“For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.”
Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil. — Hē gar hypakoē hymon (your obedience) eis pantas anthrōpous apēlthen (has reached all people). Hypakoē (obedience, hearing-toward) is public knowledge. Yet Paul urges: sophoi (wise) eis to agathon (toward good) and akaios (innocent, guileless) eis to kakon (toward evil). Astuteness about good combined with naiveté about evil.
Church Fathers on Romans 16:19
“For your obedience has come abroad unto all men.” This he does, not to leave them free to be shameless, but to win them beforehand with encomiums, and the number of his witnesses, to arrest their attention. For neither is it I alone that am the witness, but the whole world. And he does not say for your understanding, but, “your obedience:” that is, their compliance, which was evidence of much meekness in them. “I am glad therefore on your behalf.” And this is no small…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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