Daily Reading Passages

Click below to see the passages online. Although, I recommend that if you can you read these in your own Bible. That way you can underline, comment, and become familiar with your own Bible.

Romans 15

Coaching Comments

Chapter 15 comes in two parts. The first section concludes his thoughts from yesterday. Our purpose is not to judge others, but instead, Paul says, to uphold them. We are to "bear with" the weak. That doesn't just mean "put up with them." It means that we help them carry their burdens. We bear their burdens with them. In doing so we buy critical oppoetunities to influence. Maybe we are right about some religious practice or moral standard. But no one was ever argued or shamed or belittled into a relationship with God. It's never happened. Only if we can remain open to relationship, can we have the space for God to work in us and through us on that other person's behalf.

This is so crucial that Paul breaks from the teaching into a prayer for unity for the people he was writing to. In this hymn he calls out for God to give unity to the chuch, and calls them to accept each other in the profound way that Christ accepted them. Only this will create the kind of community God intended the church to be; and only this can reach out to the jaded world we live in and make an impact.

The second part of the chapter begins the wrap up that closes out the book of Romans. Paul affirms the faith and practice of the Roman Christians, and then goes into detail on his hopes and plans to visit Rome, and then - if possible - to use Rome as a jumping off point for a new mission into western Europe. He asks the Roman Christians to join in prayer for him and his mission, and for all the opposition that he was facing in Judea.