Romans 14, Part 5. On the welcome that ends the argument. Read Part 1 here.
Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.— Romans 15:7
Years ago I taught Bible at a Christian school. One afternoon an older student was treating a younger one as entertainment, pushing, mocking, saying whatever came to mind. It was fun for one of them. The other went home in tears.
At our next Bible study, we opened Romans 14 together. I told the class about Paul, who had every right to eat and drink (1 Corinthians 9:4) and gave up meat for good so that a weaker brother would not fall (1 Corinthians 8:13). I told them that every person in that room, down to the smallest, was someone Christ had bled for. Then I asked them what I still ask myself. Aren’t we disciples of Jesus? Then shouldn’t we live the opposite of the way the world does?
The world teaches us to shrink before the strong and swagger before the weak. Paul turned it around. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak (1 Corinthians 9:22). Stand firm before the strong if you must. Before the weak, get lower.
That is what Paul means when he says that if a brother is grieved by what you do, you are no longer walking in love (Romans 14:15). Love outranks our freedom. It always has.
One Word Holds the Whole Passage
That classroom has been on my mind all week as we have sat at this table in Rome. A brother Christ died for. A kingdom made of grace. A rooftop where Peter said no. A free man choosing an empty plate. Now Paul writes therefore, and everything he has said gathers into one word.
Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. — Romans 15:7
The word translated “welcome” is proslambanō (προσλαμβάνω). Literally, to take someone to yourself. Not to tolerate. Not to permit at a distance. To draw someone into your circle, your home, your table. Paul has been using it since the argument opened. Welcome the one who is weak (Romans 14:1). God has welcomed him (Romans 14:3). And here, twice in one sentence.
The Romans thought the question was what to eat. Paul thought it was whom to take in.
The measure is the hardest part. As Christ has welcomed you. So the question becomes how He did it.
Paul answered earlier in the letter. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). While we were enemies we were reconciled (Romans 5:10). He did not wait for us to become acceptable. He took us in as we were and did the changing afterward.
The religious people of His day noticed. Their complaint against Him was precise: This man receives sinners and eats with them (Luke 15:2). They meant it as an accusation. It turned out to be the gospel. The table where we have been arguing all week is His, and the first thing He ever did with it was seat the wrong people.
So when Paul says “as,” he is not asking us to be polite. He is asking us to do for one another what was done for us before we deserved it.
There is a short letter in the New Testament that shows what this looks like in one house. Onesimus was a slave who had run from his master, Philemon, and probably taken something on the way out (Philemon 18). Somewhere along the way he met Paul, who was in prison, and became a believer. Then Paul did the unthinkable. He sent him back.
But he sent a letter with him, and the letter uses our word. Receive him as you would receive me (Philemon 17). Not as a returned slave. As Paul himself. Then the sentence that gives the welcome its shape: If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account (Philemon 18). Paul signs it in his own hand: I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it (Philemon 19).
That is how Christ welcomed us. Someone stood between the debt and the door and said, charge it to Me. Paul is asking Philemon to do for Onesimus a small version of what Christ did for Philemon. And he adds, almost as an aside, that Philemon owes Paul his very self (Philemon 19). Welcome flows downhill from the welcome we received.
Paul ends the sentence with a purpose we might not expect. Welcome one another for the glory of God. A verse earlier he named the goal: that with one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 15:6).
One voice. That is what the Roman church could not manage. Two groups, two menus, two verdicts on each other. One voice needs both sides. The strong get lower. The weak stop judging (Romans 14:3). Paul is not aiming for a quieter church, where the strong and weak avoid each other in the hallway. He is aiming for a church that sounds like one thing when it sings.
We began this series with a brother across the table. We end at the same table, but we know now whose it is. The One who seated us there was the One they accused of eating with sinners. He was right to be accused.
I have been the one welcomed far more often than I have been the one welcoming. I suspect that is true of most of us. The command does not ask us to feel differently about the person across from us. It asks us to remember how we got our seat.
He took us in first. Everything else is us learning to do the same.
Stay here for a moment.
Before you ever welcomed anyone, He had already welcomed you.
Stay with that.
Lord, I confess that I have wanted to be welcomed as I am and to welcome others as they should be.
I have kept accounts. I have set conditions. I have made people earn a seat You gave me for free.
You received me while I was still Your enemy. You ate with sinners, and I was one of them. You stood between my debt and the door and said, charge it to Me.
Give me a table that looks like Yours. Where I am strong, make me lower. Where I am weak, keep me from judging. Let me take in the one I would rather keep at a distance. And when I feel the old ledger opening in my hands, remind me whose hand signed mine.
Make my welcome sound like Your welcome, so that with one voice we might glorify You.
In the name of Jesus, who receives sinners and eats with them. Amen.
© 2026 Bible Portal. Free to share with attribution. Please keep the source and a link to Bible Portal intact. For other uses, contact us.
