May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with each other… that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 15:5 ESV
Do you know the kind of Bible verse that the eye could easily just skate over, but which, when you think about it is remarkable?
I found just such a verse this past week during a Bible study with some other ministers. God is described as the God of endurance and encouragement.
What does that mean?
The context here, in Paul’s letter to the Romans, is a situation in which some Christians in the church at Rome back in the first century were parading their freedom in Christ in such a way as to make believers who hadn’t yet grasped all those freedoms feel inadequate.
The ‘freedom fighters’ wanted their more scrupulous brothers and sisters not to get het up about Sabbath and Old Testament food laws. But to push this to those whose background before coming to faith had included such restrictions was in danger of making them violate their consciences. This was having an inevitably destructive effect on their faith.
That, Paul argues, is the very opposite of God’s attitude towards his people. For He is the God of endurance and encouragement. His fundamental attitude towards his people is to want them to persevere in their faith. Indeed, he has provided his scriptures to help us to do so: as Paul says in the previous verse the Bible is there to encourage us, so that we might have hope.
If this is his attitude towards us, it should be our attitude towards each other.
Paul knew that the members of the church he was writing to were wobblier than they might admit. A point-scoring attitude or splits in the church would be very discouraging for people’s walk with Christ. So it is that by pointing them to the fact that God’s basic attitude towards us is of encouragement towards endurance, this should be our attitude towards one another.
I am so thankful for unity in our church, and for all those who have made encouragement of one another a personal priority. Long may this continue: every Sunday is an opportunity for this.
