Welcome one another
As Christ welcomed you
Paul gives a command and roots it in the deepest possible soil: welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. The word welcome means to receive, to take in, to embrace into fellowship. We are to open ourselves to one another, making room at the table, taking people in — and the measure and motive is how Christ has welcomed us.
Consider how Christ welcomed you. Not after you had cleaned yourself up and become acceptable, but while you were still a sinner, still an enemy, still unlovely and undeserving. He received you with open arms into his own family, holding nothing against you. That is the staggering standard for how we are to welcome one another: with the same open, undeserved, embracing welcome we ourselves received.
This especially challenges our instinct to welcome only those who are like us, who are easy, who fit. Paul writes pointedly about receiving the one who is weak in faith, without quarreling over opinions — welcoming those who differ, who are difficult, who do not yet have it all together. A community that welcomes only the easy and the similar is no great achievement; a community that welcomes as Christ welcomed, embracing the different and the difficult, displays the glory of God. Whom are you finding hard to welcome — and how did Christ welcome you?
“Receive one another, even as Christ also received you, to the glory of God.”
— Paul, to the church at Rome — Romans 15:7 (WEB)
Welcome others as Christ welcomed you — with an open, undeserved embrace that takes in the difficult and the different, not only the easy and the similar.
“Receive him who is weak in faith, not for judging thoughts.”
We instinctively welcome only those like us — easy, agreeable, fitting — and quietly exclude the difficult and the different. The interior work is to measure our welcome by Christ's, who received us while we were still sinners and enemies, undeserving, with open arms — and to extend that same embrace to those who differ from us or have not yet got it all together, without quarreling or judging.
This week, widen your welcome: deliberately receive someone you find hard to welcome — different, difficult, or weak in faith — taking them in with the open, undeserved embrace Christ extended to you.
Preference draws the circle small, extending a warm welcome only to the easy and the familiar until the community hardens into comfortable cliques that quietly shut others out. But Christ welcomed you while you were still unlovely and undeserving, and a fellowship that opens its arms that wide — to the difficult, the different, the not-yet-together — puts the very glory of God on display.
We instinctively welcome those who are like us — easy, agreeable, people who fit. Paul calls us to a far wider welcome, measured by an impossible standard: welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. And consider how that was — not after you became acceptable, but while you were still a sinner, an enemy, unlovely and undeserving, received with open arms into his family.
That is the standard for our welcome of one another: the same open, undeserved embrace we received. It especially challenges us to receive the difficult and the different — the one weak in faith, the one who holds different opinions, the one who does not yet have it all together — without quarreling or judging. A community that welcomes only the easy and the similar is no great thing; a community that welcomes as Christ welcomed displays the glory of God. Whom are you finding hard to welcome — and how, exactly, did Christ welcome you?
- Do I welcome only those who are like me, easy, and agreeable?
- Whom am I finding hard to welcome?
- How did Christ welcome me — and am I welcoming others that way?
Lord, I welcome only those like me and quietly exclude the difficult and different. But you welcomed me while I was still a sinner and an enemy, undeserving, with open arms. Help me welcome others as you welcomed me, to the glory of God. Amen.