Dear reader, do you know that God has bought you, not with silver and gold but with His precious blood? I want to remind you of what we covered in the second half of chapter six of Romans, that to whomsoever you surrender yourselves as slaves to him you belong, either to sin, which is by nature, or to God who is the author of righteousness. Verse nine says: For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. That is, He is the Lord of everyone who accepts Him, whether that one is dead or alive, because He will raise him up. Now verse ten: You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. If there was ever a time our church needed this counsel, it is now. That is why, when you and I disagree on nonfundamentals, I will respect you for your position. Please respect me for my position. If you want to ask me for the reason why I take my position, I will be more than happy to give it. But to condemn me because I don’t believe that there are two rooms in the heavenly sanctuary is a nonfundamental area. Verse 13: Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way. This brings us to the second area of the chapter and that is: edify one another. Look at verse 14: As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced [not by human beings but by the Lord] that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. This statement was a tough one because when I look at the word “unclean,” I discover that it is the same Greek word as is found in Acts 10:14 where Peter had to face the unclean animals. It is the same word. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. Now if you take this statement as a blanket statement, you will go the wrong way. You need to keep in mind what the context is in which you read this text. There were many Christians in Paul’s day who were saying that food that was offered to idols was unclean. So the issue here is not clean and unclean meats. That is not the issue. The issue here is that some people were saying that some foods were clean and some were saying that it was unclean. There were factions. Verse 15: If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Every one of us as Christians, whatever we may do, always affects our fellow Christians. Whatever you eat or drink, do it in relationship to God. Whatever you do, whatever you say, whatever your behavior may be does affect your fellow believers. Paul is advising us here that we must do nothing that will bring stumbling to our brother, nothing that will grieve our brother, and nothing that will cause our brother to give up his faith.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 02:44:01 +0000