Church and Disputes of Faith

CHURCH AND DISPUTES OF FAITH 
Romans 14:1 Accept and receive those who are weak in the faith, though not with a view to settling disputes. Don’t criticize them for having different ideas from yours about what is right and wrong.

When Paul wrote his only letter to the church in Rome he had never been there and didn’t get to go there for many years to come. The Roman church was a mixture of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians and there were disputes between the groups about how to honour God. The Jewish Christians believed that they had to stay faithful to the Old Testament food laws about abstaining from meat and to the observance of all the Jewish Sabbaths, while the Gentile Christians were growing in a robust New Testament faith with freedom in the simplicity that was in Christ. 

Each group had a differently developed conscience regarding the rights and wrongs of the practice of Christianity and harsh and unloving judgement of one another was going on between them. Paul had been among the most learned of Jewish teachers and was also the one that God had given revelation to concerning the Gospel of Christ as the Saviour of the whole world, so he was the one chosen by God to address these critical issues of religious division. Paul wanted to see the Jewish Christians become stronger in faith in the simplicity of Christ, and he wanted the Gentile Christians to not boast about their stronger faith but to exercise faith that worked through love (Galatians 5:6).

Romans 14:2 For instance, don’t argue with them about whether or not to eat meat that has been offered to idols. You may believe there is no harm in this, but the faith of others is weaker; they think it is wrong and will go without any meat at all and eat vegetables rather than eat that kind of meat. Those who think it is all right to eat such meat must not look down on those who won’t. And if you are one of those who won’t, don’t find fault with those who do. For God has accepted them to be his children. They are God’s servants, not yours. 4. They are responsible to him, not to you. Let him tell them whether they are right or wrong (the work of the Holy Spirit). And God is able to make them do as they should (Philippians 2:13).

Paul believed and preached the simplicity of Christ and that the Old Testament rites and ordinances were just shadows of the reality that was Christ. He himself came under criticism from both sides of these disputes because he had freedom in his faith to both comply with the Jewish rites or to discard them. He said he had become all things to all men that he might win more people to Christ ‘I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings (1Corinthians 9:1). Paul lived a life of faith that worked though love. He taught that the old life of limited human effort passes through the cross and is resurrected into a new living work of the Spirit of God within us. God commends the work of faithfulness, but he empowers the work of faith.

Romans 14:5 Some think that Christians should observe certain days as special days to worship God, but others say every day alike belongs to God. On questions of this kind everyone must decide for himself in his own mind (nous)

This word nous is a description of the conscience, and it is described as the intellectual understanding and reason as the capacity for spiritual truth, the higher powers of the soul, the faculty of perceiving divine things, and of recognising good and evil –- The other Greek word for conscience in the Bible is sunedeisis which means to perceive a notion of something in dialogue with one’s own mind). 

Romans 14:6 If you have special days for worshiping the Lord, you are trying to honor him so you are doing a good thing. So is the person who eats meat that has been offered to idols; he is thankful to the Lord for his provision and he is doing right. And the person who won’t touch such meat, he, too, is anxious to please the Lord, and is thankful. We are not our own masters to live or die as we ourselves might choose. Living or dying we follow the Lord. Either way we are his. Christ died and rose again for this very purpose, so that he can be our Lord both while we live and when we die.
You have no right to criticize your brother or look down on him. Each of us will stand personally before the Judgment Seat of God and will give an account of himself to God.
(And the inner motivation of the hearts will be revealed - 1Corinthians 4:5)

The Jewish Christians observed the Old Testament Commandment of Sabbath days of gathering together as a time of resting from all worldly labour and effort in order to honour God. 

The Gentile Christians mostly observed Sunday for gathering together to worship and share fellowship in the breaking of bread and the preaching of the Word because Sunday came to be called the Lord’s Day by the first Christians in the Book of Acts (Ch.20). It replaced the Jewish Sabbath to honour the day that Jesus rose from the dead, on the first day of the week, and it was the day on which Paul directed them to give their tithes and offerings to the lord (1Corinthians 16:2). Paul would preach in the synagogues on the Saturdays whenever he had an opportunity in his travels, and he would gather with Gentile Christians on a Sunday. 

But Paul really saw every day as a Sabbath day of resting in the finished work of Jesus by living to the Lord and with the Lord day in and day out, not for just one seventh of the week. 

Romans 14:13 So don’t criticize each other anymore. Try instead to live in such a way that you will never make your brother stumble by letting him see you doing something he thinks is wrong. As for myself, I am perfectly sure on the authority of the Lord Jesus that there is nothing really wrong with eating meat that has been offered to idols. But if someone believes it is wrong, then he shouldn’t do it because for him it is wrong. And if your brother is bothered by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you go ahead and eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died. Don’t do anything that will cause criticism against yourself even though you know that what you do is right.
For, after all, the important thing for us as Christians is not what we eat or drink but stirring up goodness and peace and joy from the Holy Spirit. If you let Christ be Lord in these affairs, God will be glad; and so will others. In this way aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.

The word for conscience is a word of significant meaning for our inner life. Our English word derives from two words, con=with, and science=knowledge. This knowledge stems from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the management of knowing good from evil differs with each individual. We noted earlier the other Greek words for conscience in the Bible, nous and sunedeisis. The conscience is a spiritual sensibility about what is right and wrong that God places in each person’s heart, then as children we are taught what is right and wrong by parents according to their religion and culture and community values, and some children develop a more moral sensibility than others. 

Romans 14:20 Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

The conscience for Israel was formed by the Ten Commandments and provided the most complete and most comprehensive fountain of the wisdom and knowledge of God’s nature which was designed to bring them to maturity individually and as a community. The Commandments express God’s ideology of relational integrity between us and God and between us and one another.

Under the New Covenant the wisdom and knowledge of God contained in the Commandments is written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. In this way we become led into all truth, directed, guided and steered as the Holy Spirit arranges learning events for us so that we come to know God and become known of God. 

The story of the Apostle Peter is an example of this journey of transformation from a constricted Jewish religious conscience into a clear and strong Christian conscience. His first lesson was when he argued with God about having to eat with and visit with a Gentile Centurion which was strictly against Jewish Law, but this Gentile wanted to hear the Gospel. God won the argument and the Centurion and his household were saved.
Peter was even rebuked by Paul in front of the other Apostles for causing division in the Gentile church at Antioch. Peter had been eating freely with the Gentile Christians for some time but when a group of Jewish Christian leaders were sent from Jerusalem to check out the church Peter refused to eat with the Gentiles and caused much division and offense. He learned many lessons the hard way and his transformation of conscience was accompanied by a transformation from his ethnic and religious identity into his true eternal and spiritual identity in Christ.

It is on this journey where we all come to find our true identity which was created by God in our spirit in eternity before we were born. As we grow in the freedom of faith and love through the grace of God, we ultimately become the real self that can be expressed through our transformed soul each day of our life.