Romans 14:1-12
Certainly, we must be better than other churches.
We teach the Bible. We are free to
eat bacon. We can mow our lawns on Sunday. We go to movies, have televisions
and have musical instruments in our worship services.
I am picking on a narrow range of
topics. Some churches teach that a Christian should not eat certain foods. I
like bacon, so I chose bacon as a
representative food. Some churches teach that a Christian should not work
Sunday, so I chose mowing the lawn as a representative
activity.
All Christian churches should
teach the Bible. This is taught in both
the Old and New Testaments. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says:
And
these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach
them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your
house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
(Deuteronomy
6:6-7 ESV)
And, 2 Timothy 3:16 says:
All
Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness, (2 Timothy 3:16 ESV)
When Jesus returned to heaven
after making atonement for our sins, He left us with what is known as the great commission. He said:
Go
therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that
I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
(Matthew 28:19-20 ESV)
In this commission, He tells us to
“teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Teaching what He has
commanded requires that we teach the Word
of God, the Bible. The difficulty comes when we have different understandings
of how these commands are to be put into practice.
The Church in Rome was made up of
both Jews and Gentiles. For those who grew up in Jewish households, the
observation of the Old Testament dietary restrictions and of the Sabbath and
feast days would have been ingrained in them from their earliest days.
Therefore, for some of these, it was a
difficult thing to give up these traditions.
The Apostle Peter had a difficult
time giving up these traditions and even argued with God briefly about it. God
decided to have Peter share the Gospel with a Gentile named Cornelius. Before
telling Peter that He wanted him to go to Cornelius, God gave Peter a vision. A
blanket descended from heaven, and it was
full of ceremonially unclean animals, animals that an observant Jew would never
touch or eat. Then a voice said, get up Peter, kill something and eat it. Acts
10:14-16 tells us:
But
Peter said, "By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is
common or unclean." And the voice came to him again a second time,
"What God has made clean, do not call common." This happened three
times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven. (Acts 10:14-16 ESV)
Can you imagine? Peter told God no
three times! However, the message was clear. “What God has made clean do not
call common.” Having received this message, Peter then went to Cornelius and
shared the Gospel with Him, which opened the door of the Gospel to the
Gentiles. Even given this, later on, Paul says of Peter:
But
when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood
condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the
Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the
circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by
their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the
truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a
Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to
live like Jews?" (Galatians 2:11-14
ESV)
Peter had a revelation from God,
which led to him becoming the first to
preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, and yet even he had difficulty giving up the
Jewish traditions and ways. In Galatians, Paul rebuked Peter for sectarianism.
However, in His letter to the believers in Rome, He is addressing how we are to
treat and live with believers who differ with us in their understanding of how
to live the Christian life. He uses as his examples food and days. Some did not
eat meat and some observed days, such as the Sabbath.
In Romans 14:3, Paul addresses the
two temptations that face us when we differ in our opinions on matters of
practice. Romans 14:3 says:
Let not
the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains
pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. (Romans 14:3 ESV)
The two temptations are to despise
or to judge. Generally speaking and consistent with the passage, the one who
eats will be tempted to despise the one
who does not. In other words, if I feel I have freedom in Christ to go to
movies and eat popcorn, the temptation will be for me to look down on the one
who does not. Or, for another example, if I enjoy musical instruments in
worship, the temptation will be for me to look down on the one who does not.
Corresponding to this temptation, there is the temptation for those who abstain
to judge those who eat. In other words, if I go to the movies and eat
popcorn, the one who does not could be tempted to judge my actions as being
unbecoming or not fit for a Christian. Or, as in the previous example, the
non-instrumental music crowd could be tempted to judge me as unChristian for
enjoying instruments in my music.
Paul offers three strong arguments
to suggest why we should not despise or judge our fellow believers when they
are seeking to serve the Lord the best they know how.
First, he says they are the
servants of another.
We find this in Romans 14:4.
Who are
you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master
that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make
him stand. (Romans 14:4 ESV)
“Who are you to pass judgment on
the servant of another?” This implies that the other Christian is the servant
of the Lord. He or she is not my servant. He
or she is not your servant. He or she is the servant of the Lord.
There are many
things that are clearly sin. For example,
murder is clearly not a practice fitting for a Christian. Lying, malice, envy,
stealing, adultery, sexual immorality, and
many such things give us cause to question if the one practicing such things is
a servant of the Lord. These are indications that one is not a servant of the
Lord.
However, there are many things
that one might do as an attempt to obey the Lord about which we might disagree.
For example, I have already mentioned music, but what about baptism? One person
gets immersed in obedience to the Lord, and another gets sprinkled. Which is
right? One person worships on Saturday and does no
work on that day, and another worships on Sunday. Which is right?
This is the kind of situation in
which it is important to remember that our fellow believer is the servant of
the Lord. It does not matter if their practice makes me uncomfortable when they
are doing what they are doing to please
the Lord.
The first argument that Paul
presents as a reason not to despise or judge is that our fellow believer is the
servant of another. The second argument is similar.
The second argument is that we all
belong to the Lord.
We find this in Romans 14:7-8.
For
none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we
live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live
or whether we die, we are the Lord's. (Romans 14:7-8 ESV)
We tend to think that we have the
right view. Each of us has our own set of experiences. From these accumulated
experiences we learn and grow and develop our own particular view of the world. Becoming proud and puffed up
is a danger to all of us in this process. In 1 Corinthians 8:1-2 when dealing
with the question of eating certain foods Paul says:
Now
concerning food offered to idols: we know that "all of us possess
knowledge." This "knowledge" puffs up, but love builds up. If
anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to
know. (1 Corinthians 8:1-2
ESV)
This pride in the knowledge that
they had gained was a problem in the Corinthian church. This is why Paul had
earlier said:
So let
no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or
Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are
yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23 ESV)
Again in 1 Corinthians 4:7 he
says:
For who
sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If
then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? (1 Corinthians 4:7 ESV)
What I am trying to point out in
all these verses is that to judge or look down on a fellow believer because of
differing practices is a symptom of the sin of pride. I am the Lord’s, and I answer to the Lord for how I live and
serve Him. You are the Lord’s and you answer
to the Lord for how you live and serve Him. Where is there room for pride? Are
my experiences somehow better or more significant than yours? One grew up
observing the Sabbath, and another grew
up not observing the Sabbath. Is one
better than the other because of how they grew up? Both received their
experiences from the Lord and were individually called by Him to serve.
The second argument against despising or
judging our fellow believer is that we all belong to the Lord. The third
argument Paul gives is that we each will give
an account of ourselves to God.
Romans 14:10 says:
Why do
you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For
we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; (Romans 14:10 ESV)
We will each stand before the judgment seat of
God. When I stand before God, I will not answer for whether my fellow believer
used instruments or not. I will answer for my own obedience to the Lord Jesus
Christ. My lawyer is Jesus Christ so I will be okay. My fellow believer has the
same lawyer so he will be okay. This is why Romans 14:3 says, “It is before his
own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able
to make him stand.”
The key to this third argument is
found in Romans 14:11.
for it
is written, "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and
every tongue shall confess to God." (Romans 14:11 ESV)
“Every knee shall bow to me, and
every tongue confess to God.” In the end, God will be glorified. The call
of these three arguments combined is that we should live with the realization
that we will each give an account to God for the deeds done in our body.
Good clear treatment of the passage. Differing ideas about Christian practice are real issues still.
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