What Makes Us a Team

Scripture: Romans 14:1-12

 Welcome those who are weak in faith but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. ² Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. ³ Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat, for God has welcomed them. ⁴ Who are you to pass judgment on slaves of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

⁵ Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. ⁶ Those who observe the day, observe it for the Lord. Also those who eat, eat for the Lord, since they give thanks to God, while those who abstain, abstain for the Lord and give thanks to God.

⁷ For we do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. ⁸ 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. ⁹ For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

¹⁰ Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. ¹¹ For it is written,

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
    and every tongue shall give praise to God.”

¹² So then, each one of us will be held accountable.

Questions

1. How does Paul understand weakness and strength in this passage?
2. Who were the people Paul was referring to as weak?

Background

Related Scriptures: Matthew 18:21-35; Galatians 2:20

Weakness is not a weakness in faith in Jesus but a reliance on certain practices or scruples to bring one closer to Jesus. Strength is about confidence in one’s convictions.

Origen: A man who is weak in his faith is to be accepted and not rejected. For it is one thing to be weak in faith but quite another to be an unbeliever altogether. An unbeliever has no faith at all, but one who is merely weak has doubts about certain aspects of the faith.^[1]

Apollinaris of Laodicea: As far as matters of indifference are concerned, Paul says that it does not matter whether we do them or not, but when it comes to loving our neighbor, they cease to be matters of indifference. Any regulation concerning food is a matter of indifference, because everything has been sanctified by the power of Christ. But not everyone is so strong in his faith that he is in no danger of being corrupted by these things. Whether we injure such a person or do not injure him is not to be regarded as a matter of indifference, but we are to take great care to ensure that no one loses his soul by eating something which he thinks it might be wrong to eat.^[2]

Reflection

I wonder what it would have been like to be a member of one of the Roman congregations that received Paul’s letter and to hear this passage for the first time. Yes Paul was a known Apostle, but very few in the congregation knew him personally and here he is addressing our internal debates as if he has authority. And on top of that he seems to be downplaying the entire situation. It is likely that Paul is talking about debates over Sabbath keeping and Jewish food laws in this passage and these are not small topics. Sabbath keeping is prescribed in the Ten Commandments and the dietary laws being discussed would have related to idolatry. These are both serious issues in the Old Testament and surely related to how people understood their relationship with Jesus. Yet, Paul seemingly downplays both topics and does not even bring up the Biblical debates that certainly would have been occurring. He goes even further by calling those people who seem most concerned with upholding the traditional Biblical standard “weak”. How would these individuals be weak, it takes strength to live out the kind of discipline they are committing to. Further, we have no indication that these individuals think salvation is tied to abstaining from meat or observing the Sabbath. Instead, they likely thought of these as morality resulting from experiencing a relationship with God. So why would Paul call them weak? And Why would Paul downplay what I am sure were very intense and serious discussions about how to live a moral life in response to encountering Jesus?

I think Paul downplayed the controversy because as important as it might have been to the culture of the time it was not essential to being a Christian. A major theme of this letter has been unity and coming together as one body in Jesus and doing that requires us to think about what is truly essential to being a Christian. And as important as some of these debates might have seemed to those involved—and ours might seem to us today—Paul wanted the Roman churches to keep them in perspective. What is essential to us is laid our in the Apostles’ Creed the supremacy of God, the life death and resurrection of Jesus, and our unity in the Church until the end of the age. If we recognize what the essentials of belief are then we can recognize that from there Christianity boils down to loving God and loving one another (Mark 12:30-31). The difficulty comes though in the fact that we will always have disagreements about how to live out life in Jesus and this is what Paul is dealing with. He wants us to recognize the disagreements but to also recognize these disagreements should not be carried to a point where they impact our ability to love one another. After all, we are only fellow servants and it is not our place to judge one another, but we must let God be the judge of us all.

In terms of practical living this can be difficult because it means that we have to work with others to support them. We have to hold up those individuals who live out more disciplined lives than we might like and/or be understanding of those who are not as disciplined in their spiritual walk as we might want. It might take a tremendous amount of maturity to approach others in love and have genuine, sensitive conversations about how we approach our beliefs. On one hand we know that we have freedom in Jesus and are only held to the standard of loving God and loving neighbor. But on the other hand we know that we are supposed to hold to God’s standard for holiness and live lives distinct from the world. It can be difficult to hold these realities in tension and how we live this out is bound to cause tension with others at times. What Paul wants us to do in these situations is to focus on the fact that above all we are called to love each other. In the midst of the tensions we must remind ourselves of the essentials and charitably concede to our brothers and sisters at times. To those who want a more disciplined life this means remembering that the others are walking in faith and the freedom it provides. And to those walking in freedom it means supporting your sisters and brothers who feel a need for demonstrating greater discipline in their lives.

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^[1] Gerald Bray, ed., Romans (Revised), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture 325.

^[2] Gerald Bray, ed., Romans (Revised), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture 325.