Turn Away from Them
by Bill Robinson
Understanding Paul's Command
The sharpest warning Paul ever wrote sits in the middle of a thank-you list.
Romans 16 is the warmest chapter he ever put on paper. He names close to thirty people. Phoebe, who carried the letter. Prisca and Aquila, who risked their necks for him. Mary, who worked hard. Rufus and his mother, who had been a mother to Paul too. Household after household, greeted by name.
Then Romans 16:17-18.
"I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive" (Romans 16:17-18 ESV).
Where that warning sits tells you how to read it. This is not a bitter man looking for a fight. This warning is tucked inside a roll call of people Paul loved, most of whom he had never met. He had just spent fifteen verses honoring them. Now he is protecting them.
If we read the command to avoid apart from the affection surrounding it, we will misread it every time.
Two words are worth slowing down on. "Divisions" is the word Paul lists in Galatians 5:20 among the works of the flesh, alongside jealousy and fits of anger. "Obstacles" translates a word that meant the trigger stick of a trap, the piece that springs the snare. So we are not talking about people who are merely difficult to get along with. We are talking about people who split, and people who set traps.
Notice also who is being addressed. "Brothers," plural. The whole congregation. Paul does not hand this to a preacher or a committee. Watching is work the church does together.
Now the word everything turns on.
"Avoid" is one word in English. In Greek it's a picture. The word is ekklino, built from "out" and "to bend or lean." To bend away out of the path. Standard lexicons render it "to turn away from, to shun." Paul adds "away from them," which reinforces what the verb already says. And the form is continuous. Not one dramatic gesture, but a settled direction.
It shows up only three times in the New Testament, and the other two are worth sitting with.
- In Romans 3:12, Paul quotes the Psalms: "All have turned aside; together they have become worthless." There the word describes the whole human race swerving away from God.
- In I Peter 3:11, Peter quotes the Psalms too: "Let him turn away from evil and do good." There it describes exactly what a Christian is supposed to do with sin.
Same verb. So when Paul tells the church what to do with a man who divides it, he reaches for the word that describes the instinctive movement a believer makes when sin is put in front of him.
I don't raise that as a hypothetical. Elders have told me the word "avoid" does not mean "avoid." I understand the desire to handle a hard text carefully. But a word that means to bend out of the path can't be made to mean stay on it.
Now the part that keeps this from becoming a weapon.
Look at the standard: "contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught." That clause authorizes the warning and limits it at the same time. A fixed standard exists, so division measured against it can be identified. And the standard is not the preacher's judgment, the elders' preferences, or how we've always done it. It's apostolic teaching.
Every misuse of this verse I have seen has been a misuse of that clause, either by skipping it or by quietly substituting my opinion for the apostles' teaching. If I can't show from Scripture that something is contrary to what was delivered, this verse gives me nothing to say.
One more honest note. Romans 16:17 gives a direction, not a procedure. It isn't I Corinthians 5. It isn't Titus 3:10. Where Scripture is silent on the mechanics, we should be too.
But it does require one thing plainly. You cannot avoid a man you have not identified.
Why Does the Command Exist?
Paul's word for how error moves through a church is gangrene.
Writing to Timothy about two men who had wandered from the truth, he says their talk "will spread like gangrene," and that "they are upsetting the faith of some" (II Timothy 2:17-18). The image is medical, and it isn't gentle. Gangrene does not stay where it starts.
That's the first reason Scripture tells us to turn away. Error spreads. It does not sit politely in the corner where we found it.
Here's the second, and it should humble anyone who thinks his congregation is too solid to be affected. At Antioch, Peter pulled back from eating with Gentiles, "and the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy" (Galatians 2:13).
Barnabas. The man who vouched for Saul when nobody else would. Who went to Tarsus and found him. Who walked the first missionary journey. If Barnabas can get carried along, the argument that our people are too grounded for this doesn't survive contact with the text.
The third reason is the aim of the men themselves. Paul told the Ephesian elders that "from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them" (Acts 20:30). Note where the danger comes from. Not only from outside. From among your own selves. And note the goal: after them. That's Romans 16:18 in a different setting. He doesn't serve Christ. He serves himself, and he needs people to do it with.
The fourth is the method, and it's the one we miss. Jeremiah's opponents were not shouting blasphemy. "They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, It shall be well with you" (Jeremiah 23:16-17).
Nobody follows an obvious wolf. People follow a kind voice saying the comfortable thing. Which is exactly why Paul warned about smooth talk and flattery rather than about open heresy.
And look at who gets hurt. Paul says they "deceive the hearts of the naive." The word means unsuspecting, without guile. These are not the argumentative members. They have no defenses, because it never occurred to them that they'd need any.
That's why the command exists. Not tidiness. Casualties.
Dealing with Objections
The best objection to Romans 16:17 comes from Paul himself, two chapters earlier.
"As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions" (Romans 14:1). Two chapters later, he says to avoid them. Same letter, same author, both binding.
They're not in tension once you see what each one measures. Romans 14 is about opinions, matters of conscience over food and days, where Paul flatly refuses to legislate and commands us to receive one another. Romans 16 is about the teaching the apostles delivered. Different standard, different response. Patience on opinion. Separation on the apostolic deposit.
That distinction is not a technicality. It's the discipline that keeps this verse from becoming a club. A man who applies Romans 16:17 to something Romans 14 covers has not made a small mistake. He has divided a church over an opinion, which puts him closer to the man Paul describes than to the man Paul instructs.
A second objection: Doesn't this weaponize the pulpit?
It can, and I've seen it. But the text binds the preacher before it binds anyone else, because the standard is "the doctrine that you have been taught," not the doctrine I prefer. The cure for that abuse isn't to stop preaching the verse. It's to preach the whole verse, including the part that puts me under it.
A third: Isn't this just exclusion?
Exclusion asks who we can keep out. This text asks how the flock stays whole. Paul's stated concern in Romans 16:18 isn't a clean membership roll. It's the hearts of the unsuspecting. And there's a question buried in the objection that runs backward. Who is doing the dividing? The text locates it, and it isn't the man holding to what was taught. It's the one working "contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught." Forget that, and the brother who asks whether we're still standing where the apostles put us becomes the divisive one, while the man who moved the ground becomes the peacemaker.
The last objection is the one I hear most: Aren't you being harder than God?
To Thyatira the risen Christ said, "I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants" (Revelation 2:20). To Pergamum, He held their toleration of false teaching against them, and they should repent. To Ephesus He gave commendation: "I know you cannot bear with those who are evil" (Revelation 2:2).
He commended a church for refusing to tolerate false teachers and threatened two churches for tolerating them. When we are more patient with error than the Lord is, we have not out-loved Him. We've decided our comfort with a person outweighs His concern for the unsuspecting.
Some among us have quietly set this passage aside, and they do it in the name of love. It's a warped view of love that protects the man doing the damage and leaves the unsuspecting to absorb it. I also know of elders who publicly marked false teachers and then went on in practice as if they never had. A marking nobody keeps isn't mercy. It teaches the congregation that our words don't mean anything.
So what does this ask of us?
Watch, and understand that watching is not suspicion. Suspicion assumes guilt and goes looking for evidence. Watching knows the teaching well enough to notice when something has moved. Which means the ordinary work of teaching the Bible plainly is most of what obedience to this verse looks like.
Measure by apostolic teaching, which means every accusation carries a burden of proof. Before we treat a brother as divisive, someone should be able to state the teaching, show where it was delivered, and show how his position stands against it. If we can't do that, we have a preference, not a case.
Turn away, and remember that turning away is a direction, not an outburst. It means not handing him the platform. Not passing his material along because he made a good point. It does not mean cruelty, gossip, or refusing to speak to a man on the sidewalk.
And do it in order. Titus 3:10 gives what Romans 16:17 assumes: a first and a second warning before the turning away. Paul opposed Peter to his face, in the open, and then they went on serving together. Confrontation is the labor that comes before separation. A church that has done no confronting hasn't yet earned the right to avoid.
Read the verse that follows all of this: "I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil" (Romans 16:19). That's the whole aim. Not people who are hard. People who know what is good so well that evil finds nothing to hold onto.
We don't want anyone gone. We want the flock whole. Those two sound like opposites until a wolf shows up, and then they turn out to be the same thing.
