Romans 14

God’s Short Manual on How to Love Your Neighbor and Yourself

 ¹Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.

 It thrills me that there are such things as disputable matters to read about in God’s Holy Word.  It is God who inspired Paul to address such debatable issues.

  ²One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. ³The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 

 Nobody wants to be known as ‘a Christian of weak faith.’  “Hello, this is Brother Doofus, our weak in the faith Christian.”   The Christian who has been given God’s permission to eat whatever is put before him must not ‘look down’ on a brother who is strict about what he puts in his mouth.  On the other hand, the strict brother must not ‘condemn’ the brother who eats everything placed before him.  The gavel has fallen and “Brother Better than I Am,” is not guilty for eating anything because scripture says, ‘God has accepted him.’ 

 Luke 7:33-35(ESV) preserves what Jesus said regarding a like issue.   

 ³³ For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ ³⁴ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ ³⁵ But wisdom is justified by all her children.

 Paul now begins in verse 4 to hammer us on our lack of qualifications to judge our neighbor:

⁴Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

 ⁵One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ⁶He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.

. ⁷For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. ⁸If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

 ⁹For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. ¹⁰You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat.

  ¹¹It is written:        

            " 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,
            'every knee will bow before me;
            every tongue will confess to God (Is.45:23).’"

¹²So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.  ¹³Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. ¹⁴As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. ¹⁵If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. ¹⁶Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. ¹⁷For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, ¹⁸because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

 ¹⁹Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.

Some time ago, a newspaper columnist shared a letter with her readers sent by the daughter of a woman who had recently become a Christian.  The pastor and his wife invited her over for dinner.  They served wine with the meal.  She assumed that it was all right for her to drink since the pastor had offered it to her at their home.  She became a drunk.

 ²¹It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.  ²²So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves.

 It is a fine thing to be free in Christ.  But, we must not do anything that will cause division within the body of Christ.  Our human nature wants to believe that whatever we prayerfully decide about a ‘disputable matter’ is obviously the most holy response.

  ²³But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

 Our love for our brother must be far more important than our need to be justified in fleshly matters.  On the flip side, if we make judgmental proclamations about what Christians ought to do and ought not to do, we are found to be exceeding “that which is written.” 

We are so different from each other.  God’s creativity has made each of us unique.   But we are one.  We are Christ’s body here on earth.  Jesus prayed, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that You have sent me (John 17:21).”

 God’s Word gives us precise instructions about our behavior regarding debatable issues: So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves.

                                                                                                                                 (Romans 14:22)

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