When a new house officer starts work, he or she walks into a new and challenging set of relationships. As a medical student you don’t really have colleagues, just mates. A new doctor magically inherits a vast array of colleagues: seniors, paramedical staff, social workers, fellow house officers. The job also has a profound impact on existing relationships. Going to church regularly becomes much harder. It takes much more effort to meet up with friends in the evenings. Tiredness and irritability make it difficult to get on with housemates. How can you cope with all these unfamiliar relationships?

Paul’s readers in the church at Rome were in a similar position. They had recently put their faith in Christ, and this meant that they had become part of a new family. There is no better example of a radical change in relationships. How were they to relate to their fellow Christians, once strangers but now their brothers and sisters? Or to their unbelieving friends and family, and people who were hostile to their new faith? Paul’s letter to the Romans provided them with some of the answers. In Romans 12:9-21, and in fact in all the later chapters of the book, we find guidance in living and working among other people. We can read, learn and hang on to these chapters as we start work on the wards. I shall consider Paul’s message in Romans 12:9-21 in three sections:

1. In view of God’s mercy
2. Be devoted to believers
3. Bless non-believers

1. In view of God’s mercy

Paul gives an awful lot of instruction and advice in Romans 12-16. However, he also gives us a great motivation in living it out. That motivation heads up this final section of the book of Romans and is found in 12:1:

‘Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship.’

The great Christian motivation can be summed up in 5 words: ‘in view of God’s mercy’. This amazing mercy moves us to strive to please our Lord. Paul explains in Romans 1 to 11. All human beings, Jew and non-Jew alike, are involved in rebellion against God. Therefore we are all under God’s judgement, and cannot earn our way into his favour. We are unable to obey the Law he set out in the Old Testament; this Law only serves to point out our inadequacies and failings. But God did something about this awful situation (Rom 3). He sent Jesus, his one and only Son, to bear punishment for our rebellion when he died on the cross. In no way did we deserve this incredible saving act; it was God’s mercy and God’s grace alone. We can only believe and trust in what Christ’s death achieved for us 2000 years ago - and what amazing things it achieved. Chapters 5 and 6 tell how Jesus’ death brought us peace and reconciliation with God. It brought us from inevitable death and destruction to life eternal in God’s presence. Our lives are changed radically now by the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in us (Rom 6, 7). Paul explains in Romans 9-11 how God’s amazing plan of salvation is the ultimate fulfilment of all his promises made to the Jewish nation many years before.

God has shown us inexpressible mercy in lifting us from inevitable death to eternal life as his children. That, says Paul, is our motivation for godly lifestyles. The drowning swimmer saved by a daring lifeguard is eternally grateful to his rescuer. The patient with a ruptured aortic aneurysm is eternally grateful to the skilled surgeon who saved him in the operating theatre. The child trapped in a blazing house is eternally grateful to the fireman who risked his life to pull her out. How grateful, then, is the sinner heading for Hell, to the God who sacrificed his own Son, that we should be rescued for eternal life with him.

2. Be devoted to believers

Romans 12:9,10 reads:

‘Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honour one another above yourselves.’

As part of expressing our gratitude to God for his mercy, we are to be devoted to one another. The word used here for ‘devoted’ in Greek is specifically applied to family relationships. We are to be devoted as brothers and sisters. That is how we are to relate as fellow Christians. We are to count each other as family.

In the film ‘Twins’, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito are cast as a pair of very unlikely twins born as the result of an evil genetic experiment. Schwarzenegger’s athletic, clever, well-educated character is brought up on a desert island. His brother, however, spends his childhood in an orphanage and is short, fat, in debt and a petty criminal. The first brother leaves his island paradise in search of his long lost twin. When they meet, he stays with him, despite constant rebuffs and ridicule, for the simple fact that they are brothers. He is devoted because his brother is family. That is a picture of how we should relate to fellow Christians. We are to be as devoted to one another as brothers and sisters.

In practice, to be devoted to somebody implies that every effort is made to see them regularly. We should, then, make every effort to go to church in order to meet up with and encourage our Christian brothers and sisters. Sometimes this won’t be possible, due to on-call. Most people, however, are on a one in five rota, thereby missing only one Sunday in five. The real danger for Christian doctors is not missing church because you are on call. It is missing church because you are too tired, because you have membership exams to revise for, because you have smart clothes to iron, because you have to present a case at your departmental meeting the next day. As a student, it is easy to think that when you are qualified, your time away from work will be your own. This is often not the case. There are many pressures, often work-related. In view of what Paul is saying here, I would urge you to make a commitment now to attend church as regularly as possible. I would also urge you to commit yourself to one mid-week meeting per week such as a Bible study, home group or prayer group. These are such a great way to be devoted to one another by encouraging one another and praying for each other on a much more individual basis.

Being devoted to believers is also how we should behave towards our Christian colleagues. Some medics find it a great thing to meet up with other Christians at work for a time of prayer and encouragement in evangelism. Unfortunately, however, most of our colleagues are not Christians. But this passage in Romans addresses our attitude towards them, too.

3. Bless non-believers

Romans 12:14 reads:

‘Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.’

And verse 17:

‘Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.’

Blessing in this context is the opposite of cursing. To curse someone is to wish them ill. To bless is to wish them well. What’s more, the word also hints at an action on our part. As gratitude for God’s mercy, then, we are not just to wish well, but to be active in doing things which bring blessing to non-Christians, and careful to do what is right in their eyes.

This command has a huge bearing on our lives on the ward. There will be many instances in a doctor’s career when he or she is tempted to curse people. When it is one o’clock in the morning and you are asked to rewrite a drug chart. When you start an on-call to find lots of jobs unfinished from the day. When your consultant decides to admit yet anotherperson from Friday afternoon clinic without letting you know. We all want to lash out with out with our tongues and to be obstructive in these sorts of circumstances. Sadly, we will all succumb to this temptation from time to time. But Paul exhorts us to bless in just these sorts of situations.

A GP friend of mine had a really good way of putting this into action. He kept a pad of paper next to the telephone in his on call room. He wrote on it in big letters ‘PRAY’. When he was woken in the middle of the night by his bleep, the first thing he saw, and did, was pray. It’s very hard to be rude and curse people when you have just prayed. Another suggestion is to pray regularly for staff and patients on your ward or in your team. This helps serve as a constant reminder to ourselves what position our non-Christian colleagues and patients are in before God. It makes us realise how important it is to be good ambassadors for Christ so that they can be brought to repentance and faith. It also acts as a tremendous spur to our evangelism. Another tip is to make an effort to get to know our colleagues socially. When we become friends with our colleagues it is much easier to bless them. But there will always be those who get on your nerves. There will always be those who are obstructive and difficult. This exhortation from Paul holds equally for these people.

To be careful to do what is good in the eyes of everybody emphasises how important it is for us to be good doctors. To be conscientious and hard working. To finish our jobs before we go off at the end of the day. To hand over our patients properly. To keep abreast of hospital treatment policies and new developments.

This all sounds, and in fact is, very hard work. But keep in mind Romans 12:1: In view of God’s mercy. With this in mind and with the Holy Spirit working through God’s word in our hearts we will be able to be devoted to believers and bless non-believers as we live stressful lives in medicine.