
d Measure of faith.
e Diverse operations and gifts.
c Grace given us.
d Analogy of faith.
e Seven different operations.
A2 12:9-21. Love to brethren and to enemies.
f Evil and good.
g Good.
g Evil.
f Evil and good.
B2 13:1-7. Relation to Government. - `Conscience'.
h Be subject to powers.
i Ordained of God.
h Render to all their dues.
A3 13:8-14. Love to neighbour.
j Positive. Love one another.
k Put off works of darkness.
l Put on armour of light.
k Six-fold works of darkness.
l Put on the Lord.
j
Negative. Lust of the flesh.
Our attention must be given a little more closely to the section occupying 14:1 to 15:7. The whole question here
discussed so patiently and calmly was more vehemently and dramatically dealt with at Antioch when the apostle
withstood Peter to the face concerning his withdrawal from the table of the Gentiles. This section is occupied with
the question of `Receiving'. To catch the spirit of the passage let us omit all detail and notice the opening and
closing verses:
`Him that is weak in the faith RECEIVE YE ... wherefore RECEIVE YE one another ... ' (14:1, 15:7).
Here the theme is evident. The next points raised are how not to receive, and how to receive:
`Not (negative) for contentions of reasonings ... but (positive) as Christ also received us to the glory of God'
(14:1, 15:7 Author's translation).
Dr. MacKnight's commentary on 14:1,2 is:
`The Jewish Christian, who is weak in the faith concerning meats and days, receive ye into your company, but
not in order to passionate disputations concerning his opinions. The Gentile Christian, indeed, believeth that he
may eat every kind of meat; but the Jewish Christian, who is weak in the faith, eats vegetables only in heathen
countries, because he cannot find meats which he thinketh clean'.
The two great difficulties that are here presented as possible grounds of contention, and of refusal to receive, are
the question of eating meats, and observing days. These things trouble the weak only, but though they thereby give
evidence that they have not fully entered into the liberty of the gospel, that must be no ground for refusing such the
fullest reception into the church. The apostle seeks to set aside the spirit that judgeth another man's servant, and