Our Bible Text today is Romans 12:10. It is actually a double statement insofar as the “one another” mandates are concerned. “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another.”

The noun “brotherly love” is, in Greek, “philadelphia!” It means “liking, being fond of,” one’s kinfolk. One’s comrade, here one’s very “brother in Christ.”

“Kindly affectioned” is a participle, blending the noun “philos” (friend) and the rare term “storge” (family love, a parent’s feeling for the children and vice versa). The word is used only here in all the Bible!

Thus the first line of our Text is similar in ways (yet still with a slightly different emphasis) to yesterday’s Lesson, “Love one another.”

Then Paul continues, under the Guidance of the Holy Spirit. Live … “in honour preferring one another.” The noun “honour” translates “time” in Greek, which indicates something “valuable, precious, held in high esteem.” And the verb “preferring” is “proegeomai.” It literally means “to go before.” To go before and show the way. To go before as a leader. Amazing! I think Paul is saying we should treat one another with such respect that … we want the “other person” to go first. To be the most prominent! To go first!

Here’s the essence of today’s Verse …

We Believers in Christ are to so live that we respond to each other as if we were literally “brothers and sisters” in Christ, with a “family” love, deep and loyal! And when it comes to decisions, we are to allow the “other” person to speak his or her mind “first.”

This eliminates partiality at Church! Everyone is an older (or younger) brother or sister, to be pampered. And this ends all “fighting” over preeminence. The “other” person is given (freely) the “right” to be recognized!

In a “lighter” (almost humorous) sense … we now could debate “Who goes first?” Not from the selfish viewpoint, “I WILL.” But from the Biblical, Jesus-illustrated viewpoint, “Your opinion counts. After you speak … I’ll follow.”

One very conservative Greek scholar expresses the vocabulary of our verse as follows: “Be devoted to one another with [authentic] brotherly affection [as members of one family], give preference to one another in honor.”

Wow!

That kind of behavior, folks, would be dramatic!

How to treat “one another!”

And we have just begun the Series!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell