Paul Encourages Unity Among the "Weak" and the "Strong"

Thinking about Romans 15:5-6.

Photo by Mike Scheid on Unsplash

Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:5-6)

After reminding the “strong” to carry the burdens of the “weak” (Romans 15:1), and urging both groups to “please their neighbor” by following Christ’s example (Romans 15:2-4), Paul drives home the point he has been discussing since the beginning of Romans 14.

Be Like-Minded.

The Scriptures teach “endurance” and “comfort” (Romans 15:4) because it is the word (2 Timothy 3:16) of “the God of patience and comfort.”

Paul desired that God would “produce” like-mindedness in the Christians in Rome through His word.

This isn’t an appeal for intellectual agreement. It is a call to a disposition. It’s having the “mind of Christ”… It is amazing how Bible writers attribute everything to God that is worth anything. It is equally amazing how people act as though they accomplished everything themselves. - McGuiggan, Romans, 403

If the Christians in Rome were truly committed to learning from the Master Teacher as His students, then His word would produce His mindset in them. This mindset was “a mutual way of thinking about one another" (Pollard, Truth for Today Commentary, 530).

Both groups - the “weak” and the “strong” - were to have the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5-8) toward the other.

Glorify God the Father with One Mind and One Mouth.

The goal of being like-minded was to glorify God the Father - this was to be their “one accord;” their one aim or purpose. They were to unite their voices together in glorifying and praising the Father.

Any lack of harmony over opinions could be transcended only by the community’s focusing on magnifying the one true God. - Pollard, Truth for Today Commentary, 531

Unity in the body of Christ does not come from everyone sharing the same thinking on matters of opinion and scruple. Such is practically impossible - which is why the Lord preserved Romans 14 forever for His church to be guided by.

Paul’s point in this passage stresses unity in the churches of Christ (Romans 16:16) by glorifying “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

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This is an interesting - and challenging - paradox for the Christian.

On some matters, we must all “speak the same thing” and be “perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10). For example, in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul makes it very clear that those who were teaching there was no resurrection of the dead were “evil company” (1 Corinthians 15:33” who did “not have the knowledge of God” (1 Corinthians 15:34).

On other matters, like the matters of opinion and scruple in Romans 14, the Holy Spirit through Paul allows Christians to hold to their opinions in matters such as these, while urging Christians to maintain unity despite these differences in opinion.

Not every issue that arises in the church is a salvation issue.

Romans 14 and 15 - as well as passages in 1 Corinthians - remind us of this deeply important fact.