Instruct One Another (Romans 15:14)

At the beginning of Romans, Paul introduced himself to a church he had never visited. He expressed his high opinion of their faith — "your faith is being reported all over the world" (Romans 1:8) — but then spent fifteen chapters saying a great many bold and challenging things. Now, as he begins to close the letter, he wants to reassure his readers that he holds them in very high regard. He says in verse 14: "I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another." But what we have here for our purposes is another of the one-another commands, and it is the one we want to think about together: instruct one another.

The Nature of Instruction

What does Paul mean when he says we are to instruct one another? This word "instruct" is hard to capture in English. It is often linked with teaching, but it is not the same thing. Paul distinguishes the two in Colossians 3:16, where he tells Christians to "teach and instruct one another." Teaching in the Bible is the transfer of information — the imparting of knowledge. But instruction involves more than that. Its goal is to change the will, to change behaviour, to change attitude, to change the way you live by changing your mind. Some English versions translate the Greek word as "admonish," and that is probably the better translation. Admonition tries to change someone's practice not by punishing them but by informing and influencing their will — whether through encouragement or through rebuke.

It is a word used in Greek about the education and training of children, and that is a very helpful way to understand it. A child who has spoken disrespectfully to a parent needs to be punished, but punishment alone is not enough. They also need to be admonished — told about the wickedness of disrespect, warned about the dangers of disobedience, and shown the blessings God promises to those who honour their parents. The goal is that those words will ring in their minds the next time they are tempted to answer in a cheeky way. That is admonition: instruction with the goal of changing behaviour and shaping attitudes.

Paul is saying in Romans 15:14 that this is not just something that happens between parents and children. It is to be a normal part of church life. A large part of pastoral ministry involves admonition. Remember Paul's words to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:31: "For three years I never stopped instructing you, night and day with tears." Preaching itself is admonition — biblical preaching is not just about getting information into the heads of the hearers. A sermon is never meant to be a lecture. There is a teaching component in preaching, but preaching must be much more than that. It is instruction designed to lead us to change our behaviour. Week by week, we come to church to submit ourselves humbly to the admonition of the Word of God — to have our lives checked, corrected, and changed.

Another way instruction happens in the church is through church discipline. Admonition is the lowest level of church discipline — the level that is going on all the time. If a member of the congregation stops coming to church, for example, the elders do not just turn a blind eye. They have a God-given responsibility to admonish that member, to seek by words of exhortation to bring them back to the duty of public worship, and to hold out the blessings and benefits of gathering with God's people. In most cases, church discipline never needs to go beyond that first level of admonition.

But this verse makes clear that instruction is not just for pastors and elders. Paul says "you yourselves are competent to instruct one another." He says the same in Colossians 3:16 — "teaching and admonishing one another" — and in 1 Thessalonians 5:14 — "admonish those who are idle." Every Christian has a responsibility for other believers, especially in their own congregation. You may be aware of things in the lives of your brothers and sisters that the elders do not know about. If you see a Christian friend beginning to date a non-Christian, you should admonish them. If you see a brother or sister getting drunk, you should admonish them. If you hear a Christian gossiping or using bad language, you should admonish them. If a friend is constantly critical and always running other people down, you should admonish them. This is one of the reasons we have our midweek meetings — so that instruction does not flow only from the pulpit but among one another. Many Christians meet together in prayer triplets or quads for accountability and mutual admonition, and that is a very good practice.

The Qualifications for Instruction

Paul gives two qualifications that Christians must have if they are going to instruct one another properly: goodness and knowledge.

The first qualification is goodness. "I myself am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness." Goodness means uprightness, kindness, and goodwill. If you are going to admonish another Christian, you need to love the person you are instructing. You need to have their best interests at heart. Sometimes Reformed Christians like us are criticised because we have knowledge but no love — our doctrine is orthodox, but we are cold and harsh. That is a caricature, but it is not without a certain degree of truth, and it should never be the case. It is not enough to grind someone into silence with arguments and proof texts. There must be sincere, obvious love in the way we do it.

Paul himself is a great example. When he described his ministry of admonishing in Ephesus, he said he did it "night and day with tears." He was not some dispassionate clinical doctor giving a diagnosis. He loved his people dearly. He had to say hard things to them, but he did not do it with glee and delight. He wrote to the Corinthians: "I am not writing this to shame you, but to instruct you as my dear children" (1 Corinthians 4:14). And he told the Thessalonians: "Do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother" (2 Thessalonians 3:15). Richard Baxter, the great Puritan minister, put it perfectly: "If your people see that you unfeignedly love them, they will hear anything from you and bear anything from you." If the reason you want to admonish someone is to make them feel small or to boost your own superiority, Paul says you are not qualified to counsel anyone.

The second qualification is knowledge. Goodness on its own is not enough. There are many kind, well-meaning Christians who genuinely want to help but are limited in their ability because they lack knowledge. The knowledge Paul is talking about is an understanding of God's Word in all its richness and depth. Our instruction must be grounded in Scripture, not in our own ideas. Christians are very quick to confuse their own preferences and subjective opinions with God's opinion. We must make sure our admonition is rooted in what God actually says. There are Christians who, with the best intentions, tell people they should not watch television, or should not fly in aeroplanes because of the carbon footprint, or should not have children because the world is overpopulated. That is someone trying to admonish without knowledge.

These two qualities together are wonderfully balanced. Knowledge without goodness is harsh and cold. Love without knowledge degenerates into wishy-washy sentimentality. We are all temperamentally inclined to one or the other. Some Christians are very strong on knowledge — they love reading theology and have very clear, accurate ideas about right and wrong — but they trample over people's sensitivities. What they say might be absolutely right, but they do not say it in the right way. Others are very loving and caring, but not so concerned about understanding precisely what the Bible says, and they can be too easy on sin. We need both, and we need both in great measure. Paul says the Romans are "full of goodness, filled with all knowledge." There is always room for more — and so we need to be continually striving to grow in goodness and to grow in knowledge.

As we do that, Paul says we are competent to instruct one another. You do not need to be a professional counsellor. It is in the church that we find our behaviour being moulded and changed as we minister to one another in love. That is why it is so important that we are as fully involved in the life of the church as we can possibly be — so that we can help one another and be helped by one another. We all have something unique to contribute to our fellowship, and we need to share that unique insight, that unique set of gifts, as we encourage one another, rebuke one another, and instruct one another — so that we can keep one another's feet planted firmly on the road to heaven.

This sermon is part of the One Another Commands series at Covenant Christian Fellowship, Galway. See also: Greet One Another with a Holy Kiss (Romans 16:16) and Encourage One Another (1 Thessalonians 4:18; 5:11).