Paul opened this whole discussion with a single command in chapter 14. Welcome him. Now, at the far end of the argument, the same word returns: 7"Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God." Everything that came between, the disputes over food and calendars, the warnings against judging, the call to bear one another's burdens, sits between those two matching bookends, as if the whole argument had been circling toward this one word.
"As Christ has welcomed you" names a fact already true. Christ's welcome of you did not wait for your convictions to sharpen or your conscience to settle every disputed question. It came first, and it came complete, for the glory of God. Any welcome we offer a brother now can only reflect a welcome already given.
Paul then says what that welcome cost and whom it reached. 8"Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, 9and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy." Two purposes are held in one sentence. God's truthfulness to Israel honors promises made centuries earlier to Abraham and his children. God's mercy to the Gentiles, who had no promise of their own to claim, is freely extended. Truth kept for one people and mercy given to another, both flowing from the same Christ.
Then Paul reaches for four quotations, one after another, drawn from the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, the whole span of Israel's Scripture, as if determined to prove this was never a late addition to God's plan. 9"Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles" has David praising God with the nations watching. 10"Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people" moves them from watching to joining in. 11"Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles" has every nation praising directly. And Isaiah's word closes the sequence at its height. 12"in him will the Gentiles hope." From witnesses to companions, to worshipers, to a people who hope in the Messiah himself. Four steps, and at the end Jew and Gentile stand in the same place, praising the same God and hoping in the same Christ.
13"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." The long argument closes on this word, hope, fitting after a quotation that ended the same way. Joy and peace are gifts, filled by the God of hope himself through the Spirit who has been at work in this letter since chapter 8.
A church that welcomes as Christ welcomed only needs to remember that the welcome it extends to a brother was never its own. It is borrowed from a welcome given long before either side of the argument was ready to receive it.
Who has been waiting at the edge of your circle for a welcome you have been holding back until they agree with you? Extend it as it was extended to you.
Prayer
Father, thank you for a welcome that reached us complete, for the glory of your name, before we had settled a single disputed question. Thank you for keeping your promises to Israel and extending mercy to the Gentiles in the same Christ. Fill us with joy and peace in believing, and make us people who abound in hope, welcoming one another as we have been welcomed. In Jesus' name, amen.