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Romans 12:14-16 meaning

Living harmoniously by faith in God looks like blessing our enemies. It looks like sympathizing with other people, in good times and bad times. It looks like unity, not elevating ourselves. Living only for ourselves is contrary to God’s design for our lives, we were made to live in harmony with others.

Paul is not prescribing a new law or to-do list to lead to righteousness. He’s describing what living by faith looks like. When we walk in the newness of life through the resurrection power of Jesus, our character changes. Our sin nature tells us to look out for ourselves, to take from others. When someone attacks us, our natural instinct is to engage in conflict to defend ourselves and attack them back. Here Paul is saying to bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Don’t wish harm on them. Living by faith looks like blessing our enemies.

How do we bless enemies? It depends. That can look like confronting our enemy with truth, as Paul has done in this letter. But although Paul confronts his detractors with truth, his motive is to protect the Roman believers as well as goad his enemies to repentance, to their great benefit. It is clear from Paul’s letters that he would have greatly rejoiced had his enemies reconciled with him; he had their best interest at heart as he was chiding them. It is our job to do our part to seek resolution, but not at the expense of the truth.

Loving our enemies may also look like turning the other cheek. We should always contend for the truth and for the benefit of others, but as a general principle not defend ourselves. In his letter to the Romans, Paul defends his ministry, and his authority, and the gospel. He does not really defend himself. We should look to ourselves to see that we are blameless. When attacked, if we follow our sinful nature we are led back into fighting and death, but to live as God designed us looks like living righteously (correctly, in harmony with God’s will), and this can be accomplished by blessing our enemies and trusting God’s sovereignty. Our job is to pursue peace with one another, to the extent it depends upon us.

Rejoice with those who rejoice. If they’re celebrating, we should celebrate too. But if someone is in mourning, we should sympathize and share in their sorrow, weep with those who weep. With either emotion, we are sharing; in the case of joy, we elevate the person’s joy by reciprocating it, and in the case of weeping, we alleviate sorrow when we share the burden of grief in another. The point here is to meet people where they are. We shouldn’t insist they meet us where we are, we should be of the same mind toward one another..

Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly: There should be no social hierarchy in the church; social status only matters to men, not God. He is a God who made kings out of shepherds and brought emperors to their knees. Paul’s consistent warning is against haughtiness, arrogance, pride. He just finished discouraging Gentile believers from feeling haughty since God showed mercy on them and allowed the Jews to fall away (Romans 11:18-24). Do not be wise in your own estimation, arrogance is contrary to faith; if we lie to ourselves to think we are better than we are, then we are listening to ourselves in preference to God. We are creating a false reality. It’s a lie our sin nature tells us and it always leads back into sinful living and death (Romans 6:20, 21).

Throughout his letter to the Romans, Paul encourages a life of faith and humility, because through faith we can live as God designed us, by humbly trusting in Him.

Biblical Text

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.

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Additional Resources

Book Theme

The Apostle Paul writes to the world-renowned believers in Rome, the center of the world at that time, in order to answer a slanderous charge made to them against Paul and his message. Paul’s detractors claim his emphasis on faith overturns the law. Paul says that ” just living by the law” does not achieve personal justice before God, while “just living by faith” does. Paul then demonstrates what a just life looks like: harmonious living with Jesus as the leader. Paul also makes clear the choice a believer has: to walk in faith and the power of the resurrection and experience resurrection life, or walk in sin and unnecessarily experience the negative consequences.

Chapter Context

In Chapter 12, Paul shows that a life of righteousness or justice (living in harmony with God’s design) looks like a life that has been transformed spiritually. It looks like team harmony, like a human body, where every body part is doing what it does best as directed by the head (and a believer’s Head is Jesus.) In order to function like a body, it requires an active decision to love and honor others, while honoring Jesus as the One in charge. As the One in charge, it’s Jesus’ job to judge the world (not ours.)

Paul turns from defending against the slanderous attacks of competing Jewish “authorities” and begins an admonition to the world famous believers in Rome (1:8) concerning their pursuit of righteousness. Paul has comprehensively demonstrated that righteousness, which is harmony with God’s design, comes only through walking by faith in the resurrection power of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. He has also proven that his gospel message is “good news” about three deliverances: 1) being delivered from the penalty of sin, irrevocably placing us into the family of God when we first believe 2) being delivered from the presence of sin when we are taken to heaven to be with Jesus, and 3) being delivered from the power of sin in our daily walk, when we choose to walk by faith in the power of the indwelling Spirit.

Since most of our lives are spent between the time we first believed and the time we leave this earth, Paul has and will continue to emphasize the practical impact of the gospel on how we live daily. Paul has made it crystal clear why we ought to choose to walk in faith by the Spirit and enjoy the newness of life in the resurrection power of Jesus, rather than going back into the death and slavery of sin by following our sin nature. We want to walk in obedience because of the immense positive consequence from walking by faith (believing God’s way is true and best), versus the terrible consequences we get when we walk in sin (believing we know best). Paul has also clearly shown us how to walk in the resurrection power of Jesus, through the exercise of a heart of faith. Now Paul will give us some tangible illustrations of what righteousness looks like in everyday life.

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