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“Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it”—Psalm 81:10

Against preparing sermons, some preachers used to quote the verse, “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Ps 81:10). Or perhaps I should say more precisely, they used to quote a single line of the verse. Their resistance to preparation apparently extended to examining the context of the lines they quoted.

In the verse itself, God reminds them that he redeemed his people from slavery in Egypt and spoke to his people in the wilderness (81:8-10). His people resisted obeying him, following other gods, so God punished them (81:11-12). But if they would obey him, he would bless them, as he wanted to do (81:13-16).

What would he fill their mouths with? In this case, not what should come out of the mouth (words) but what should go in (food). As God provided manna for his people when they were in the wilderness, so he longed for their obedience so he could bless them with food:

“But you would be fed with the finest of wheat;with honey from the rock I would satisfy you” (Ps 81:16, NIV)

The verse is about provision, but not about providing sermon material without study, when we have access to be able to read the Bible. It’s about God supplying the needs of his people when they follow his ways.

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Follow God’s example of sacrificial love for each other—Ephesians 4:32—5:2

Fight-or-flight instincts serve a necessary purpose for cornered people or animals. When people misrepresent us or wrong us, our self-preservation instincts naturally prime us to lash back at them. But God gives us a higher example in his gospel: an example of self-sacrificial love and forgiveness.

When Paul calls us to imitate God, he refers especially to sacrificial love and forgiveness:

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Eph 4:32—5:2, NIV)

In the body of Christ, our fellow members are as human as we are, and some are emotionally dysfunctional. Simple misunderstandings can take on new dimensions for people who have been repeatedly hurt, and they may lash out and hurt others. But the conflict can stop with us. We need to speak truthfully, not slandering others by misrepresenting or caricaturing their intentions (4:31). We must speak truthfully to one another because we are fellow members of Christ’s body (4:25). Expressing anger in words that we can’t take back gives the devil a foothold (4:26-27). What we speak should be for the purpose of building each other up (4:29). That often means we have to swallow our pride, holding our natural instincts in check long enough to formulate a softer response that gives grace to the hearers. (A gentle answer often deescalates anger, whereas a harsh response escalates the conflict—Prov 15:1.)

Paul does not summon us to create unity in Christ’s body, but to preserve unity by being at peace (Eph 4:3). That is because Christ has already brought us together as his body (2:15-16; 4:4), at the cost of his own life (2:16). When we engender divisions in his body, we sin against Christ’s sacrifice. As we would suffer pain if our own body were torn apart, we cause Christ pain when we divide his body, by what we speak or how we act.

Paul applies this image both to ethnic divisions (2:11-13) and other relationships (4:25). Our goal, to which true ministry leads (cf. 4:11-12), is maturity in Christ: not a baby body, but an adult body (4:13-15). This is expressed in a body whose parts function together, in unity of faith in and knowing God’s Son (4:13), in speaking God’s truth in love (4:15), as each member of the body, joined directly to Christ, does its part in building up the whole body (4:16). We do need to guard the body against those who are out to advance themselves (4:14) rather than functioning as gifts given by Christ for his body (4:7-8, 11-13). Nevertheless, not only in local church relationships but even in online community, believers should deploy the truth in love, not in ways counterproductive to our unity in Christ.

The model of Christ’s divine love, so pivotal to Paul’s case in Ephesians 4:32—5:1, does not start there. The first part of Ephesians is lavish in its depiction of God’s love for us. For example,

God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us” (Eph 1:4-8, ESV).

Throughout the first part of his letter, Paul elaborates all sorts of blessings that God has given us in Christ. When, in the remainder of his letter, he summons us to love and serve one another, he calls us to give what we have received: grace. God gave us grace (1:6-7; 2:5-8), including by giving us some of his other servants to build us up (3:2, 7-8; 4:7). We also have opportunity to share grace with one another, including by how we speak (4:29).

We follow Christ’s example of sacrificial love—even for us his followers, who forsook him and fled when the time came to take up the cross and follow him (cf. Mark 14:50). We love because he showed us how. In the words of another apostolic author: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

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Welcoming each another—Romans 15:1-7

In Romans 14:1-23 Paul summons believers to respect one another despite their differences on issues secondary to the gospel that unites us. In light of Paul’s language there and the larger context of Romans, Paul is especially calling Jewish and Gentile believers to welcome one another (see esp. 15:7-12). This welcome transcends a barrier that God himself established in history, so it certainly summons us to surmount prejudices of merely human origin: prejudices against ethnic, cultural, and similar differences.

In 15:1-13 Paul further summons us not just to tolerate secondary differences but also to serve one another’s interests (to “please” one another, 15:1-3). Just as those who are physically strong would be expected to help weaker family members, Paul reminds those apt to criticize the “weak” that they should be helping them instead (15:1). Echoing the earlier context, the “weak” refer to those weak in faith hence abstaining from particular foods lest they injure their relationship with God (14:1-2).

Paul ranks himself among the “strong” here, and will soon offer himself as an example of serving the poor saints in Jerusalem (15:25-27). But the strong are called to serve the weak. “Build up” in 15:2 evokes 14:19-20, where believers should build up (by the fruit of the Spirit) rather than tear down one another over foods.

“Pleasing” others rather than oneself (15:1-3) refers not to entertaining others’ every whim (e.g., if they are bothered by your music style, e.g., Christian rap), but to being considerate of what might cause them to fall from the faith. Although Paul regarded circumcising Gentiles as too much to ask, for Gentiles to accommodate Jewish food tastes in mixed company was a minimal sacrifice for the objective of unity in Christ’s body.

Christ himself offered the example of this readiness to forgo pleasing himself; in 15:3, Paul cites Ps 69:9 from a psalm of a righteous sufferer, applied par excellence to Jesus (cf. Jn 2:17 for a different part of the same verse; Matt 27:34 for Ps 69:21). Here Jesus suffers on behalf of God, offering a model of laying down one’s desires to serve others.

As Jesus is the example for not seeking one’s own interests (15:3), he is also the example for seeking this unity: we should have the same mind “according to [the standard of] Christ Jesus” (15:5; cf. Phil 2:1-11, especially 2:2-5). Believers may with united voice glorify the Father (15:6) just as Jesus prayed to the Father in 15:3 (and establishes Gentiles’ praise in 15:9-12). Believers should again follow Jesus’ example by accepting one another as he accepted us (15:7). (Consider one of Jesus’s lines in an episode of Dallas Jenkins’ recent TV series, The Chosen. When Peter objects to Jesus calling a tax collector, Jesus points out that Peter made no such objection when Jesus called Peter. “That’s different!” Peter insists. “Get used to different,” Jesus replies.)

This expectation climaxes the section’s opening exhortation to accept one another (14:1) because of God’s acceptance (14:3). That Christ accepted believers to the Father’s “glory” (15:7) fits the exhortation to “glorify” God together (15:6), a model relevant for Gentile believers (15:9).

(This post is adapted from Craig S. Keener, Romans [New Covenant Commentary; Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2009], 170-72.)