Peter Barnes | Romans 12:17-18
SERMON NOTES
LIVING PEACEABLY WITH ALL
(Romans 12:17-18)
Deals here mainly with responding to outsiders.
1. We are not to repay evil with evil.
– 12:17a; similar to 12:14, 19
– Prov.24:29; Luke 6:28-29; 1 Thess.5:15; 1 Pet.3:9
2. We ought to recognise that unbelievers have some capacity to judge us.
– 12:17b; ‘Give thought beforehand’ is the idea. This does not override Gal.1:10.
– but unbelievers have some capacity for judgment (Rom.2:14-16; hence 1 Tim.3:7; 2 Cor.8:21; 1 Cor.10:32-33)
3. We are to be peaceable if at all possible.
– 12:18; see Matt.5:9; Gen.13:5-9; 33:10
– but not if a clear biblical command is at stake (Luke 12:51). Robert Haldane: ‘A Christian must be willing to be unpopular, that he may be useful and faithful.’ Heb.12:14 links peace and holiness.
– sometimes the other person is just ‘impossible’. Appeasement was ineffective against Hitler in the 1930s.