Family

When Paul wrote to the believers in Rome, he had never been there. He knew some of them by name. The house churches in Rome mixed Jews and Gentiles, people raised to keep their distance from each other. Now they were sharing bread at the same table.

So when Paul turned to how they should treat one another, he started with a word from the theater. “Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them” (Romans 12:9). The Greek word is anypokritos, “without hypocrisy.” A hypokritēs was an actor, a man who spoke from behind a mask.

Then he wrote:

“Love each other with genuine affection.” (Romans 12:10)

Paul reached for two family words here. The first is philadelphia, the love of brothers and sisters. The second is philostorgos, and this is the only place it appears in the New Testament. It comes from storgē, the word the Greeks used for the warm, natural affection between parents and their children.

Paul was telling them to love one another like family, because that’s what they were. Jew and Gentile, slave and free, all adopted into the same household.

I’m an adopted son of the Creator. If you belong to Him, so are you. That makes the person in the next chair at church my brother or sister, whether we’ve ever had coffee together or not.

Family affection is there because you belong. A child doesn’t apply for it. That’s the love Paul is asking of us, and it’s the love God showed us first.

Who in your church family have you been polite to for years without really knowing? What would it take to sit down with them this week?

On Thursday: “Take delight in honoring each other” (Romans 12:10).