The "Weak" and the "Strong"
Romans 14:1-12
14 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3 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. 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.
5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 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. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
10 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; 11 for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”
12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Who are the “weak” and who are the “strong?”
Remember that Paul is a pastor as well as a church planter, and he’s writing to real people in a real church in Rome. These people have divisions and difficulties, and Paul is writing to help them live fully into Christ.
At the time Paul is writing, the church in Rome is divided—there are Jewish Christians and there are Gentile Christians, and how they worship and live their lives is influenced by their relationship to the Mosaic Law (the Old Testament food laws).
The group Paul calls the “weak” are the Jewish Christians who still follow the Mosaic Laws and who are really troubled by the Gentile Christian practice of not following the Mosaic Laws. These Jewish Christians are passing judgment on the Gentile Christians who do not keep kosher. The reason Paul calls them the “weak” is because their conscience is seriously troubled by the thought of no longer needing to follow the Mosaic Law.
The Mosaic Law was necessary before Jesus as a sign of the Old Covenant—God asked His people to keep kosher as a way of showing their commitment to the covenant and membership in His people.
But, after the Resurrection, membership in God’s people is not defined by the Mosaic Law, but by faith. The problem is that for some of the Jewish Christians, this is really hard for them to mentally accept—it’s a huge change from how they were brought up.
1 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3 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. 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 14:1–4].
Paul wants the Gentile Christians to be understanding of the Jewish Christians who are scandalized by the fact that Christians no longer have to follow the Mosaic dietary and ceremonial laws. He reminds them that both the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians serve the same Lord, and so on these matters Paul reminds the Roman Christians that each person will have to stand in their conscience before Jesus, and that the Lord is with them.
5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 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. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
10 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; 11 for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”
12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God [Romans 14:5–12].
In the same way that the Jewish Christians—due to their upbringings—observed certain Jewish dietary laws differently than did the Gentile Christians, so also they observed Jewish Old Testament holidays and sabbaths differently than did the Gentile Christians; Paul reminds them that it all belongs to God, and each Christian is going to have to stand before God.
How do you know the difference between small issues—over which Christians can come to different opinions in good faith—and big issues—about which Christians must be united? The short, self-serving answer: reading and studying Paul’s Letter to the Romans would be a good start! The more we allow Romans to transform our thoughts, the more we will better be able to see the difference between the big issues over which there can be no compromise, and the small issues where we can agree to disagree.
This is why I want Asbury to be a Bible-reading church—so we will be able to discern God’s will for us and know what the big issues are we must hold onto no matter the cost.
Let me close with what might seem like a silly example, but one I feel could be helpful to us at Asbury.
Every Sunday morning, we have two main services in our Sanctuary:
A 9:00 AM “traditional” service
An 11:00 AM “modern” service
(We also have two much smaller services in our chapel—Thursdays at 6 PM and Sundays at 8 AM. Together they account for only about 13% of our total average weekly attendance.)
I have found that people at Asbury make value judgments on those who attend either the traditional or modern services, and I don’t think this sort of attitude is helpful. In fact, I think it is harmful for the unity of the body at Asbury. I think we can all agree that musical preference is not a moral issue—you may believe that this form or that form of music is aesthetically and spiritually superior, but it’s not immoral for other people to prefer to worship in a different style.
You may very well be correct in your judgment that X style is superior to Y style. But when it comes to music—and much else in our church—let us beware that we let our preferences cause us to become puffed up with pride.
A small example, but an important one, I think.
P.S. I think 14:7-8 are just beautiful:
7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 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].