Building
Community 2
Romans
16:1-20
Which of the following pictures of the church would Paul recognise: a large group of people all in pews facing the front listening to a sermon or a small family group round a meal table eating and chatting? Probably the latter.
Paul’s letters are full of the language of family. He particularly refers to his fellow Christians as brothers and sisters. This was unusual in the society of his day where the boundaries between family and non-family were very strictly drawn and where family honour meant that your relationship with neighbouring families were often very competitive rather than co-operative (we see a bit of this in Paul’s reference to Corinthians suing one another in the courts in 1 Corinthians 6).
We live in a culture that is crying out for relationships,
for family, and yet hasn’t the first idea where to look. The
Can I rely on you
When all the songs are through
To be for me the everthere
The idea of someone who is ‘everthere’, someone who will
support, advise, laugh and cry with me is essential for my well-being as a
human being. Paul says we find this in the church because church is family, a
community of brothers and sisters.
1) Members of one family
We have the same father, we are united to one another by Jesus’
blood through the Holy Spirit – we are one family – as Paul stresses in his
amazing bible study in Galatians 3 that culminates in the ringing declaration
of 3:28-29.
Look at the language he uses in Romans 16:
ü Phoebe (2) – ‘our sister’ as well as work colleague and patron. Sister comes first because that is the most important thing about her in Paul’s mind.
ü Epenetus, Ampliatus, Stachys, Persis are described as ‘beloved’ in the original, people who are kin to Paul
ü Rufus’ mum is a mum to Paul: see Mk 10:29-31: Jesus said this would happen
Look at how Paul talks about the people in this list: they really matter to him; there are close bonds of love and loyalty here. But more than that, it is a fundamental point of his theology, his understanding of God and his people on earth. Paul uses the word brother 39 times in 1 Corinthians and 18 times in Romans. And look at the contexts in which he stresses the word:
ü 1 Corinthians 8:8-13: in divisions over buying meat, he stresses that each individual Christian is a brother for whom Jesus died; to sin against brother (that is another Christian) is to sin against Jesus (12). He speaks of ‘my’ brother (singular) twice in v13 to stress that the way that I treat my brother is a measure of how seriously I take Jesus
ü Romans 14:10-21: Basically he’s making the same point – we are equal before the throne of God because we’re family and so trivia such as food and drink should not divide us. Does this give us pause for thought?!
2) Maintaining family life
So what do families do together? They eat, do the chores, play games, face crises, stand by each other, hug one another – well that’s ideal! That’s the picture of church life that emerges from Paul’s letters.
i) pressures
– Life is full of pressures and the fact that we’re at different life stages
means that we’ll face different stresses and strains. The pressures facing
young families are different from those affecting the retired. In Romans 16 we’re
given a picture of different congregations (possibly seven in all) made up of
people of different backgrounds, classes and races. They needed to get along
with each other – hence the teaching in Romans 12-15. On top of that it’s quite
likely that half of the people named were newcomers to
ii) patience – all these differences plus our different tastes and temperaments; the fact that we’re at different stages in our Christian lives and we favour different learning and worship styles, means we need to be patient with each other. Two simple rules of thumb we’d do well to follow:
ü think the best of one another – see Romans 14:1-3, 12; let’s not go leaping to conclusions about each other
ü speak well of and to each other – no gossiping, back-biting, bad-mouthing or lying about one another – who, me gov? Yes, all of us!
iii) pray for each other – especially those we don’t see eye to eye with: prayer helps us find common ground
iv) practical care: look out for one another: Galatians 6:2, 5 – because we’re family, aren’t we?
Areas for
discussion
What are the things we appreciate about our families? What are the things about them that cause us stress?
What do we think of the two pictures of the church in the first paragraph? Which do we favour? Why?
How do we feel about the stress Paul puts on the church being a family?
In what ways have we found the church to be a family?
What do we do to build up the family life of the church? What do we appreciate others doing to build up church life?
How can we avoid hurting our brothers and sisters by what we say?
How can we pray in a more informed way for one another?