Chapter # 14 Paragraph # 2 Study # 13
August 15, 2021
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: The "goodness" of self-restraint is rooted in how well we use our influence in the "church" to "build up" and not "tear down".
Introduction: As we have moved deeper into Paul's instruction, we have seen that he has taken a current situation in the first century as a springboard to highlight the larger truths of the nature of God's Kingdom plans. That current situation in the first century seems to be rather limited to that first century, though there may be some isolated pockets where the issues of that situation continue to exist. That current situation was created by a major dispensational shift in God's program on the earth in which He threw open that gates of "Grace" to the whole of humanity instead of continuing His rather limited program of using a national entity to impress the other nations of the world as to the question of the truth about which "god" is actually God. When God shifted from using a nation to impress the nations to building a "Body" of members of all of the nations to proclaim the salvation of Grace to the whole world, He "dropped" a large part of the national program out of His instructions on how to live. A major aspect of those things He "dropped" were two: the dietary code imposed upon the nation, and the elements of liturgy for worship that He had imposed upon that nation. In the New Program, He separated the physical from the relational because of the massive levels of hypocrisy that existed in the nation as it had blended the physical with the relational, and in the process He created a problematic situation wherein some people clung to physical eating/drinking and the offering of animal sacrifices, and others focused upon the relational issues of the heart and mind.
These days the "International Body" (The Church) has moved so far from dietary and liturgical issues that it is hard to find a current parallel to Paul's first century setting.
However, the principles of The Kingdom remain (righteousness, peace, and joy), so that though we may not be divided by diet and sacrifice, we are seduced into the same elemental issue of exalting ourselves over our brethren by many other particulars.
Therefore, this evening we are going to move on to Paul's "next point": 14:21.
- I. The Aspects Of Paul's Attempt To Generate Genuine Harmony In The Local Church in Rome.
- A. First is his "cut to the chase" in making the true nature of The Kingdom of The God clear.
- 1. It is God's large plan for an eternal Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy that is the guiding issue of the entire chapter.
- 2. In that large plan, Paul's point is that such a Kingdom requires a slave/Master relationship of each member of the Kingdom to The King.
- B. Second is his insistence that the slave/Master relationship has a common "Love".
- C. Third is his claim that this common "Love" finds expression when The King lays down His life for the members of the Kingdom and then those members actively lay down their lives for one another by making "building up" the contrast to "destroying" or "tearing down".
- D. Fourth is his insistence that "demanding" of the "brother" a certain physical pattern of behavior over the Kingdom's relational patterns of behavior is a subversion of the very essence of the Grand Plan.
- E. And fifth is his summons to individual responsibility by each member of the Kingdom so that each does his/her own part as members of the Kingdom of Love.
- II. The Present Focus Of Our Study.
- A. Paul moves from his claim that even when "all things are clean", the "clean" become "unclean" when a destructive impact is made by the practice of enjoying the "clean".
- B. Paul's move is into a further principle.
- 1. This "principle" is addressed by the opening word of 14:21 in the Greek Text: kalos.
- a. This is one of the words in Greek that is translated "good".
- b. The impact of this word takes the concept of "good" into a specific direction.
- 2. The definition of "kalos" is accurately given by the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains: "pertaining to providing a special or superior benefit".
- 3. Thus, what is "good" is precisely what provides a "beneficially advantageous" result by making decisions that make such "benefit" possible.
- C. The particulars.
- 1. First, Paul has set forth a "context" in which "the actions resulting from decisions" have opposite potentials.
- a. There is, in this context, the "potential" of "destruction" (14:15) by way of "tearing down" (14:20).
- 1) This "potential" is fulfilled when a "brother" demeans the death of Christ in respect to another "brother" by undercutting the "Love" that produced that death.
- 2) This "potential" is also fulfilled when a "brother" dismantles the building blocks of "faith" in the Love behind the Death by the hypocrisy of professing the "Love" but acting without it.
- b. There is also, in this context, the "potential" of "building up" (14:19) by way of "pursuing peace" in the relationship of brother to brother.
- 1) This "potential" is fulfilled when a "brother" lives out the implications of the Death by curtailing his/her "privileges" when it will "stumble" a "brother".
- 2) This "potential" is also fulfilled when a "brother" applies him/her self to being used by The King to give help to the other members of the Kingdom.
- 2. Because of this, Paul says, "It is beneficially advantageous for a brother to refrain from his freedom to eat meat, or to drink wine, or to do any other thing that has the potential to stumble a brother".
- a. At issue here is a "devolving circle of practice".
- 1) In Acts 15 the elders of the Church in Jerusalem sent a general letter to all of the churches calling upon them to "abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood" (15:20) because there are Jews all over the place who would be "stumbled" by such behaviors: this is the "outer circle".
- 2) However, most of the instructions given to The Church through letters to the churches have to do with local congregations: this is the "inner circle".
- b. The reason for the devolving circle is the practical reality that one cannot "relate to" the potentials of destruction or building up in the lives of "brethren" if they do not know those brethren well enough to know what would trigger such results.
- c. The areas of "application" are, from Paul's particular historical setting, "eating meat", "drinking wine", and "other actions that might put a brother between the rock of "desire to please God" and the hard place of "desire to be approved by men".
- 1) The eating of "meat" is particularly related to 'eating meat sacrificed to idols' because Paul's only other reference to "eating meat" is 1 Corinthians 8:13 which is further developed in 1 Corinthians 10 where the issue is the potential of a violated conscience arising from eating meat sacrificed to idols/demons.
- 2) The drinking of "wine" is particularly related to the large potential for abuse unto drunkenness because of the way Paul refers to this problem in several of his letters.
- 3) And "other actions" is a general category of possible problem areas that arise only in a context of "knowledge of the brother" in terms of what he/she believes and how strong he/she is in regard to The Faith.
- III. Paul's "Point": Be Sure To Place The Same Value Upon A "Brother" That Christ Does.
