📜WEB · Romans 15:6
What does Romans 15:6 mean?
"that with one accord you may with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
— Romans 15:6 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
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.
Therefore accept one another, even as Christ also accepted you, to the glory of God.
Now I say that Christ has been made a servant of the circumcision for the truth of God, that he might confirm the promises given to the fathers,
and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore will I give praise to you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.”
Explanation
Romans 15:6 comes at the close of a section where Paul is urging unity between two groups in the Roman church: Jewish believers and Gentile believers who had different backgrounds, customs, and convictions about matters like food and holy days. The verse itself is the goal or purpose clause of a prayer-wish Paul expresses in verse 5, where he asks that "the God of perseverance and of encouragement" would grant these believers to be "of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus." Verse 6 tells us why that unity matters: so that together, as one body, they might glorify God with a unified voice.
In plain language, Paul is saying that when believers who differ from one another in background and personal conviction are brought into harmony by God's grace, the result is that they can worship together as one — not offering scattered, competing praises, but joining as a single choir, so to speak, lifting up the same praise to the same God. The phrase "with one accord" and "with one mouth" emphasizes both inward unity of heart and outward unity of expression. This is not uniformity of personality or preference, but a shared purpose and posture toward God that transcends their differences.
Paul wrote this letter to the church in Rome around the mid-50s AD, a congregation he had not personally founded or visited yet, but hoped to. The church included both Jewish Christians, who carried the heritage of the Mosaic law, and Gentile Christians, who came from pagan backgrounds. Tensions had arisen over practices like dietary restrictions and the observance of special days (addressed at length in Romans 14
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