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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Romans 15:5 - 15:5
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Observe here, 1. How the apostle concludes his foregoing exhortation, with votive supplications, and fervent prayer. The ministers of God must follow the word they deliver with prayer; they must not only wrestle with their people, but they must wrestle with God for and in behalf of their people, if they ever hope to overcome.
Observe, 2. The prayer and supplication itself; and that is, for concord and unity among Christians: That they may, with one mind and one mouth, glorify God: that in their Christian assemblies they may all worship God after the same manner, and not one this way, and another that. Unity among Christians in common conversation, but especially in church-communion, is a very desirable mercy, and much to be prayed for by the ministers of God.
Observe, 3. How the apostle addresses himself in prayer to God for his mercy under a double title, (1.) As a God of patience, The God of patience grant you to be like-minded; intimating what great need there is of patience, in order to maintain love and unity among Christians; and, that God must be applied to in prayer, who is the author of it, to produce and work this grace of patience, in order unto peace and unity among Christians: The God of patience grant you to be like-minded. The unity of the saints greatly depends upon the exercise of patience one towards another; and that they may attain it, he begs the God of patience to give it.
(2.) Our apostle joins with this another title, namely, The God of consolation; wherein he points them to that abundant comfort which would result to themselves from such a blessed unity, continued and maintained by the mutual exercise of patience and forbearance one towards another: The God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one towards another.
Observe, 4. The pattern and example which he lays before them, to excite and quicken them to this duty, namely, the example of Christ himself: According to Christ Jesus, that is, according to the example of Christ Jesus; as if the apostle had said, "Let us consider how the Lord Jesus bears with us, how many thousand infirmities and failings doth he find in the best of us, yet is he pleased to maintain communion with us; and shall not we after his example do the like, that thereby God may be eminently glorified by us?"
Observe, 5. How God is called the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1. As he begat him by an eternal and ineffable generation.
2. As he was man, so he created him, Luk_1:35.
3. As Mediator, so he appointed him to, and qualified him for, that office.
And eternally magnified be omnipotent love, that the comfort of this compellation of our Lord Jesus Christ, so he is in him our Father also, our merciful, our gracious, and loving Father. May we ever demean ourselves towards him as dutiful and obedient children!