Trapped In Potholes, Romans 14:1-12
Introduction
I recently read the story of a man who, in 2006, was driving along a road in Pune India, a city located in the Maharashtra province of central India. The man was driving a common mode of transportation in India, his motorcycle with its mighty 2 stroke engine, through torrential rains on a road that was less than well paved. He did not travel alone, however, seated atop his gas tank with its paws resting on the handle bars was his pet cat; apparently Indian cats enjoy riding in this fashion.
He came to a point in the road where he fell into a ditch more than 10 feet deep that had been created by the incessant rains. The man and his disgruntled soaking wet cat stayed in that ditch for nearly half an hour until some local law enforcement officers took notice of their plight and eventually rescued them out of the muddy ditch where they had been trapped.
Often, we get trapped in muddy ditches of fruitless activity. In Romans 14:1 the Apostle Paul writes, “Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things.” (NKJV) Or “not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions.” (NASB) Or “without passing judgment on disputable matters.” (NIV)
When we get trapped in conflicts within the church, be it the local church or the body of Christ at large, over disputable matters, it is like getting trapped in potholes out of which we can not seem to climb.
As the God’s people we do well lay aside matters of preference in favor of matters of eternal value. We do well not to allow secondary matters of faith distract us from the goal of seeing unity thrive among us, unity in the local fellowship and unity in the body of Christ, just as Jesus prayed in the garden on that fateful evening for believers everywhere, “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (John 17:21 NKJV)
Transition
This morning we will be walking through the first section in Romans chapter 14. This passage outlines what some have called the law of Christian liberty or “soul liberty.” That is the biblical mandate for each believer to walk in accordance with his or her own conscience as they walk after Christ. Today our focus will be on Christian Liberty as it is written in Leviticus 25:10 “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”
Exposition
The historical context of Romans 14 is incredibly important. You see, the Apostle Paul is exhorting Jewish and Gentile Christians toward unity in spite of differences of opinion on secondary matters. In this passage the Apostle Paul deals primarily with two of these disputable matters; diet and the precise time for the Sabbath.
Jews living in the Roman Empire stood out because of their dietary restrictions. In fact, they were at time ridiculed for their abstaining from pork, which was a meat that the Romans ate commonly. For an orthodox and committed Jew the matter of kosher dietary laws was serious business which they lived out with zeal.
Leviticus 11:44-45 says, “For I am the LORD your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy. Neither shall you defile yourselves with any creeping thing that creeps on the earth. For I am the LORD who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” (NKJV)
The trouble was that when many Jews converted to Christianity, when they accepted Christ as their long promised Messiah, many of them brought their dietary restrictions with them. While they accepted Christ atonement for sin, they felt compelled, most likely as part of their national identity, to maintain their separation as God’s people by way of their dietary laws.
So, what the early church had were Jewish converts to Christianity who were not quick to give up their dietary customs and Gentile Roman converts who were equally slow to adopt the Jewish diet or give up their own; specifically here in Rome but no doubt in other locations as well, which caused division.
In Acts chapter ten and eleven we read of Peter, a devout Jewish convert, disciple, and Apostle, who is shown a vision from God of non-kosher animals and told to rise and kill and eat. This was a radical departure for a devout Jew and certainly something that caused a lot of division among believers in the early Church.
In Acts 10:11-15 the Lord says to Peter, “and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth. In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. And a voice came to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” And a voice spoke to him again the second time, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” (NKJV)
Peter’s vision is a twofold lesson from God. First, the law had been fulfilled in Christ. Old legalistic dietary restrictions were never intended to save the Jewish people. There were intended to keep the Jewish people separate and pure so that God would ultimately use them to bring forth the Messiah, the savior of all.
The second lesson of the vision was similar to the first; God in Christ has indeed called both the Jew and the Gentile to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17 NKJV)
Even with this revelation from God available to the early Church, however, many Jewish converts insisted on maintaining their dietary restrictions. The Apostle Paul makes the point that whether one chooses to keep the dietary restrictions or not matters very little for the sake of unity in the body of Christ. He said that this is a matter of opinion and a secondary matter of faith.
Also, there was also a dispute over the appropriate time of the week to celebrate the Lord’s Day, the Sabbath. We see this played out to this very day. When we read a passage like this from the New Testament it is so easy to forget that these were people groups with various backgrounds who had come together in Christ.
The Jewish people had long since been seen as radical religious zealots of Yahweh. They dressed differently, looked differently, ate different foods, and practiced a very strict sort of religion that pagan society often mocked. When a convert to Christianity, therefore, came from a Jewish or Roman background they came with significant cultural differences.
God had gathered together in Rome a truly blended church which brought with it the inevitable cultural clashes of human preference. What the Apostle Paul told the church at Rome was to set aside secondary matters of preference, of diet and of which day to celebrate the Sabbath in favor of unity in the blood of Christ.
What the Apostle Paul was telling them was not to get trapped in the potholes of personal preference, opinion, but rather, to build unity in the body of Christ around the essentials; the Cross, the empty tomb, the Holy Spirit within us.
Two neighbors, a barrel maker and a farmer, were spending the evening together. Both were professors of religion, but of different denominations. Their conversation was first on topics relating to practical religion, but after a time it shifted to the difference between the two denominations to which they belonged.
It first became a discussion, and then a dispute. The barrel maker was the first to perceive its unprofitable and injurious tendency, and remarked, “We are springing apart from each other. Let us pray.” They kneeled down and prayed together, after which they spent the remainder of the evening lovingly together, conversing on the things of the kingdom in which they both felt an equal interest. The suggestion of the barrel maker was an excellent one, and it were well if it were acted on more frequently by those who, like him, are members of the household of Christ.
We ought not to let our differences on secondary matters, disputable matters separate us; be it here in the local fellowship or within the context of the body of Christ generally. This is at the very heart of what it has meant, historically, to be a Congregational Christian. We have a great heritage of affirming a type of Christian Liberty which is both biblical and wonderful.
The trouble is that many churches in our day have exchanged liberty for license.
Rather than viewing soul liberty, that is freedom of the individual to follow after Christ as his or her personal Lord and personal savior according to the Bible, they have perverted this kind of freedom to believe and adhere to any number of strange and even perverse doctrines and distortions of the truth.
Dear saints of God, please hear me when I say that being Congregational does not mean that we have no creed or standard. It means that the Bible alone is our creed and Christ alone is our standard. This is not only the hallmark of the Congregational Way, but I am convinced that this is at the heart of all true and pure Christianity. Christ alone is the head of His Church.
Congregational Churches have historically had only two requirements for membership in the local Church; faith in Jesus Christ and an affirmation of the covenant of His local church. The freedom of conscience which Historic and Biblical Congregational Churches have long affirmed is the freedom to follow Christ and not man or, as the Apostle Paul tells the Romans in today’s Scripture reading, man’s preferences, his opinions, or his disputable matters.
There are far too many divisions in the body of Christ. The schismatic denominationalism that we see all around us is evidence of this. There are those who hide in their caves, as it were, exalting their own understanding or misunderstanding of the Scriptures as the only way. There are those who even go so far as to say that only their denomination has found favor with God or only their group has gotten it right.
My question to them is simply this; is God so small that I can put him in a box of my making? Is God so little that He only loves Congregationalist; Baptist; Lutheran; Catholic; Seventh Day Adventist; Surely not! There is but one Christ who died for all humanity. All who profess faith in Christ are members of one body, members of one baptism, whether it was administered through immersion, pouring, or sprinkling.
We are members of one faith if we profess faith in Jesus of Nazareth who lived a perfect life, suffered on a Cross for sin, and rose again, confirming His claims. The isolationism in the body of Christ between denominations and churches is destroying our witness to the world. If we can not love one another as believers how can our love be valid for the world? If our lives as believers do not reflect a different sort of love than that of the world then what have to offer?
An old deacon was once asked about the state of his church. He replied, “We are in sad straits; the church is slipping back, getting worse all the time; but, thank the Lord, none of the other churches in our neighborhood are doing any better.”
Unity in the body of Christ is difficult. We live in times when many Christian Churches have been infected with postmodernism and have laid aside the Bible in favor of various other ideas. Our calling, though, inasmuch as we are able, is to build unity on the basis of the Cross; not on the basis of our preferences.
Johann Tauler said, “None understand better the nature of real distinction than those who have entered into unity.” Though difficult to achieve it must be sought.
Conclusion
Individually as believers walking out the faith of Christ in the context of our own lives and corporately as the body of Christ, we must learn to lay aside matters of preference in favor of eternal matters of Christ love for the world.
As individual believers we must continually remind ourselves not to get stuck in potholes; fruitless arguments on matters of preference. Our focus should be on unified worship of Christ and Him alone.
Just like the early Church, we too have different backgrounds and preferences. It is not our unified preferences which bring us together, it is the love of Christ which unifies us in the Holy Spirit in a way that nothing else can do.
Amen.
