Respect, Love, Clothe

Paul Resolves the Touchy Issues Between Jews and Gentiles (12:1-15:13)

Paul's aim in this letter is to bring the Gentile and Jewish cultures together in harmony in Christ and the Church. He began the subject of transformation in chapter 12. At the heart of Christian transformation is not a list of character qualities to follow, but a virtue birthed in and lived out from the heart. This virtue is based on death to self—on submitting oneself to Christ in a self-emptying way. Paul continues to describe what this kind of transformed life looks like in action.

Respecting Authority (1-7)

Paul goes into detail about how both the Jews and the Gentiles were to respect government authority:

• They were to die to self by placing themselves under governmental hierarchy and to recognize them as God's servants, thus treating the government with respect. They were to recognize governmental authority as God-given (1).

• They were to consider the resisting of government authority as resisting God Himself (2).  

• They were to recognize God had established government as God's servants, whom He uses to eventually avenge and carry out His wrath on wrong. The Roman church was to do good, live within the laws of government, and expect to receive the government's approval (3-4).

• They were to submit to God, not only to avoid God's wrath but also to keep their conscience fit (5).

• They were not to complain about the taxes but to view them as offerings given for the government officials God had instituted. Paul wanted the church to be known for the respect and honor they had for the government (6-7).  

Paul said this was the light of the power of government, to get things wrong and oppress the wrong people from time to time. For Paul it didn't matter; he still viewed the government as what God would use to control and limit lawless and reckless people.  

Love Others (8-10)

In this chapter, Paul brings together three dimensions essential to a victorious, unified life between Jew and Gentile: honor authority (1-7), love others (8-10), and clothe with righteousness (11-14).

Love was the only debt they were to incur—the debt to love others in return for whatever others would do, good or bad. To love was the fulfillment of all of God's commands (8). Paul then wraps up the entire commandment list of God into “Love your neighbor.” In this statement, Paul is alluding to an old Hebrew thought: to love your neighbor is to love God (9). Paul then states it plainly that to love God and to fulfill God's law of love, no one should do wrong to the person next to him or her (10).   

Clothe with Righteousness (11-14)

In Paul's view of life, the new day of God's Kingdom had dawned with the risen Christ, and because it had dawned, the job of every follower of Christ was to awaken out of the sleep of the old world, for complete salvation was growing nearer and nearer (11).

From Paul's perspective, the new Kingdom was so present and powerful that the night of the old world was fading fast. In light of this, Paul wanted the Roman church to clothe themselves with the righteousness of that coming Kingdom, which Paul referred to as the armor of light (12). Paul knew the righteousness of the new Kingdom would one day envelop the whole world, so he insisted the old world “nightlife” should be avoided, such as ritual orgies, sex outside of marriage, living for feeling good, conflict, and coveting what others possessed (13). Paul was clear-minded and called for Christ to be “put on” as the Roman church gave their bodies to Christ and renewed the way they were thinking (12:1-2). By putting Jesus “on” in this way (dedicating their bodies to Christ and renewing their minds), they would not make any provision in their lives to gratify their desires (14). Living for a greater cause than satisfying desires was to be the foundation of the new world.