15:5
Paul then goes into prayer. Knowing what to do, knowing the way things should be is not enough. We need to remember this when we preach, teach or exhort. The preaching by itself will not achieve anything, we need the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives (including our own!), so if we want anything effective to happen we must pray. We are to have endurance and encouragement, but it is the Lord who gives this encouragement and endurance. And it is God who changes our inmost attitudes. So Paul also asks God to give us the same attitude that Christ had.
15:6
Only then we will truly glorify “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”, and we will do so with one mind and one voice. When we get full of ourselves we may imagine that we are glorifying the Lord, but that is almost certainly not the case. But we need to remember that Paul would not allow any compromise on the truly central elements of the faith, remember how he dealt with the issue in Galatians. We need to have true wisdom, and true wisdom recognises what is non-negotiable, what is debatable, and really doesn’t matter. It also recognises what goes on in a man’s heart, most of all our own hearts. So we do not live by the flesh, but by the Spirit.
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