|
12:9 |
Love must be sincere
[genuine, not in words
only].
Hate what is
evil
[injurious to others];
cling to what is good
[beneficial to others]. |
|
12:10 |
Be devoted to one
another in brotherly love.
[Christians should have
the kind of devotion and affection towards one another that close family
members have for one another]
Honor one another above yourselves.
[Compare this with what Paul
teaches in another letter:
- Philippians 2:3-7 - Do nothing out of selfish ambition or
vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than
yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own
interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude
should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very
nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be
grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a
servant, being made in human likeness.]
|
|
12:11 |
Never be lacking in
zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
[The
temptation to “lose stream” in our lifelong responsibility to reverence God
in every aspect of our lives, to become lazy and complacent in our pursuit
of what is “good, well pleasing to God, and perfect,” is a natural one – but
must be strenuously resisted
(Douglas Moo, p. 778)]
|
|
12:12 |
Be joyful in hope
[expectation of future good],
patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
[Even
as we “rejoice in hope” gaining confidence from God’s promise that we will
share in the glory of God, we recognize the “down side”: the path to the
culmination of hope is strewn with tribulations. Paul, ever the realist
knows this; and so. . . he quickly moves from hope to the need for
endurance. At the same time, we realize our ability to continue to rejoice
and to “bear up under” our tribulations is dependent on the degree to which
we heed Paul’s challenge to “persist in prayer”.
(Douglas Moo, p. 778)]
|
|
12:13 |
Share with God's people
who are in need.
["The
joy or sorrow of one member, is the joy or sorrow of all the others. The
necessities of one are, or should be, a common burden.”
(Charles Hodge on
Romans, p.397)]
Practice hospitality.
TEV:
open your homes to strangers |