Romans: Unashamed of the Gospel - Romans 12:9-21
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Love Without the Mask: What Romans 12:9-21 Asks of Us
At the end of this month, our streets will be full of masks. Spider-Man at the door, a witch with a plastic broom, a three-year-old dinosaur who can’t see where he’s going. Nobody is fooled, and when the night is over the mask goes back in a drawer.
But what if you wore one that never came off? What if you wore it so long that you forgot it was there?
That is the picture behind Romans 12:9: “Let love be genuine.” The Greek word is anypokritos, “without hypocrisy.” It is the negative of hypokritēs, the word for a stage actor, someone who speaks from behind a mask. In Athens, the mask was an honest pretense. Everyone in the theater knew it was a play. The hypocrite’s mask is different, because the audience doesn’t know. Paul’s word is the “un-actor”: love with no mask.
Paul doesn’t give us thirty unrelated rules. He gives us one word, love, and then shows what it looks like on an ordinary Tuesday.
Love that is real (vv. 9-10). Unmasked love has a spine and a heart. It hates evil, because it wants what is good for the other person. It also has the tenderness of family, and it competes to honor others instead of being honored.
Love that works (vv. 11-13). Real love gets up in the morning. It is fervent, hopeful, patient in trouble, and steady in prayer. It looks at a need and moves toward it. Paul’s word for hospitality means “pursue,” so love chases people who need a place at the table.
Love that enters in (vv. 14-16). Here Paul walks us outside the family. We bless the people who persecute us, using the same Greek verb that was just translated “pursue.” We rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, which means entering someone else’s experience, not standing above it.
Love that overcomes (vv. 17-21). We don’t repay evil for evil. We live at peace “so far as it depends on us,” we leave vengeance to God, and we feed our hungry enemy. David Guzik notes two ways to read the “burning coals” of verse 20. One is the conviction that kindness can produce. The other is the ancient custom of giving a neighbor coals to restart his fire. Both land in the same place: the enemy’s good, and a friend where there used to be an enemy.
The passage closes where it began. Verse 9 says to hate evil, and verse 21 says to overcome it with good. That is the gospel in miniature. While we were still enemies, Christ did not retaliate. He overcame evil with good.
You don’t need your masks, and not because you’ve finally become good enough. You have been loved with a love that wore no mask, one that saw you at your worst and moved toward you.
This week: Choose one difficult person. Do one concrete good for them, and pray for them by name.
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