Have you ever tried ordering water in the restaurant nowadays? First, the waiter asks, “Hot or cold water?” Let us say you chose cold water. He then asks, “Tap water or bottled water?” Okay, bottled water. “Mineral, alkaline, ionized, carbonated, flavored, purified or distilled?” So much to choose from!
Now let us look at Bible believers. Other than the assorted denominational labels, we also have all sorts of differences or preferences. To have long hair or short hair for women? To wear or not to wear makeup or jewelries? Skirts or pants? Traditional hymns or contemporary music? The list can go on and on. How do we deal with these differences? Should we debate or divide over these issues? How do we accept the different? Romans 14 gave us the answers. In our acronym A-C-C-E-P-T, so far we saw that we are to ACCEPT one another in Christ, CONCENTRATE on the essentials and CONCEDE differences. We will expand on the third point. Let us read Romans 14:1-8. “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The 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. Who 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. One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He 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. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If 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.”[1]
We have four commands in our passage today. Let me summarize these commands: “We are to accept each other just as God accepted us and not judge one another on matters of personal convictions.”
The first command is in verse 1: “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.” When the Bible talks about “disputable matters” or what we call “personal convictions,” we are not talking about essential doctrines. We saw last week that the Bible clearly spelled out for us the fundamental doctrines of our faith. We are to unite or agree with the essentials. We are also not talking about moral issues. Adultery is not a matter of preference. You cannot tell the truth only when it is convenient. When the Bible specifically commands it or prohibits it, we ought to obey it. We are not free to change or suit it to our wants. These are clearly written in black and white in the Word of God. What we mean by “disputable matters” are amoral issues or what we call “gray areas.” Those are things not clearly spelled out in the Bible.
Our passage cites two examples. Verse 2 says, “One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.” The apostle Paul was not talking of health issues here. He was talking about dietary practices for religious reasons. There are believers who because of their religious background could not eat certain kinds of food. For example, there are Muslims who became Christians. But still they can’t eat pork. Should we encourage them to eat bacon? No, we don’t have to. Another example Paul gave is the matter of observing holidays. Verse 5 says, “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike.” Should we still observe fiestas? What about Holy Week, All Saint’s Day, Christmas or New Year?
The answers are not clearly spelled out in the Bible.
But the Bible commanded us to accept one another in Christ despite of our differences of opinions. “Fellowship among Christians is not to be based on everyone’s agreement on disputable questions. Christians do not agree on all matters pertaining to the Christian life, nor do they need to.”[2]
The key phrase here is “whose faith is weak”. It refers to “overscrupulous believers… the faith of such persons is not strong enough to enable them to perceive the full liberty they have in Christ.”[3] Let me give a contemporary example. When you look at canned goods, you would notice the “halal” logo, which is an Arabic term for “permissible.” Generally, “it most frequently refers to food that is permissible according to Islamic law… anything that is permissible under Islam.”[4] Personally, I believe we can still eat it. But some would not because the word can also mean that the meat for example was slaughtered according to Islamic rituals. Even if they are already free to eat those things as Christians, because of past associations they cannot eat in good conscience. How should we treat them? We are to accept them “without passing judgment on disputable matters.” It means to “welcome, but not for the purpose of getting into quarrels about opinions”.[5] That means we don’t even have to debate it. We can discuss it so that we can better understand each other. But we are not to force people to agree with us. We can accept one another without agreeing with each other. We can still respect one another even if we disagree or even if we don’t see eye to eye on issues.
Such issues should not affect our relationship with each other. We are commanded in verse 3: “The 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.” The words “look down” means “to consider as nothing, to treat with contempt, to disregard, to despise, to disdain”.[6] We are not to condemn people as “too strict” or “narrow-minded” if they take a more conservative stance. We should not label them “too permissive” if they take a more liberal stance. Note the clause “for God has accepted him.” Nothing that we do or don’t do will ever make God love us more or less. If God can accept each one of us, then we can also accept one another.
One time, my best friend and his family went to our house to spend the night with us. Now my friend does not allow his kids to read or watch “Harry Potter”. Personally, I allow my kids to do so. When his kids saw the DVDs, they asked, “How come Uncle Eric allows his kids to watch?” Kids are really good at pitting parents against each other. But I told them, “The fact that I allow my kids to watch Harry Potter does not make me a better father than your dad. The fact that he does not allow you to watch does not make him a better father than me.” That night we watched another movie that is acceptable to both families. That’s how it works.
The last command is in verse five: “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” The phrase “fully convinced” means assured or certain. In the Amplified Bible it says, “Let everyone be fully convinced (satisfied) in his own mind.” Another translation goes like this: “But each of you should make up your own mind.”[7] You have to know why you hold those convictions. We also need to evaluate them. We need to make sure we hold them for the right reasons. For it is our personal response to the lordship of Christ. Verse six says, “He 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.” Note that we do it for God, not for ourselves. Ultimately, we are responsible to God for our preferences. Verse 4 says, “Who are you to condemn someone else’s servants? They are responsible to the Lord, so let him judge whether they are right or wrong. And with the Lord’s help, they will do what is right and will receive his approval.”[8] There are times people claim “personal convictions” more as an excuse for their disobedience. But He is more concerned with our commitment than our convenience, our character more than our comfort.
Let us look at some questions to weigh our convictions. We will expand it more in the next messages. 1 Corinthians 6:12 say, “‘Everything is permissible for me’—but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible for me’—but I will not be mastered by anything.” Yes, we have freedom in Christ. But our exercise of freedom must be responsible. We have freedom of speech but that does not mean we can shout “fire” in a movie house.
The first question to ask is, “Is it beneficial?” Will it benefit me physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually? For example, is smoking beneficial? We would have to answer “no.” Is watching television beneficial? Here we see that we have no clear-cut answers. It depends on what we are watching.
The second question is, “Does it bring me under its control?” A neutral thing can become sin to each one of us if it controls us, if it becomes our preoccupation. Watching television is not necessarily wrong. But if it eats up all of our time, then it becomes sin to us.
Let us jump to 1 Corinthians 8:9. “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” The third question is, “Does it cause others to stumble?” The issue is not just simply offending others. It is causing somebody to do something against his conscience. For example, let us say a person decided to stop playing badminton for some time. Yes, the sport is beneficial. But, she felt it is becoming an obsession for her. In a sense, it became a sin for her. So, she sets aside the sport until she feels that it no longer has a “hold” on her. Suppose, somebody who has no such issues about badminton sweet-talks that person to play badminton. Then he caused the person to stumble or violate her conscience.
1 Corinthians 10:31 tell us, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” So, the last question is, “Does it glorify God?” In the end, we do things not for ourselves but for the Lord. Romans 14:7-8 tells us, “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If 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.” These are the questions we need to ask as we weigh our convictions so we would be fully convinced in our mind.
I remember when Philip, one of our classmates in seminary, died in a basketball accident. Keep in mind that International Graduate School of Leadership has a multi-cultural environment. So, when the family held the wake in the school’s chapel, we witnessed a clash of cultures. Some nationalities were shocked to see Filipinos chatting and eating during the wake. They said that in their country all they do is weep. Then, others were surprised when they saw the relatives of Philip wearing makeup. They said it is not like that in their country. But it is a good thing we decided not to allow our differences to rob us of the privilege of ministering to each other. We focused on mourning together and comforting each other. I think that’s a great picture of conceding differences, by accepting each other just as God accepted us and not judging one another on matters of personal convictions.
Let us pray…
[1]All Bible verses are from the New International Version, unless otherwise noted.
[2]The NIV Study Bible
[3]The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halal
[5]The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament.
[6]Ibid.
[7]Contemporary English Version
[8]New Living Translation
