Local churches are filled with all kinds of peeps - race, culture, backgrounds… = nothing wrong with this! The church was never meant to be a club of like-minded peeps of the same race, social, economic, intellect, etc… Believers were never meant to be equal & identical in all aspects. BUT this will always be a challenge! The Church is made up of young, old, rich, poor, various personalities, backgrounds… Other groups are not like this. They tend to have limitations on membership. NOT so with the church – variety is good! (1 Cor 12)
HOW THEN do we co-exist when we are different? Because where two or three are gathered, there will be conflict! First of all, we must define “weak” and “strong”.
The WEAK are the legalists (often new believers) who tend to look at their liberated brother/sister as too loose & undisciplined. Now, legalism is NOT the same as having convictions. God Himself is a God of law, unchanging perfect ones at that! We all have convictions we live by, and we should. But historically man has not been content w/ God’s standards, so we add to them! (Ex: Gen. 3:3 , Gen. 2:16-17) And then we make them a gauge of spirituality..i.e. “keep the rules & you’ll be spiritual” Legalism is “…the tendency to reduce Christianity to a set of rules rather than a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” (Truman Dollar) When we put RULES ABOVE RELATIONSHIP! This can be very judgmental & eliminates the need for people to make Biblical decisions because personal, moral decisions are being made for them. This LEGALISTIC SYSTEM RESULTS in frustration, misery and tends to produce morally weak people who live with guilt because they haven’t lived by some man-made standards!
The STRONG are those liberty/freedom in Christ understanders. They tend to look at their legalistic brothers/sisters as too rigid. Remember, freedom in Christ is not the freedom to do whatever you want. Freedom in Chris is the freedom to choose to do what is right without the “rules” being present. It’s truly understanding GRACE! So – here are the two points in chapter 14:
1) ACCEPT DIFFERING CONVICTIONS WITHOUT JUDGING: (1-12)
“Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.” So what are these disputable matters? Well, here are just a few: Facebook, movies, TV, cards, games, coed swimming, paintball, laser tag, computer games, Dave & Busters, skateboarding, clothes, make-up, jewelry, hair length, earrings, parenting, Music – style, beat, etc…,, dating/courting, birth control, home/public/private schooling, language, Bible translations, giving, worship, food, Sunday activities, politics, debt/credit, drinking wine/alcohol, dancing, smoking, environmental issues, cloning, stem cell research, life support, drugs, Disney?, cell phone providers, United Way?, separation, Halloween, Santa Claus, yadda, yadda, yadda…
Why accept him? Because God does! (3b). And why does God? Because it was done as unto the Lord (4-10a) and I will answer to God for MY life, not everyone else’s (10b-12)
2) BE SENSITIVE TO OTHERS CONVICTIONS WITHOUT JUDGING: (13-23)
“Therefore” because of vs 12, we need to stop condemning others and making them jump through legalistic hoops. Why? Because nothing is unclean in itself (14) and when we do so we are no longer acting in love (15). So what is he goal of all of this? “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” “These things” are the disputable matters and we are to keep them to ourselves & God (22). In other words, we are not to push our convictions on disputable matters on others. And remember, “everything that does not come from faith is sin.”
SO WHAT?
*Have Convictions! We need them! What are some of the convictions you have? Maybe write them out. Do they fall under “directly addressed in scripture” or are they “disputable matters?”
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