Romans 12:13,14

“Distributing to the necessities of saints; eager to show hospitality. Bless them that persecute you;bless and curse not.”

The saints are not only the families of the church of Rome, but also all the churches whose wants come to the knowledge of the Christians of the capital. The Byz. and Alex. documents read χρείαις, the necessities; while the Greco-Latins read μνείαις, the remembrances. Would this term denote the anniversary days consecrated to the memory of martyrs? This meaning would suffice to prove the later origin of this reading. Or should the expression remembrances be applied to the pecuniary help which the churches of the Gentiles sent from time to time to the Christians of Jerusalem (Hofmann)? This meaning of μνείαις, in itself far from natural, is not at all justified by Philippians 1:3. The Received reading is the only possible one. The verb κοινωνεῖν strictly signifies to take part; then, as a consequence, to assist effectively.

There is a gradation from saints to strangers. The virtue of hospitality is frequently recommended in the N. T. (1 Peter 4:9; Hebrews 13:2; 1 Timothy 5:10; Tit 1:8).

The term διώκειν, literally, “ pursue (hospitality),” shows that we are not to confine ourselves to according it when it is asked, but that we should even seek opportunities of exercising it.

Vv. 14. A new gradation from strangers to them that persecute. The act to be done by love becomes more and more energetic, and this is no doubt the reason why the apostle passes abruptly to the imperative, after this long series of participles. Here we have no longer a manifestation which, supposing love, is in a manner understood as a matter of course. To act as the apostle demands, requires a powerful effort of the will, which the imperative expressly intended to call forth. This is also the reason why this order is repeated, then completed in a negative form; for the persecuted one ought, as it were, to say no to the natural feeling which rises in his heart. The omission of the pronoun you in the Vatic. serves well to bring out the odiousness of persecution in itself, whoever the person may be to whom it is applied.

We do not know whether the apostle had before him the Sermon on the Mount, already published in some document; in any case, he must have known it by oral tradition, for he evidently alludes to the saying of Jesus, Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:28. This discourse of Jesus is the one which has left the most marked traces in the Epistles; comp. Romans 2:19; 1 Corinthians 4:12-13; 1 Corinthians 6:7; 1 Corinthians 7:10; James 4:9; James 5:12; 1 Peter 3:9; 1 Peter 3:14. This recommendation, relating to love toward malevolent persons, is here an anticipation; Paul will return to it immediately.

Now comes a group of four precepts, the moral relation of which is equally manifest.