📜WEB · Romans 15:3
What does Romans 15:3 mean?
"For even Christ didn’t please himself. But, as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”"
— Romans 15:3 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of the weak, and not to please ourselves.
Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, to be building him up.
For even Christ didn’t please himself. But, as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”
For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that through perseverance and through encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Now the God of perseverance and of encouragement grant you to be of the same mind one with another according to Christ Jesus,
that with one accord you may with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Explanation
Romans 15:3 makes a simple but striking point: even Jesus did not live to please himself. Paul is holding up Christ as the ultimate example of self-giving love, someone whose entire orientation in life was toward others rather than his own comfort, preference, or advantage. To back this up, Paul quotes from Psalm 69:9, a psalm of lament in which the psalmist describes suffering scorn and hostility precisely because of his devotion to God. Paul applies these words to Christ, showing that Jesus bore the insults and hostility that were really directed at God, absorbing reproach that was not his own in order to remain faithful to his mission.
To understand this verse well, it helps to see where it sits in Paul's letter to the Romans. Paul is writing to a church made up of both Jewish and Gentile believers who were divided over disputable matters — particularly food laws and observance of special days (Romans 14). The "strong" (likely Gentile believers who felt free from Jewish dietary restrictions) and the "weak" (likely Jewish believers with lingering scruples) were judging and looking down on one another. In Romans 15:1-2, Paul instructs the strong to bear with the failings of the weak and not just please themselves, but to build up their neighbor for their good. Verse 3 then grounds this ethical instruction in the pattern of Christ himself: if the Messiah endured reproach and hardship for the sake of others, believers have all the more reason to set aside their own preferences for the good of the community.
Theologically, this verse touches the heart of the
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