17 I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. 19 Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.
20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
21 Timothy, my co-worker, sends his greetings to you, as do Lucius, Jason and Sosipater, my fellow Jews.
22 I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord.
23-24 Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings.
Erastus, who is the city's director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings. [c]
Dig Deeper
Back when I was teaching at an inner city high school it was an alternative school that was comprised of students who had gotten into serious trouble with the law or who had fallen behind terribly in their studies. The faculty and administration put in a great deal of time and effort teaching the kids how to be the kind of students and citizens that we wanted them to be. We knew that to really help these kids turn their lives around in a way that had any lasting impact that we would have to spend a great deal of time teaching them not only how to behave at school but we would also have to teach them how to make life choices, how to make wise decisions in every aspect of their lives, and how to choose who to listen to and who to reject as a bad influence. It is because we put in so much effort and had, in many cases, so much success that we began to dread long breaks from school. Longer breaks like Christmas could be bad enough but the three-month summer break was the most dreaded by the staff. During these breaks, many of the kids, with whom we had worked so hard to help change their behavior, would go back full-time into their neighborhood environments without the influence of the school on a daily basis, and it would seem like all the good we had done was just washed away. They would lose all of the progress that they had made and go right back to the poor choices and dangerous behaviors that had gotten them in trouble in the first place. That didn’t happen to all of the students by any means, but it happened often enough that it was a legitimate concern that we would try to warn the students about before every break.
Some people, reading Romans to this point, might almost think that Paul’s warnings about false teachers seem almost oddly out of place. He hasn’t had anything specifically to say to this point about false teachers and this seems to pop up at the end of a section where he has been sending greetings to the brothers and sisters that he has just urged to work out with great fervor and intent what it means to live as the resurrection people of the Messiah. So, why would he insert a section like this? For the same reason that we warned our students before every break from school to watch out what influenced them. Paul well knows the negatives and destructive effects that false teachers and a loss of focus can have on God’s people. He’s seen it before and he is extremely eager to ensure that it does not happen in Rome. He cares too much about the progress that they have mad in Christ and about the opportunity that the Holy Spirit has put on his heart to use Rome as a base for the future spread of the gospel. As Paul brings his letter to a close, he really wants to make sure that they not only embrace all of the edifying things that he has said about their life in Christ but that they live constantly with one eye on situations that could come and steal that life away from them.
Although they were having issues working out the Christian call of loving one another as a true family, it does not appear that the Roman church was yet dealing with any specific false teachers as a major problem. Yet, Paul knows well the trouble that was caused in the other churches that he has been ministering to, the very work that had, up to this point, kept him from coming to Rome. He knew that false teachers of many different kinds could come into a church and cause major problems. He wishes to see Rome avoid that for their own sake but also for his desire to see them used as a key church that would support future mission efforts into the region of Spain.
Many modern Christians seem to take false teachers lightly and tend to save their harshest criticism for those who attempt to defend against or even to simply point out the wrongs of false teachers. In fact, in our current Christian culture, many Christians find those who would speak out against false teachers to be more distasteful than the false teachers themselves. This attitude of taking false teachings and the false teachers who perpetrate them lightly, however, is not only dangerous, it does not find any firm footing in the scriptures. We have bought into the lie that to discern false teachings and false teachers is to judge those individuals hypocritically or to be arrogant. It is nothing of the kind and God calls his people to be on their guard against such things.
The seriousness of such false teachers is seen in the negative effects that Paul says that they can have on a body of Christ. Causing divisions in a family that is called to demonstrate reconciliation and unity with God to the larger world is no small thing. It is the worst sort of cancer on the body of Christ and cannot be taken too seriously. Putting obstacles in the way of a people who have been taught that they have free and unfettered access to our Father God as his sons and daughters that have been brought into the covenant family is also of no insignificance. The only remedy is to keep away from these people. Some might charge that this seems unloving, but the Bible is extremely clear that we should silence such people in the body of Christ and have nothing to do with them (Titus 1:10; 1 Timothy 4:1-6). Yet, this must all be balanced with all that Paul has said in chapters 14 and 15. Simple disagreements over certain beliefs does not mean that we should label everyone who disagrees with our spiritual opinions or beliefs should be labeled a false teacher. This is a distinction that is reserved for someone whose teaching directly attacks one or more of the fundamental core elements of the gospel. Discernment must be shown to distinguish someone who holds a different legitimate opinion in a disputable matter with a false teacher.
The hallmark of these teachers is that it did not fall in line with the teaching that they had initially learned. Because that is so contingent on whether the initial teaching one heard was the true gospel, this has become perhaps a more complicated situation today where probably as many, if not more people, hear false versions of the gospel before they ever hear the true gospel. One thing that all false teachers have in common is that they do not serve the Lord. They, at one level or another and in one way or another, serve their own appetites and desires. They operate within existing church bodies through secrecy and private conversations and appeal quite often to the felt needs of people through flattery of the immature and the naive, and even the overly-kind who allow them to share their ideas. Yet, it would be quite a mistake to think that false teachings are simplistic and only fool baby Christians. False versions of the gospel are often quite appealing because they seem so clever and seem to “explain” areas where the true gospel has not been thoroughly explained to people.
No, the Roman church had apparently not been deceived by any such teachings at the time of the writing of this letter. They had remained obedient to the gospel, something which had been spread throughout the churches, and no doubt, left Paul feeling that the Roman church was capable of serving as a base of operations for future missionary endeavors. Paul rejoiced over their adherence to the gospel but he knows that even “if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall,” (1 Cor. 10:12) because no individual and no church is ever beyond being fooled. What he wants them to do is to follow the words of Jesus when he called for his disciples to “be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matt. 10:16). Because the Roman church had such a reputation for being obedient, Paul realizes that this could open them up to false teaching. Being obedient in that sense was a great quality but it could also lead to their downfall if they did not combine that innocence with being wise about what is good. They should not be so simple that they swallow whatever is served up to them. It takes a great deal of prayer and effort to find the right balance in being wise and discerning about good teaching and yet not become a skeptical doctrinal sniper that sits back and just looks for something to disagree with.
If they show wisdom and hold to the truth, rejecting false teachings that will invariably come their way, then they can be assured that God will “soon crush Satan under your feet,” a probable allusion to Genesis 3:15. This was likely a general promise for those in Christ but one that had immediate relevance to the situation of rejecting false teachers. There was a spiritual battle that was raging and they could be assured of victory as well as the promise that the grace of our Lord Jesus would be with them every step of the way.
As he brings the letter closer to the end, Paul sends greetings from the church in Cenchreae where he was probably writing this letter, as well as allowing his scribe, Tertius to pen in his own personal greeting. This gives another peek into the fervor of the early Christian movement. They were a small band of zealous believers who were intimately connected with one another. They were part of God’s family and were facing large odds, but they were exhilarated by the opportunity and the knowledge that Christ had already defeated their enemy. The new creation had broken into the present age and the world was now a different place and they were a different people. They were now part of a new family that must stay united in love and firmly build on the foundation of faith in the life of Christ if they were going to stay together and change the world with the message of the gospel.
Devotional Thought
How seriously do you take false teaching and false teachers when you encounter them? Do you take a biblical view of the dangers of these teachers or do you take a stance that is comfortable for you? Spend some time considering why the Bible warns so adamantly about the need to deal with false teachers so swiftly and decisively. What danger is the church put in when they are not dealt with in this manner?
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