“Now I beg you, brothers, look out for those who are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and turn away from them. For those who are such don’t serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the innocent. For your obedience has become known to all. I rejoice therefore over you. But I desire to have you wise in that which is good, but innocent in that which is evil. And the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
Paul has just filled the opening half of Romans 16 with greetings. He has named fellow workers, servants, hosts, prisoners, brothers, sisters, and groups of Christians meeting throughout Rome. He concluded by commanding them to greet one another and reminding them that the assemblies of Christ greet them. Against that picture of Christian fellowship, Paul now warns about people whose influence threatens to tear it apart.
The warning does not contradict what Paul has taught about unity. He has spent much of Romans addressing matters capable of dividing the church. Jewish and Gentile believers had to understand their place within the same saving purpose of God, while the strong and weak had to receive one another despite genuine disagreements of conscience. Paul repeatedly commanded Christians to pursue peace, build one another up, and refuse to judge or despise those whom God had received.
Romans 14 therefore prevents us from treating every disagreement as the kind of division Paul condemns here. Christians may differ over food and days while remaining faithful members of the same body. Paul requires patience where consciences differ because Christ has received the believers on both sides.
Romans 16 presents a different problem. These people cause divisions and create occasions of stumbling “contrary to the doctrine which you learned.” They are not weaker Christians whose consciences require patience but deceivers whose teaching draws people away from apostolic truth while serving their own interests. The church that must refuse to divide over legitimate differences must also refuse to preserve a false peace with those who corrupt the truth upon which its unity depends.
Watch Out for Those Who Cause Divisions
Romans 16:17
“Now I beg you, brothers, look out for those who are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and turn away from them.”
Paul tells the Romans to watch carefully for people whose influence produces division and stumbling contrary to the teaching they have received. His warning assumes that the church possesses a body of truth by which both teaching and teachers can be evaluated.
The standard cannot simply be whether someone creates controversy. Paul himself has written a letter capable of unsettling deeply held assumptions. He has contradicted error, corrected behavior, challenged both Jewish and Gentile believers, and demanded significant changes in the way Christians think about themselves and one another. Truth can produce conflict when people resist it, so the mere presence of disagreement cannot identify the people Paul has in view.
The decisive qualification is that their divisions are “contrary to the doctrine which you learned.” Paul’s concern is not disagreement itself but teaching that departs from the apostolic truth already received by the church and places obstacles before those attempting to walk faithfully in it.
This distinction also establishes the limits of Paul’s earlier commands concerning acceptance. His insistence that the strong and weak receive one another cannot be expanded into a demand that every teaching be tolerated for the sake of unity. Romans 14 concerns believers who differ over matters of conscience while continuing to belong to Christ. Romans 16 concerns people whose teaching undermines the doctrine upon which Christian fellowship rests.
Paul therefore commands patience in the first situation and separation in the second. The church must neither divide where Christ has received believers nor appeal to unity as a reason to tolerate those who lead believers away from the truth.
They Serve Their Own Belly
Romans 16:18
“For those who are such don’t serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the innocent.”
Paul exposes what lies beneath the ministry of these teachers. Whatever religious language they may use, their true service is not directed toward Christ but toward “their own belly.” The expression identifies self-interest as the governing motive of their work. Ministry has become a means of serving themselves.
That judgment cannot be avoided merely because such teachers speak persuasively about Christian things. Paul specifically warns that their deception operates through “smooth and flattering speech.” Their danger lies partly in their ability to make error attractive. They do not necessarily approach the church announcing hostility toward Christ or openly rejecting the gospel. Their words can sound reassuring, impressive, or spiritually compelling while directing their hearers somewhere apostolic teaching does not lead.
The Romans must therefore evaluate more than presentation. Confidence, eloquence, apparent sincerity, popularity, and the ability to encourage an audience do not establish the faithfulness of a teacher. The question remains whether the teaching conforms to “the doctrine which you learned.”
Paul’s warning also connects false teaching with the character of the person using it. The problem is not merely that these teachers have made an intellectual mistake. Their distorted teaching serves distorted desires. They use religious speech to gain influence while their actual allegiance is directed toward themselves rather than the Lord Jesus Christ.
Discernment must therefore look beyond the attractiveness of the messenger to the content and direction of the message. Smooth speech can conceal self-serving ministry, and the language of Christ can be used by people whose teaching does not serve Christ at all.
Wise in What Is Good
Romans 16:19
“For your obedience has become known to all. I rejoice therefore over you. But I desire to have you wise in that which is good, but innocent in that which is evil.”
Paul’s warning does not arise from the belief that the Roman Christians have already abandoned the faith. Their obedience “has become known to all,” and Paul rejoices over them. As elsewhere in Romans, serious warning does not require contempt for the people being warned.
His concern is preventative. The Romans are walking faithfully, and Paul wants them to continue doing so without becoming vulnerable to persuasive teachers whose words conceal purposes contrary to the gospel. Present faithfulness does not eliminate the need for discernment.
Paul wants them “wise in that which is good, but innocent in that which is evil.” Christian maturity is therefore not measured by familiarity with every possible form of corruption. Believers must understand enough to recognize what contradicts apostolic truth, but recognition does not require fascination or participation. Their deepest knowledge should concern what is good.
This gives discernment a positive center. The church protects itself from deception not merely by accumulating information about every error but by becoming deeply formed by the truth. The better believers know what they have received, the more readily they can recognize teaching that departs from it.
Paul therefore directs their attention toward the good even while warning them about evil. He wants a church whose obedience continues to be known, whose understanding of truth continues to deepen, and whose contact with evil does not become participation in it.
The God of Peace Will Crush Satan
Romans 16:20
“And the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
Paul’s warning about human deceivers suddenly opens onto the larger spiritual conflict in which deception belongs. His language recalls the biblical imagery that begins with the serpent and the promise of his defeat in Genesis 3:15, but Paul now speaks directly about what God will accomplish in relation to the Roman Christians: “the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet.”
The victory belongs to God. Paul does not tell the Romans that their own insight, vigilance, or spiritual strength will defeat Satan. God is the one who crushes him. Yet Paul describes that victory as taking place “under your feet,” placing the church within the triumph God accomplishes over the deceiver.
That promise gives greater significance to the warning that preceded it. The deceptive teaching confronting the church is not merely an intellectual problem. From the beginning, deception has belonged to the adversary’s work against God and his people. When Christians remain obedient to apostolic truth and refuse those who would lead them away from it, they stand within God’s victory over the one whose work has always depended upon deception.
Paul’s description of God as “the God of peace” is therefore especially appropriate. Peace does not mean passive tolerance of whatever threatens the church. The God who creates peace among his people also acts against what corrupts and destroys that peace. Discernment serves Christian unity when it protects the church from teaching that would lead believers away from Christ.
The strong and weak were commanded to pursue peace by refusing to divide over matters where God had received both. The Romans are now commanded to protect that peace by refusing teachers whose doctrine creates stumbling and division contrary to the truth. In both cases, peace is governed by faithfulness to God rather than by the mere absence of conflict.
Paul closes with the grace upon which the church continues to depend: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” The Romans will not remain faithful because they possess flawless powers of discernment. The same grace that brought them into Christ sustains them as they confront deception and seek to remain obedient to the truth.
Watch Out for Those Who Cause Divisions
Romans 16:17–20 establishes an important boundary around everything Paul has said about Christian unity. Believers are commanded to receive one another, bear with weakness, refuse contempt, and pursue peace, but those commands cannot be separated from the truth that created their fellowship in the first place. Christian unity is not maintained by treating every teaching as equally acceptable.
Romans 14 and Romans 16 therefore address two very different dangers. The first is the danger of dividing from Christians whom Christ has received because their consciences differ over disputable matters. The second is the danger of receiving teachers whose doctrine leads Christians away from what they have learned. Confusing those situations produces either unnecessary division or indiscriminate tolerance, and Paul permits neither.
The teachers described here make the danger more difficult to recognize because their error comes through attractive speech. They can sound persuasive while serving themselves, making the church’s knowledge of apostolic truth essential to its discernment. Paul does not want the Romans suspicious of everyone or fascinated with every form of evil. He wants them deeply acquainted with what is good so that they can recognize and refuse what contradicts it.
The warning finally reaches beyond the teachers to the spiritual conflict in which their deception participates. Paul does not respond by magnifying Satan or directing the church into preoccupation with him. He directs their attention toward the God whose victory is certain. The same God of peace who has called Jews and Gentiles, strong and weak, and believers throughout Rome into fellowship will not surrender his people to the deceiver.
The church therefore protects unity by knowing what kind of unity the gospel creates. It receives those whom Christ has received, refuses teaching that leads away from Christ, and remains dependent upon the grace that has sustained it from the beginning.
The deceiver will not have the final word.
The God of peace will crush him.