Romans Chapter 14

The Strong and The Weak

 

Have you ever struggled over what is right or wrong for you to do as a Christian? I am not talking about the things that are clearly spelled out in the Scripture such as: Do not steal, do not kill, do not covet, do not gossip, do not worship false gods, be truthful, love your enemy, and show love to everyone. Rather, I am referring to everyday lifestyles. What activities can I participate in? What movies can I see? What books can I read? What foods should I eat? Should I buy that lottery ticket or not? Do I have to go to church every Sunday or every time there is a service? Can I mow my lawn on Sunday? Can I shop on Sunday? And the list could go on and on. Plug in whatever it is you struggle with and I think you will get the picture.

Then there is also the matter of church congregations. How should they worship? Should they have stained glass windows in a cathedral or should they meet in a warehouse? What kind of music is “right” for the service? In our current culture, is God more pleased with traditional services, contemporary services, or some mixture of both?

Those are the kinds of questions we will be looking at as we study Romans chapter 14. In the beginning of Romans 14, we are immediately brought face to face with the concept of Christians who are weak in faith (verse 1). We are dealing with the idea of being considerate of a weaker brother or sister in the faith.  This raises several questions:

·    Exactly who is the “weaker” brother or sister?
·    How are we to care for them?
·    How does this tie in with the other things we have been taught coming up to this chapter? 

The end of Romans 13 was dealing with love. We were told to “owe no one anything, except to love them,” because we can never repay the debt of love that we owe.

In chapters 12 and 13 Paul gave us guidelines on how to identify and use our spiritual gifts in the church, how to relate to non-Christians and to those who would persecute us, how to relate to the government, and how to feel about paying taxes. So now Paul comes to where the rubber meets the road in regards to the daily lives and lifestyles of Christians.

We must keep in mind as we move through this chapter that it is written to Christians; it is written to those of us in the church. The things discussed in this chapter have nothing to do with our salvation. They have everything to do with how we live in relation to each other in the church. Paul speaks specifically of what he calls “strong” and “weak” Christians. And you might be surprised at how these are actually defined.

Your first thought might be that a person who has been saved for 25 years and can quote a lot of Scripture, someone who attends every church service, is the “strong” Christian, and that the new believer, who does not yet know their way around the Bible is the “weak” one. Well, if that is what you think, you are in for a surprise.

The person who has been saved for many years and who does know the Bible well should be the strong Christian; that individual should be a mature believer. Yet, unfortunately, that is not always the case. In New Testament times as well as today there are those in the church who have been around a long time, but who have not necessarily matured.

Sometimes believers get lazy. Instead of growing and maturing in their faith, they start leaning on a few tried and true Bible verses and a list of man-made do’s and don’ts, along with showing up at every church service, in order to define their Christianity. Their growth gets stunted. This person, then, is actually the “weaker” brother or sister, no matter how long they may claim they have been a faithful follower of Christ. Too often the weaker brother is that individual who has been a Christian for 25-30 years, but who is also a died-in-the-wool legalist, someone who thinks He can be perfect by keeping all the external rules and in that way expect others to think he/she is perfect as well.

There is a great diversity of people in most churches. There are young people, old people, and those in between. There are people who have been saved for fifty years and there are those who have been saved for a short period of time, as well as all those in between. There are people who come from unchurched backgrounds, Roman Catholic backgrounds, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist and many other backgrounds. There are people who come from strict fundamentalist background churches and others who come from more liberal churches. Now the potential with all of that is to create a lot of problems, because everybody has their own set of beliefs and ways of doing church. It can be just as difficult to deal with these issues as it is to deal with sin.

There will be those who ask why the church does not light candles. They are uncomfortable worshipping without lighting candles. Some people are offended by the way other people dress. Some people are offended because other people are lifting up their hands. Some people like certain music and other people hate it. Some people think drinking is Okay and others see it as the vilest of sins. There are those who would not miss seeing the latest movie and others who fear God would strike them dead if they entered a theater to watch such a thing. You have a tremendous spectrum of people who provide a great deal of ammunition for disagreement in the church.

It is hard to let go of what is deeply ingrained in you. There are preferences in all kinds of things, and it was the same way in the early churches that Paul planted during the first century. It is not necessarily a sin issue in and of itself to do or not do these things we will be talking about. But it can be a serious issue in the church and we have to understand what the Bible teaches us about these things so we can get along with each other. Keep in mind that the goal here is maintaining unity within the church, just as Paul describes in Ephesians 4:1-6 NLT:

1 Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.

3 Always keep yourselves united in the Holy Spirit, and bind yourselves together with peace.
4 We are all one body, we have the same Spirit, and we have all been called to the same glorious future.
5 There is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 and there is only one God and Father, who is over us all and in us all and living through us all.

We need to attempt to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Paul writes in Colossians 3:14 NLT:

14 And the most important piece of clothing you must wear is love. Love is what binds us all together in perfect harmony.

We are talking about unity, a loving compatibility of diverse people. This is not an easy trick when you have so many different kinds of people in one large body. Now in Acts 20:35, Paul is talking to the elders of the Ephesian church and says:

35 In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak.  (NRSV)

Paul identifies the fact that there are going to be weak people in the church. Now if there are weak people in the church, there are undoubtedly strong people as well. Paul says the elders must be conscientious about supporting those in the church who are weak. Then in Galatians 6:1 (NAS):

1 Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness;

Paul indicates that there are going to be some weak members and when a weakness is detected, a stronger member should step up and assist the one who is weak. In 1 John 2:12-14, we are told there are spiritual infants, spiritual young men and women, and spiritual fathers and mothers, all at different levels of spiritual growth. In order to develop a loving compatibility among all of these people we need to understand what Paul writes beginning here in Romans chapter 14. We believe you will find it exciting.

Let us try to create the scene for you as it exists in Romans chapter 14. The temptation in the church is this: On the one hand you have the liberated believers who really understand what it means to be free in Christ. Liberated here does not mean a believer is free to do any thing they want. It means that they are not hung up on old traditions, rituals, or routines. They understand fully that they are free from sin, death, Hell, and Satan because of what Jesus Christ has done for them. They understand that the freedom they have in Christ no longer involves religious rituals and holy days and ceremonies and candles and all of that kind of thing. They are free to make choices dependent on the Spirit of God moving in their heart. Paul calls these people, the strong. We can call them mature. They are strong in their faith, yet they understand their freedom.

On the other hand you have those Paul refers to as the weak. We may refer to them as immature Christians. These are the people who are still so close to the past that they cannot let go of it. They cannot quite move away from past beliefs so they cannot believe that they have the freedoms they really have. They cannot handle the freedoms because of their preconceived ideas that have been brought to bear on their lives in the past. Their walk in the faith, their sanctification, has to come one step at a time.

A new Christian might say something like: “You cannot do that; isn’t that a sin?” And a more mature Christian’s reaction might be to be critical of that person as one who does not understand their freedom and is not mature enough yet to understand what freedoms are available in Christ. Conversely the tendency on the part of the weak is to condemn the strong for what they see to be an abuse of freedom.

Let us say at the outset that we do have freedom in Christ. We are free from sin and death in terms of its final penalty. We are free as New Covenant Christians from all the Old Testament laws that were external and ceremonial.

Hebrews 8:7 emphasizes that God’s introduction of a second covenant, a new covenant, means there was something missing from the first covenant. This comes from Jeremiah 31:31. The promise of a new covenant through Jeremiah demonstrates God’s intention to replace the old covenant (the first covenant) and make it null and void (Hebrews 8:13).‍[fn]‍ The argument makes clear that Jeremiah did not promise a renewed covenant but a new one which replaces the old. The new covenant replaces the old and provides something better.[fn]

The old covenant weakness in Hebrews 9–10, is its inability to provide forgiveness of sins and an open door into the presence of God. The repeated sacrifices under the old covenant could never take away sin or provide access to God (Hebrews 9:9; 10:1, 11). In contrast, the new covenant promised in Jeremiah 31 and described in Hebrews, provides forgiveness of sins and the insertion of God’s laws into human hearts. These provisions are repeated in Hebrews 10:15–18.‍[fn] Under the new covenant which was fulfilled by Christ in His death on the cross (Hebrews 9:15–16), there is total forgiveness for all sins a person has ever committed or might yet commit even after being saved (Hebrews 9:12; 10:12–18), just as God had promised through Jeremiah: “I will remember their sins no more,” (Jeremiah 31:34). In addition, Christians now have an open door to God by their faith in the work of Jesus on the cross, so they may confidently draw near in worship and prayer.

Hebrews 10:19–22 NLT:
19 And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus.
20 By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.
21 And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house,
22 let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

Believers have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us spiritually clean. Christ’s blood is the key to our entrance into the Kingdom of God. That blood covers our sin so that it is no longer seen by God. He now sees in the believer the same purity and righteousness He sees in Christ. Because of this the door to the throne room of God is always open so that we might walk right in with complete confidence that we will receive a warm welcome. The reference to having our bodies washed with pure water in verse 22 brings to mind Ezekiel’s description of the new covenant in Ezekiel 36:25–27NLT:

25 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols.
26 And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.
27 And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

Here we see that sprinkling with pure water is reflective of providing the believer with a new heart which is equivalent to placing the Holy Spirit of God within a believer so that God’s people will be able to do what God wants them to do. The working of the Holy Spirit within the believer is one of Paul’s emphases in his discussion of the new covenant ministry in 2 Corinthians 3–4.[fn]

We are not free, however, from the Ten Commandments. We are not free from any moral laws given in the Old Testament because God is the same God in both the Old and New Testaments. However, we are free from external ceremonial rules and rituals that were attached only to a period of time for the people of Israel. We have entered into a freedom that is no longer attached to ceremony and ritual and routine, although we might find certain forms of ceremony occasionally appropriate for worship. Many people enjoy this freedom. Again, however, in some churches there are those that come out of varying backgrounds where ritual and tradition were essential parts of the faith in which they were raised.

Well, if that can be an existing problem in certain churches today, you can imagine what kind of a problem it must have been in the first century. There were Jews who were being saved right out of Judaism and finding it impossible to let go of deeply ingrained traditional worship rituals. Tradition, for example, along the line of dietary laws. Tradition along the line of holy days, feast days, festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths, which they had been required to maintain for over a thousand years. Their consciences made this new found freedom difficult to accept. Most of us probably can appreciate the power our conscience can have over us.

There were also believers who came out of pagan and heathen backgrounds where there had been either no belief in any God or perhaps a belief in many gods, and they were saved in Christ. But their background limited their growth in the faith because of past religious experiences or lack of religious experiences. They were not able, therefore, to enjoy all the things they had a right to enjoy. So you have Jews wanting to hold on to what they had known, and these other people from a variety of religious or irreligious backgrounds trying to hold on to or avoid things they had known in the past. There was definitely a potential conflict between liberated people from various backgrounds. A legalistic believer, one who is used to rituals and traditions, may see freedom to be sinful, and a liberated believer may see legalism as sinful.[fn]

Do you think one or two conflicts might develop? In Romans 14 and 15, Paul gives four principles for handling such situations:

1) Receive one another with understanding (Romans 14:1-12).
2) Build up one another without offending one another (Romans 14:13-
23).
3) Please one another just as Christ pleased God. (Romans 15:1-7).
4) Rejoice with one another in God’s plan (Romans 15:8-13).[fn]

Let us take a closer look at these principles beginning with the first one.

Romans 14:1 NLT:

The pressure in the early church among the Jews was to hang onto Judaism. In fact, Josephus, the great Jewish historian says that there were Jews living in Rome in the first century who lived on nothing but fruit for fear of eating something unclean. They did this because they could not give up the laws that had since been cancelled with the coming of Christ. Jesus said in Mark 7:14,15 NLT:

14 “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand.

It is understandable that the Jews would feel pressure to hang on to their heritage. But what about the pressure that was on the Gentiles (all those other than Jews) who came to faith in Jesus? 1 Corinthians 8:1 NLT:

1 Now let’s talk about food that has been sacrificed to idols.

Now this is the problem in Corinth. Let us say you are a typical pagan. How would you worship? Here is how you would do it. You go to a temple of a pagan deity, and there were many such temples and deities in Corinth.  So you go to the temple that is throwing a banquet that day and you bring in a sacrifice, roast beef for example. You bring your sacrifice and put it on the altar of the pagan God. Everybody does this. It is kind of like a pot-luck dinner. Part of it might be consumed during the temple ceremony. Part of it might be eaten, and whatever was not eaten that night would be taken out of the back of the temple and sold the next day in the market so that the priests of the temple could profit from such sales. So when people went through the marketplace doing their shopping they could theoretically purchase meat that the night before had been offered to idols.[fn]

Now if you happened to be a person who had lived all your life in this kind of idolatrous worship and thought nothing of it, and then you heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ and were totally transformed and redeemed, you would have a distaste for many of the things you once did. Consequently if you were invited to the home of some Christian brother who was offering you a wonderful meal, you might be concerned that the food may have been purchased from one of the markets which had purchased it from the priests of a pagan temple, and thus had been offered to idols, and that might bother you quite a bit. So you might not be able to eat that meal and as a result you might offend your host. The problem in the Corinthian church was what do you do about meat offered to idols?[fn]

So Paul sees the necessity to lay out some guidelines for them. First of all, again in 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 NLT, Paul says:

1 You think that everyone should agree with your perfect knowledge. While knowledge may make us feel important, it is love that really builds up the church.
2 Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much.
3 But the person who loves God is the one God knows and cares for.

The second guideline Paul gives is that in reality there are not any other gods in the world, so do not worry about who offered what to whom because in effect it is meaningless. So whatever is offered to a false god is offered to a nothing. 1 Corinthians 8:4-6: NLT

4 So now, what about it? Should we eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols? Well, we all know that an idol is not really a god and that there is only one God and no other.
5 According to some people, there are many so-called gods and many lords, both in heaven and on earth.
6 But we know that there is only one God, the Father, who created everything, and we exist for him. And there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom God made everything and through whom we have been given life.

7 However, not all Christians realize this. Some are accustomed to thinking of idols as being real, so when they eat food that has been offered to idols, they think of it as the worship of real gods, and their weak consciences are violated.  (NLT)

A weak person, a baby Christian, may not understand that they are free to eat whatever they want. If they eat something then that they think is causing them to sin, he/she may be filled with guilt. Their conscience will be screaming, “Don’t eat that! Don’t eat that!” Now if you force a person to eat it against their conscience, you will violate their conscience, and his/her conscience will accuse him/her. Then Paul gives a third guideline and that is that food is not an issue with God anyhow. Verse 8 NLT:

8 It’s true that we cannot win God’s approval by what we eat. We don’t miss out on anything if we don’t eat it, and we don’t gain anything if we do.

Could that be any simpler? God could care less what you eat in terms of its religious implications. But we should all have enough sense to know that God does not want us to stuff ourselves with food that will interfere with your ability to function as a human being. But God does not concern Himself with whether you eat this or that. It does not matter where it came from or who it was offered to or what it was intended for. That is not an issue with God. Please keep in mind that we have been using food here as an example. These guidelines also apply to any other external rituals and traditions people tend to cling to. Now a fourth guideline, verse 9 NLT:

9 But you must be careful with this freedom of yours. Do not cause a brother or sister with a weaker conscience to stumble.

So if it offends someone, do not do it. There were some mature believers who would go down to the marketplace and if the meat was a little cheaper at the temple butcher shop, they would take the best buy. It did not bother them at all and they would not give a second thought to whom they invited to dinner when they bought the meat. If a new convert was among the guests and asked where they bought the meat and the reply was at the temple butcher shop which had meat on sale that had been offered to Zeus, the new convert might not be able to handle that because of their belief that it was offered to a false god. What if the host were to say: “Man, you’re out of your mind. Don’t you understand your freedoms? Eat up.” 1 Corinthians 8: 10,11 NLT:

10 You see, this is what can happen: Weak Christians who think it is wrong to eat this food will see you eating in the temple of an idol. You know there’s nothing wrong with it, but they will be encouraged to violate their conscience by eating food that has been dedicated to the idol.
11 So because of your superior knowledge, a weak Christian, for whom Christ died, will be destroyed.

So do not sin against a brother and wound their weak conscience because when you do that you sin against whom? Verse 12:

So Paul says if eating meat is going to offend your brother or sister, do not eat it. So we see from the Galatians passage that there were some Jews who were very hung up on maintaining Jewish traditions, dietary laws and Sabbath laws. There were some Gentiles who were very hung up on not maintaining their past traditions. So there was potential in the church for all kinds of conflict. These were the issues facing the early church and they are very comparable to the issues facing the church today as we shall see. There was an immature weak faith, which is the person who does not understand their freedom in Christ. They think they are bound to external traditions when they are not. The strong believer is the one who knows they are not bound to those things. Now of course we are not talking about moral issues or sin issues. Obviously Christian freedom is not the freedom to do wrong. It is freedom from externals, rituals and ceremonies.

Now let us go back and take a look at that first verse and get ourselves in position to take on the rest of the chapter. Romans 14:1 NLT:

1 Accept Christians who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong.

The strong are to accept and embrace the weak and bring them into fellowship. I believe a good contemporary example of how some of these people must have felt would be to consider how life is lived in the Amish communities. Most of you know that they live on farms that are self-sustaining for all the needs of life. They have no motorized vehicles, no electricity, no radios, no television, no mp3 players, and they have very simple and basic furniture. Many of the Amish are not Christian. They have a religious way of life, but many do not hold Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior. Imagine if you would that one of these families heard the message of the gospel and became new believers. Can you then imagine their reaction if all of a sudden a bunch of Christians came roaring up the driveway in cars and motorcycles and started playing Christian rock music. These poor folks would go into shock and wonder if they had made a mistake in accepting Jesus if this is the way things were in the Christian community. That is just the kind of thing I can see happening in Paul’s culture, only with the Jews and pagans instead of the Amish.

There are people like that we just have to love and we certainly do not want to do anything to offend them. That is what Paul is saying in Romans 14:1. If there is going to be loving unity in the church among these diverse people, who are the ones who are going to have to reach out and give? It has to be the strong who are willing to sacrifice some of their freedoms. We want to be able to do that. We want to be sensitive to people who think you ought to live a certain way and dress a certain way and think in a certain way, even though we do not agree with it. We want to be sensitive to that, until they can better understand the freedoms they enjoy in Jesus Christ.

Paul is very gentle here and it is very different from the way he calls people to accountability in Galatians and Colossians. This is kind of interesting. Let us read Galatians 1:8,9 NLT:

8 Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including myself, who preaches any other message than the one we told you about. Even if an angel comes from heaven and preaches any other message, let him be forever cursed.
9 I will say it again: If anyone preaches any other gospel than the one you welcomed, let God’s curse fall upon that person.

Paul here says he will pronounce a curse on any one who preaches any other Gospel.  Colossians 4:8,9 NLT:

8 Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist.
9 And now that you have found God (or should I say, now that God has found you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual powers of this world?

Paul first came through and preached the Gospel in Galatia, and then Judaizers came through and said, “That Gospel cannot save you. You cannot be saved by grace alone. You have to be circumcised and keep the Mosaic Law.”  So Paul says in verses 10,11 NLT:

Then in Galatians 5:1,2 NLT Paul says:

Why is Paul so strong and bold and straightforward here? Here is the difference. In Galatia they were teaching that the Law and the Mosaic ceremony with all its rituals was necessary for salvation in addition to faith in Jesus. Paul condemns that as a false teaching. In the Roman Christian Church they were not advocating those things as a part of salvation, they had come to believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. They were just holding on to those things as past traditions and habits. That was the difference. That is why he could speak gently to the Roman Church because they were not affirming these things as elements of salvation, but the Galatians were.[fn] So were the Colossians. Colossians 2:16 NLT:

 

People in Colossi were saying that in order to be a true Christian you had to have the food and the drink and the feast and the new moon and the Sabbath which were in line with the Old Testament Mosaic tradition. They were saying that those things were still essential to a person’s salvation. Paul rejects such false teachings. The difference in the Roman situation is that these things were just traditions which had been passed down through the generations that people were having difficulty letting go of. These things were not being taught as essential for salvation. These things were just hard to let go of as a natural part of spiritual growth.[fn]

So Paul instructs the more mature Christians to be easy on them, to open their arms to them, and bring them along. Getting back to Romans 14:1, Paul says in effect, “When you receive them, don’t do it for the purpose of passing judgment on their opinions.” In other words do not do it just to get in an argument with them. Just love them. You see to push them too fast may cause them unnecessary stress and make them stumble. Go slow and be gentle. There are several reasons why we are to receive people in this way.

 

The Unity of Strong and Weak Believers

We spent a lot of time looking at background material for this topic and it should have become clear to us that God is concerned about how Christians treat one another. We have learned that because of the diversity of backgrounds of people in the church and their preference for different things, the potential for disagreement is pretty high. The church is a mixture of Christians at all levels of spiritual growth as well as those who think they are Christians and really do not understand what salvation is really all about. There are a wide range of cultural backgrounds in the church. There are people who think it is okay to be critical and then there are those who are very quiet and subdued. So what Paul is bringing to our attention in Romans 14 is the need to develop a loving compatibility among all believers in the church. And Paul divides believers in a church into two categories, the weak and the strong.

A weak Christian was defined as one who because of some preference cannot understand and fully enjoy his/her freedom in Christ. A strong believer is one who understands his/her freedom, enjoys it, and is not limited by ceremonies or rituals. The potential problem comes when the weak believer looks at the strong believer and sees them doing something which the weak believer does not believe they have the right to do and tells them so, or the strong believer looks at the weak believer and sees them as being too ritualistic and tells them so, not understanding the freedom that Christ has provided. There is potential in such a situation for real conflict. For example, if you are a mature Christian and a new Christian tells you they were taught that God does not want us to go to baseball games on Sunday, do not tell them that is foolish. Let them work through that issue as the Holy Spirit matures them over time in understanding the truth. It is not a sin issue and you do not want to motivate them to do something that will make them feel guilty. And do not tell them the next time you see them about the great time you had at the baseball game on Sunday.

Paul starts out in Romans 14:1 by telling us that if we want to get along we have to learn to accept one another. Let us read Romans 14:1 NLT:

1 Accept Christians who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong.

Remember that Paul is talking about people here who are believers in Christ. They know that salvation comes by grace through faith in Christ but they are just unable to let go of some past practices, rituals, ceremonies, and beliefs. The strong or mature believer is not to accept such a person and then start an argument with them. For then they have not really accepted the person. To accept means not to argue. Mature Christians should embrace such believers for the sake of unity and love within the fellowship. The weaker believers too should accept the stronger believers for the sake of unity and love within the fellowship. Romans 14:2 NLT:

2 For instance, one person believes it is all right to eat anything. But another believer who has a sensitive conscience will eat only vegetables.

The one who believes he/she can eat anything is the strong believer. Are they right? Are they permitted as Christians to eat anything they want? Yes. See 1 Timothy 4:4, NAS:

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude.

There are no dietary restrictions in the New Covenant which Christ brought. The only provision is that the food be eaten in an attitude of gratitude to the Lord God who created it. But even though a believer may be right, he or she is not to criticize believers who do not understand that yet. And why should we all do this? Because God has accepted all believers. Romans 14:3 NLT:

3 Those who think it is all right to eat anything must not look down on those who will not. And those who will not eat certain foods must not condemn those who do, for God has accepted them.

Paul speaks of dietary (food) laws here because it was so prominent an issue at the time he wrote the letter to the Romans. But these verses apply to many other practices as well. They could apply to styles of worship, styles of praying, or feelings about church décor, as well as to a number of lifestyle issues.

A mature believer is not to show contempt for someone who does not fully understand yet who they are in Christ. And to the weak Paul says do not look with resentment upon the strong.

Each group has a tendency to feel that the other is going to fall away from the faith because of what they are doing. But God sustains each believer, Romans 14:4 NLT:

4 Who are you to condemn God’s servants? They are responsible to the Lord, so let Him tell them whether they are right or wrong. The Lord’s power will help them do as they should.

Now for the mature Christian, or for someone who is moving along the road from weak to mature, this can be a very hard test. They have to exercise a great deal of effort in order not to tell their brother or sister what to do and how to live. They must trust God to work in the life of that brother or sister. They have to back off and realize the issue is between God and that other person. God’s power will work in the other person’s life. Imagine this: In a Christian family the parents have strong ideas of right and wrong, which they have worked hard to convey to their children. These parents are concerned about the kind of “testimony” they have in the community; that is, they care what other people, especially non-believers, think of them. So now their teenager, who is a fully devoted follower of Christ, comes home and announces that he wants to get his nose pierced. I am not aware of anything in the Bible that directly states, “Thou shalt not pierce thy nose” and neither are the parents of this teen. But immediately their reaction is “NO! Not my kid! It is a sin!” But is it? It may be unpleasant. It may be ugly and in bad taste. It may be something all the other teens are doing, but is it really sin? According to this passage in Romans, what are the parents to do?  They are to accept their teen and allow God to deal with him. They are to pray daily, and trust that The Lord’s power will help him do as he should.  Perhaps God knows He can best use this teen to witness to others if his nose is pierced. Perhaps God has a spiritual lesson of some sort that He wants to teach this teenager through this process. So, according to Romans 14, the parents are best advised to accept their teenager, not argue with him (although they may share their own reasoning with their son) and trust God to be working in their son’s life. A hard task for most parents. I know it has been for me.

Who are we to condemn one who belongs to God? The Lord will take care of His own. We are not permitted to condemn a fellow Christian. God will see to it that each believer will make it and never lose their salvation. They will never fall away. God will never let go of even one single believer. Romans 8:35,37-39 NLT:

35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death?
37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death cannot, and life cannot. The angels cannot, and the demons cannot. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell cannot keep God’s love away.
39 Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God is also sovereign over both the strong and the weak. Romans 14:5-9 NLT:

5 In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike. Each person should have a personal conviction about this matter.
6 Those who have a special day for worshiping the Lord are trying to honor him. Those who eat all kinds of food do so to honor the Lord, since they give thanks to God before eating. And those who will not eat everything also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God.
7 For we are not our own masters when we live or when we die.
8 While we live, we live to please the Lord. And when we die, we go to be with the Lord. So in life and in death, we belong to the Lord.
9 Christ died and rose again for this very purpose, so that He might be Lord of those who are alive and of those who have died.

Even though their practices might vary, the goals and motives of both strong and weak Christians are the same. Why does the weak Christian do or not do all the things he or she does? Because he or she believes in their heart that they are pleasing God. Why does the strong Christian enjoy all the freedoms in full that they are given by Christ? Because he or she believes in their heart that they are pleasing and honoring God. So the motive is the same in both cases. Being weak does not mean that the person is walking without God in their lives. It simply means they have not come to understand yet the power and freedom available to them through Christ. They want to serve Christ with all their heart and soul. They just do not quite understand yet what the strong or more mature Christian understands. And Paul does not want a believer to go against their conscience. Why? Because for a believer who wants to do God’s will with all their heart, soul, and mind, their conscience is the way by which the holy spirit guides them.[fn]

If your heart is telling you to do something and you believe it will please God, and there is nothing in Scripture that forbids it, then do it. Do not let someone else come along and condemn you for what you are thinking. You may actively seek the counsel of other brothers and sisters, and that is a good idea. But in the end after prayer and counsel, you must trust yourself to do what you feel the Lord is telling you to do through your conscience. But also do not get in another believer’s way in a manner that would cause them to stumble.

 In Acts 23:1, Paul says:

“Brothers, I have always lived before God in all good conscience!” (NLT)

Paul not only obeyed the Word but also did what he felt the Spirit of God was prompting him to do in his conscience. Paul is telling us in chapter 14 of Romans that since these matters are simply ones of preference and not sin, let us not cause dissension or a split in the church over them.

Another point we would like to make is that God will judge every believer. That means God and God alone. You will not have anything to say about it. Romans 14:10 NLT:

10 So why do you condemn another Christian? Why do you look down on another Christian? Remember, each of us will stand personally before the judgment seat of God.

So why do people waste their time judging one another? It is never going to carry any weight before God. God alone will judge all believers. Romans 14:11,12 NLT:

11 For the Scriptures say, “ ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow to me and every tongue will confess allegiance to God.’ ”
12 Yes, each of us will have to give a personal account to God.

Now let us continue in Romans 14:13-23, where Paul discusses Christian liberty, not in the way it affects the individual but in the sense that it affects that person’s brother and sister. This is very important because ultimately it affects the church community. Paul’s concern from verses 13-23 is for other Christians.

Now before getting started we need to remind you again that we are not talking about sinful behavior here. We are talking about the externals, the rituals, the things people think they can do or not do to earn their way into God’s favor and Heaven. Let us read Romans 14:13-23 NLT:

13 So don’t condemn each other anymore. Decide instead to live in such a way that you will not put an obstacle in another Christian’s path.
14 I know and am perfectly sure on the authority of the Lord Jesus that no food, in and of itself, is wrong to eat. But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong.
15 And if another Christian is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died.
16 Then you will not be condemned for doing something you know is all right.
17 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
18 If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God. And other people will approve of you, too.
19 So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.
20 Don’t tear apart the work of God over what you eat. Remember, there is nothing wrong with these things in themselves. But it is wrong to eat anything if it makes another person stumble.
21 Don’t eat meat or drink wine or do anything else if it might cause another Christian to stumble.
22 You may have the faith to believe that there is nothing wrong with what you are doing, but keep it between yourself and God. Blessed are those who do not condemn themselves by doing something they know is all right.

How do we avoid offending each other? The key to this is found in verse 15: “you are not acting in love.” You want to make sure that your conduct is not unloving. You do not want to be insensitive to the feelings of other believers. The objective of a mature Christian, a strong believer, is to conduct oneself in love toward a weaker brother or sister. In verse 13, Paul says:

You are not to judge other Christians, but rather you are to be sure you do not cause them to stumble along the path of their Christian growth. Let us give you an example. Scripture commands Christians not to get drunk (Ephesians 5:18; Proverbs 20:1;23:29-35; Romans 13:13) but it does not forbid drinking in moderation. If you are a Christian and you invite someone over to your house, or perhaps it is a party, and the alcoholic beverages are flowing, what if one of your Christian guests, who is new to the faith and the church, is an alcoholic who has been off the booze for several years? If that person sees you and other believers hoisting a few, he or she might be tempted to get into the action and take a drink that could send them off on an alcoholic binge that they might never recover from.

In that case the exercise of your freedom to do something that you are free to do could cause someone else to stumble. They could fall into sin and have their relationship with God seriously diminished. That is why alcohol should not be served to guests in the Christian home. I do not have anything against anyone drinking. I do not hate alcohol as a substance. But I certainly would not want to cause one of my brothers or sisters to stumble. So if you like to drink and Betty and I ever invite you over to our home, you had better come prepared to be abstinent for several hours. But I assure you I will not be critical of the fact that you have a few drinks now and then under appropriate conditions and not to excess. But I will tell you this. I have known many a person that became an alcoholic because they ran with a crowd at an early age that drank. Once they got started the handwriting was on the wall and they were on a slippery slope to alcoholism. And I would be surprised if there was anyone reading this who has not had a family member, friend, or acquaintance affected by this devastating disease.

If you come over to our house and the final episode of your favorite sexy or violent TV show is on and you want to watch it, we will not permit that type of entertainment in our home. We do not want any of our brothers or sisters to stumble because we allowed certain freedoms to be exercised. I trust you get the picture.

So we must realize that we must live in a way that does not cause someone else to stumble. When I was a kid I can remember that most Christian kids did not go to dances. I was not a Christian at the time so I was not affected by what I considered to be strict fundamentalist rules. We used to tease them and say that they did not want to go to dances because if they went to dances they would then go out and neck. So we then told them Christians do not go to dances because they just want to go right out and neck.

But in all seriousness there are still some Christians who might think it is a sin to dance. Are you then going to laugh at them and tell them how foolish that is and that you go to dances every Saturday night? I hope not. You can still go to your dances on Saturday night but do not flaunt it in front of someone who considers it wrong.

Paul also tells us not to grieve our brother or sister. He discusses this in Romans 14:14,15 NLT:

14 I know and am perfectly sure on the authority of the Lord Jesus that no food, in and of itself, is wrong to eat. But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong.
15 And if another Christian is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died.

Paul is saying that he was convinced by the Lord Jesus Himself that the strong, the mature Christians, are right. Sin does not reside in things like food. It does not reside in a glass, or on a reel of film, or electronics, or games. It does not reside in any thing. Mark 7:15 (ISV):

15 Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean. It is what comes out of a person that makes a person unclean.

So the strong Christian is right about their freedom in Christ. But they must remember that for the weak Christian who thinks something is wrong to do, it is wrong. If a weak Christian believes it is a sin to do a certain thing and if they go ahead and do it anyhow, even though inherently it is not a sin, they will have a guilty conscience and so for them that thing is sin. Now, let me ask you a question. Do you think it is a sin not to tithe 10% of your income to the church? I will guarantee you that if in your conscience you consider it to be a sin and you do not tithe, then you are going to suffer with a guilty conscience. So in verse 15, Paul is saying, why in the world would you want to cause your brother or sister to grieve or be upset because in their own conscience they believe they have done something wrong?

David Brown says:

You do not want to train anyone to ignore their conscience because then you are training them to ignore a major means by which the Holy Spirit of God leads them. When a stronger Christian comes along and because of their freedom somehow tempts a weaker Christian to go against their own conscience, that weaker Christian will have pain in their heart as a result of feeling guilty. They will feel guilty and instead of helping that weaker Christian grow in their spiritual life, you will have actually contributed to pushing them backward. Because then they will be even more afraid of freedom. They will feel that if they do what you say is okay for them to do, they will feel even more guilty. Liberty will then be a greater threat to them than before because they have experienced guilt by exercising that freedom, which for them was not freedom.[fn]

Now how could a weak or immature brother or sister be grieved? By just seeing a strong Christian do what they thought was wrong. And it is not only that they saw you do it, they are grieved because you have led them to do it as well. By following your example, they go ahead and do what they feel is wrong anyway and have to live with the guilt and remorse of their conscience. They have to give up the peace and joy they should be feeling in their Christian walk. What is the point of that?

Paul also says in verse 15: “Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died.”

1 Corinthians 8:11-13, NIV
11 So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.
12 When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.
13 Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.

So you could not ruin a person to the degree that they would lose that salvation. We are talking about some type of spiritual loss here. Perhaps your actions could cause them to leave the church, or lose their joy, or their effectiveness in ministry. We are referring to the loss of some kind of blessedness a person enjoys because of their faith. So how could you dare to cause someone to stumble, because of loveless behavior on your part, who had been saved by Jesus in an act of supreme love? What a contrast. If Christ, the perfect Son of God, loved that weak person enough to die for them, can we not love that sinner enough to keep them from stumbling?[fn]

Now for a little practical reflection and it is definitely related to what Paul has been talking about. Some of you may come from strict fundamentalist background churches. Some of you may come from Catholic backgrounds. Whatever your background might be, if you have been programmed to see God as a vengeful and punishing God only, you may have been badly damaged in your Christian walk and perhaps are still damaged. In fact it is entirely possible that such people are living with serious emotional disorders because of guilt feelings they have for not being able to obey all of what they were told were God’s rules. Many pastors, priests, teachers, and parents have created feelings of guilt in children in order to keep them in line and fear the consequences if they were not obedient. We have no doubt that such people may even become suicidal.

We believe this is just another aspect of what Paul has described in the verses we have looked at. Whether you take a new believer and insist it is okay for them to do things they do not feel they should do, or whether you teach a new Christian that they should feel guilt over something for which there should be no guilt, you are causing that brother or sister to stumble. I sometimes wonder if people who do such things ever read their Bibles. Because if they knew the serious consequences of false teaching they would never dare do such things. Jesus gives the following warning for anyone who alters the truth of the Holy Scriptures by changing their meaning or by adding to or subtracting from the original text.

Revelation 22:18,19 NLT:
18 And I solemnly declare to everyone who hears the prophetic words of this book: If anyone adds anything to what is written here, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book.
19 And if anyone removes any of the words of this prophetic book, God will remove that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city that are described in this book.

James 3:1 NLT:
1 Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged by God with greater strictness.

So to summarize: Here are the principles believers should use when deciding about an activity:

1. Does Scripture forbid or command it?
2. Is the Holy Spirit guiding me?
3. Will it cause a brother or sister to stumble (fall into sin or delay their onward growth into faith)?
4.   If we cause another Christian to stumble or to disobey their conscience, we have contributed to their ruin.

Anyone who leads another Christian astray, or anyone else for that matter, away from the original and perfect teaching of the Word of God in the Bible will answer to God one day for their behavior. Do not allow that to happen to you. So whether it is leading another believer to where they will do something they think is a sin and it causes them guilt and shame, or whether you create that guilt and shame by telling them things about God and Jesus that are not true, we are to have no part in such behavior.[fn] We are to simply, as Paul said in verses 1 and 13 NLT:

“1 Accept Christians who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong. 13 Don’t condemn each other anymore. Decide instead to live in such a way that you will not put an obstacle in another Christian’s path.

And remember what Paul said earlier in Romans 13:8-10:

8 Pay all your debts, except the debt of love for others. You can never finish paying that! If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill all the requirements of God’s law.
9 For the commandments against adultery and murder and stealing and coveting—and any other commandment—are all summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

I hope you do not let the complete impact of these verses slip by you because they sum up the entire Bible. Keep it simple. Keep your eyes on the throne, and you will be blessed both in this life and in Heaven.

Isaiah

John

Romans

1 Peter


© Ron Teed - Used by permission. All rights Reserved.