How To Treat The Believers We Disagree With Series

- Sermon series: “How to Disagree.” Last week we established that there are disputable matters, which is an important category to understand. There may be theological issues about which sincere believers can have honest disagreement.

- Having established that, we move today onto the next logical subject: how do we treat those believers that we disagree with?

HOW WE NORMALLY HANDLE THEOLOGICAL DISAGREEMENTS WITH OTHER BELIEVERS: I’ve got it figured out and you’re an idiot.

- This, of course, is the overarching ethos of far too many arguments between Christians. Each is fully convinced of their truth and righteousness and is absolutely dumbfounded that anyone would have the audacity to disagree with them.

- What you end up with at a practical level is two people arguing past each other. Neither is really listening – they’re just waiting for a pause long enough to start telling you what they think. They’re not listening to learn; they’re listening to reply.

- At one level, this is a joke: two believers arguing to prove how right they are. But at a deeper level, there is a lot of damage done by these kinds of fights. Among the damage:

a. Many unbelievers hear these displays and think, “I don’t want any part of the church if this is how they treat each other.”

b. Believers can come to believe that it’s a spiritual productive activity to prove how right you are and think that they are doing Kingdom work when they do.

c. Believers can think that the point of gaining Biblical knowledge is to be able to prove how right you are, rather than growing to be more Christlike.

HOW GOD WANTS US TO HANDLE THEOLOGICAL DISAGREEMENTS WITH OTHER BELIEVERS: Accept him.

- Romans 14:1, 3a.

- Start with “accept” (v. 1).

- Not argue with him, not prove him wrong, not excommunicate him, not look sidelong at him as questionable, not condemn him. Accept him.

- What’s that mean, exactly, to “accept him”? I think it’s really simple: you treat him like a brother in Christ. You accept him as part of the family.

a. But his view is immature.

- It says “accept the weak.”

- v. 1.

- It’s easy to respond to the call to accept the brother we disagree with by objecting and saying, “But his view is immature.”

- That response doesn’t hold, though, because Paul specifically says to accept the one whose faith is “weak.”

- Now, what’s that mean, that someone’s faith is weak? It’s an interesting way to put it because it could go in a variety of directions.

- To use the example here, let’s talk about vegetables. This issue means nothing to us. Back then, though, some believers didn’t want to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols; others would. What was the thinking in each direction? The one eating only vegetables would say, “I don’t want to eat the meat sacrificed to idols because it’s been contaminated in some sense by that action.” The one who was ok eating that meat would say, “Those idols aren’t real so it didn’t actually change anything about the meat, so it’s ok to eat.” The one eating only vegetables might say, “Those other guys are weak because they’re not concerned enough about those who are sacrificing to idols to be willing to abstain.” Those eating the meat might say, “Those other guys are weak because nothing really changed there but they are acting like something did.”

- The point is simple: we all tend to think the person who disagrees with us is weak in their faith. If only they understood things like we do!

b. If he’s weak, can I at least look down at him? No, v. 3 says not to look down.

- v. 3.

- Even if I accept all of that, there is still a part of me that would like the feeling of superiority that comes with knowing how right I am. So I might look at the one I disagree with and think, “I’ll accept him, that poor stupid idiot.”

- But v. 3 tells us not to condemn him. That isn’t too difficult. But it also tells us not to look down on him. That part is more difficult. I’m not supposed to think of him as lesser than me.

- This, I think, is most difficult when you get into the mental part of it. We might not find it incredibly difficult to act civilly toward that person but in our mind we might hold onto the thought that we’re being nice to someone who is less insightful or mature than we are. We’re being gracious to someone lesser than us.

- No, we’re not supposed to look down on them.

- How can I do that? How can I accept him like that? That leads us to the next point.