Chapter # 14 Paragraph # 1 Study # 2
February 7, 2021
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: Operating on a "Love" basis means addressing the underlying attitudes that cause "loveless" rejection of others for no good cause.
Introduction: In biblical Christianity, "harmony between believers" is a highly valued condition.
Philippians 3:15 is just one of several New Testament exhortations that put a premium upon "receiving one another". It is this "high value" in "Love" that underwrites Paul's words in
Romans 14:1-12.
Therefore, we are going to spend some time considering those words, both this evening, and in the days to come as we have opportunity.
In our introductory study last week, we looked into the actual meaning of Paul's exhortation to the Roman believers to "accept" those who are "diseased" in The Faith. In that study we considered that Paul was not advocating mere "tolerance", but, rather, an enthusiastic welcome into fellowship. We also considered that one should not "reject" another simply because the "other" was going to cause problems down the road. Then we considered that Paul's "enthusiastic welcome" was not to be "for" (as an objective) the purpose of "changing the minds of the other".
We also saw that this issue is not without its own problems, especially in the light of the "balancing" reality of exhortations that insist upon refusing an enthusiastic welcome to certain ones, one of which exists in the larger context of this very passage (16:17). Our primary observation was this: Paul is only addressing situations where the conflicts might arise when the "at issue" behavior is, as a behavior, morally neutral. Those who are "diseased in The Faith", whose behavior(s) is/are actually not morally neutral, are not in view in this text/context.
Therefore, we are going to go into Paul's exhortations to both those who are "healthy" in respect to their grasp of "The Faith", and to those who are "diseased".
- I. The Very First Issue.
- A. Paul deliberately declares that his interest regards "The Faith".
- 1. "The Faith" is the composite whole of "The Truth".
- 2. This composite whole is called "The Faith" because the issue, at issue, is fixated upon, not so much the content of "The Truth", but upon "What is Believed" to be "The Truth".
- a. This distinction must be made because "The Truth" is much too large to be comprehensively known, let alone "believed".
- b. This distinction must also be made because the "judgment of God" (addressed by Paul in this paragraph in his final statements concerning this topic) is not as much rooted in the extent to which a person "knows", but in the extent to which a person "takes action because of what is believed" [Note Jesus' reference to this in John 9:41 and Luke 12:48].
- B. Thus Paul automatically involves the issue of "believing" in his very next statement.
- 1. There is the one who "is believing" that "to eat all things" is acceptable to God according to the teaching of Jesus that what a person puts into his mouth cannot defile him because it has no access to his "heart" (Mark 7:15).
- 2. And there is the one, whose grasp of "The Faith" is "diseased", that can only eat vegetables.
- a. In respect to "believing", it is not likely that Paul could deliberately choose the term "vegetables" without conjuring up the record of Daniel's "great faith" in "eating only vegetables" at the risk of the king's ire and its consequence to Daniel.
- 1) Given that "eating only vegetables" was a premier act of "faith" by a man highly revered by the Jews, gives those who are "diseased" a fairly substantial basis for remaining "diseased".
- 2) Paul was too aware of biblical revelation than to be ignorant of what his choice of words might accomplish.
- b. The issue of a "diseased" faith as regards what one can eat is deeply rooted in the passing of "The Law" by the institution of a "New Covenant".
- 1) In Daniel's day, "The Law" was "in place" and ignoring its precepts was the very reason Daniel was in Babylon.
- 2) Now that the day of "The Law" has passed from the scene because of the new program regarding God's plans to "build the Church", things can go into the deeper issues of the actual intentions of "Law" by "Grace" (wherein the Law is fulfilled by Grace-induced Love).
- 3) Because there was a deeply entrenched resistance to "the passing of The Law" among Jews, it was difficult for many of them to get past "Law" in favor of "Grace" (as clearly revealed by the doctrinal conflict of Acts 15 in Jerusalem).
- II. The Second Issue.
- A. "Beliefs" very often gender "attitudes" toward those who do not share them.
- B. Paul's use of the grammatical construction of "me" followed by a present tense verb indicates that he assumed that certain "attitudes" had already been developed along the lines of "faith", but not "Love".
- 1. In the case of those "persuaded" that they were free to eat all things, the "attitude" had developed that those who were restrained in their eating were to be considered as not only "diseased in The Faith", but as also to be "rejected for their disease".
- a. This "attitude" was not wholly without merit (Galatians 4:8-11).
- b. Nor was this "attitude" unsupported by a repeated principle written by Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:6 and Galatians 5:9.
- c. But, Paul was aware of a distinction between "being diseased" and "being a communicable spreader".
- 1) He severely castigated "communicable spreaders" in Galatians 1:8-9 and consigned them to "accursedness".
- 2) However, in that same letter he acknowledged that "being diseased" did not, necessarily, bring on the same reaction (Galatians 4:10-11).
- d. It is this "condition of being in between" the problem of "disease" and the greater problem of being "a spreader" that Paul was addressing in this text/context.
- 1) In this "in between" state, the responsibility of the "healthy" is to "enthusiastically receive" the "diseased".
- 2) It is only after that reception has been extended that it is sometimes necessary to then "reject" because Paul says the "acceptance" is not to permit debates designed to compel others to "get in line" and those who reject that "not" are to be rejected (16:17).
- e. Thus, the "attitude" that Paul was rejecting was an attitude which consisted of "a superiority complex coupled to a rejection of the inferior"; a "loveless" attitude (because legitimate rejection is always accompanied by tears and wishes that it need not come to that).
- 2. And in the case of those "persuaded" that they were restricted from certain foods, another "attitude" was already in play (the same grammatical construction referenced above).
- a. This attitude was that of being a "judge" of another's motives.
- 1) This is an attitude that also walks a narrow line because all of us have to "make judgments" about others based upon what we see them doing (Paul actually did this in the Galatian letter).
- a) This is a very dangerous area (James 2:4 and the actual impossibility of being accurate as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 4:3-5.
- b) And it is particularly worrisome because of the natural tendency of the flesh to seek reasons to be "superior".
- 2) However, there is a grave danger that such "judgments" arise out of a "critical spirit" that has its roots in the desire to make oneself superior to another because of a personal sense of "superior zeal".
- b. It appears that, in this text, Paul is revealing a "disease" in both groups.
- 1) The so-called "healthy" are "literally correct" (they are "healthy in The Faith"), but they are not moved by "Love".
- 2) The so-called "diseased" are definitively in the wrong, but have been unwilling to accept that "in Love".
- 3) The differences have a common root.
- a) The common root is the desire to look down upon others.
- b) The differences are that the "healthy" are confident that they are "superior in their grasp of The Faith", and the "diseased" are confident that they are "superior" in zeal as evidenced by a greater self-denial.
- C. Thus, Paul calls for "tolerance" for at least a season so that all may come to a unity of The Faith.
