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Romans - Lesson 52

Romans 14:1–15:13

In Romans 14:1-15:13, Paul addresses the Roman Christian community divided into the "strong" and "weak" groups, urging acceptance and reconciliation. This passage highlights the tension between liberty and love, emphasizing mutual acceptance regardless of differing beliefs on non-essential practices. Paul explains that the "weak in faith" are not necessarily immature believers but those whose faith restricts certain actions, such as eating meat or observing holy days. Paul uses examples, like Daniel in Babylon, to illustrate the conscientious observance of Jewish customs to avoid defilement. The idea of adiaphora, or matters indifferent, is crucial here, distinguishing between essential gospel issues and non-essential practices that allow for freedom and personal conviction. Paul advises the "strong" to curtail their liberty out of love for the "weak" to avoid causing spiritual harm. 

Lesson 52
Watching Now
Romans 14:1–15:13

V. The Transforming Power of the Gospel: Christian Conduct (12:1-15:13)

A. The Heart of the Matter: Total Transformation (12:1-2)

B. Humility and Mutual Service (12:3-8)

C. Love and Its Manifestations (12:9-21)

D. The Christian and Secular Rulers (13:1-7)

E. Love and the Law (13:8-10)

F. Living in Light of the Day (13:11-14)

G. A Plea for Unity (14:1-15:13)

1. Do Not Condemn One Another! (14:1-12)

2. Do Not Cause Your Brother to Stumble! (14:13-23)

3. Put Other People First! (15:1-6)

4. Receive On Another! (15:7-13)


Transcription
Lessons

Dr. Douglas Moo 
Romans 
nt620-48 
Romans 14:1-15:13  
Lesson Transcript

 

A. Weak in Faith: 

We want to talk about this passage of exhortation. We’ve talked about this all the way through Romans: the strong and the weak. Paul now addresses the situation that has arisen in the Roman Christian community. There may be a number of different house churches; maybe some of those churches were saying, “we’re the strong,” some were saying “we’re the weak.” Could be that kind of division here. There are clearly two different groups that Paul is addressing in 14:1 through 15:13. 

This is a classic text on the competing virtues of liberty and love. This is in many ways a text that Paul has prepared for throughout the letter, in terms of the theology he has provided for us. I don’t think that that this is the high point of the letter like others do. I think that is giving it too much credit. Nevertheless, there is a lot of the theology that Paul has been talking about, Jew and Gentile as we have seen in chapters 12-13, a concern about haughtiness and boasting, etc. that feeds into what he is now telling the Christians in Rome. 

Rather than going through this verse by verse, we are going to take a more thematic approach. This is part of scripture where Paul repeats himself a lot. It is more conducive to a more topical or thematic approach than some of the other texts we have looked at. 

Paul begins, as you can see in verse 1, by talking about the need to accept the one whose faith is weak. That is the NIV rendering here. Another way to render that would be, ‘those who are weak with respect to faith.’ The question immediately confronts us; what is this faith? What is Paul talking about? 

I don’t think he is talking about faith in an absolute sense. When he talks about weak in faith and strong in faith, it isn’t a matter of saying here are some mature, really solid believers and here are some immature, beginning, superficial believers. If you look at 14:1, Paul immediately goes on and uses the language of faith in verse 2. “One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.” 

The language there of a person’s faith allowing them to eat gets to the heart of what Paul wants to say about weak in faith. I paraphrase that as what we think our faith allows us to do. It isn’t a matter of Paul here talking about believers who are mature or immature. I think it is possible that some of those people who Paul calls weak in faith, might be more mature in their faith overall than some who are strong in faith. But it is in terms of what we think our faith in Christ allows us to do or not to do. That is the issue Paul is addressing here in these chapters.

This is one of the reasons why he never turns to the weak in faith and says, stop being weak in faith. Rather you see all the way here immediately in verse 1, to accept the one whose faith is weak. Paul’s concern is for reconciliation and for mutual acceptance and for a full accounting to each other for our faith in Christ together. 

 

B. Specific Issues: 

The specific issues that are dividing the two groups in Rome; Paul mentions several issues: the first we have seen in verse 2 of eating meat which he returns to in verse 6, “whoever eats meat does so to the Lord for they give thanks to God and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.” 

The second issue involves the observation of holy days in verse 5. “One person considers one day more sacred than another while another considers everyday alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.” So, these are the two things that Paul specifically and clearly says are dividing these believers. 

Now, in verse 21, he also introduces the idea of drinking wine. But he kind of uses this as an illustration so it isn’t entirely clear that this was one of the dividing issues. “It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.” I think that it is likely that this was part of the issue, but again, this isn’t entirely clear. 

We also need to recognize as we are trying to estimate what the issue is that at the conclusion of this section, Paul focuses again on the way in which God is using Christ, not only to serve Jews and bring them into the kingdom but also to extend mercy to the Gentiles. So, the theme of Jew and Gentile relationship, Gentiles being included with Jews, a theme which we have seen throughout the letter is obviously explicit and important here again.

Student:  
Does the word weak have the same negative connotation as it does to us today? 

Dr. Moo:  
I’m not sure if it’s the same, that might be going too far. But certainly, it has a negative connotation to some degree, yes.

Student:  
It fascinates me that he isn’t trying to teach them here. He is not trying to bring out what happened in Acts 15, and help them to learn what the right way to go is. He is just saying, you all just need to get along. 

Dr. Moo:  
He is, and I think you’re right, that the very language of weak verses strong carries a bit of an implication about which side is the best to be on. He doesn’t choose neutral terms to describe the two. That is certainly the case. It is a word that in the Greek as well our English has a bit of negative sense to it. No question.

 

C. Torah Piety: 

Paul never gets really clear as to what exactly is the fundamental, underlining problem is. He mentions these things and that has given rise to a lot of scholarly options here. What was the real issue in the Roman church? I think there has been a growing consensus emerging that the difference we have here is a difference over some of the stipulations of the Torah, or what one would broadly call Torah piety. 

The best illustration of the kind of issue Paul is dealing with is illustrated very well in the opening chapter of Daniel. Daniel and his three friends are in the court of the king Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine. He asked permission from the chief official not to defile himself in this way. Here Daniel, a faithful pious Jew in a Gentile-dominated context, decided to avoid the king’s food and wine at the court, out of faithfulness to his God. Otherwise, he would have defiled. 

What is reflected here in Daniel is something we know about from many other Jewish sources of the time; Jews living in predominately Gentile environments would be very worried about breaking their own Torah restrictions by eating meat that had been slaughtered in the butcher shops in town, often having had contact with pagan deities. It was certainly not being slaughtered in a clean way, obviously with the Jewish Kosher laws. It was the same with the wine which was suspect because often wine was used in libations to the Greek and Roman gods and Jews felt that it was contaminated by the pagans in that way. 

So, we have fairly good evidence that Jews living in pagan environments would in a sense go beyond what the Torah required itself, because obviously the Torah doesn’t prohibit eating meat or drinking wine, but they would go beyond the Torah in these ways to make sure they were not contaminated, that they did not violate God’s will for the way they were supposed to live. Similarly, the days here probably involved celebration of Jewish feast days, and maybe even the sabbath as well.

So, the scenario fits very well the circumstance we have seen in the Roman Christian community and the way Paul developed the theology of the letter. We have a community that started out as a Jewish Christian community. Probably a community continuing to follow a lot of these Jewish laws, believing that Jesus was the Messiah and rejoicing in that, but feeling no need to abandon their childhood understandings of how to live as the people of God in a pagan environment. 

All the Jews suddenly had to leave Rome and so what’s left are the Gentile believers who begin to take over and dominate the church. These Gentiles don’t have that background among the Jews, they don’t understand. Why can’t we drink wine and why can’t we eat meat; what is this business about the Sabbath; all of this is Jewish stuff. So, they begin not observing the kind of rules as those of the Jewish Christians. 

Now, after the return of the Jewish Christians to Rome(they had been allowed back in by the Emperor) they come back into a situation in which their traditional piety is being scorned by the Gentile believers. All you Jewish believers, why do you think you’ve got to do all that stuff? Get with the program, move into the new era here. You don’t need to be doing that stuff anymore. And the Jewish Christians in return are saying that they are the true pious people; we are the righteous remnant here within the Christian community in Rome. We are the ones trying to follow God’s will whereas you Gentile Christians are following your own ways, doing things that are going to harm you, defile you, and really harm your faith ultimately. You can sense these two groups going at each other in these different ways.

 

D. The Idea of Adiaphora: 

What is really important to understand about Paul’s teaching here is the issue Paul confronts here that belongs to a category that we call the adiaphora, things indifferent, that is a matter neither commended nor prohibited by scripture. It is very important to make that point because some interpreters have come to Romans 14 & 15 and used this as a basis to say that Christians need to accept one another regardless of what you disagree on. 

But the point is, Paul takes a very different approach to issues he considers central to the Gospel. Galatians is the obvious example where Paul talks about these people who have come in with what he calls a different Gospel; may they be anathema; may they suffer under the curse of God. He pleads with the Galatian believers not to listen to them for they are putting their own justification in peril if you do listen to them. There is an issue in Paul’s mind which is a very clear gospel issue where there can be no compromise. This is a different kind of issue. 

One of the great challenges for Christians in our day is to figure out where to draw those lines. We have such a variety in the Christian church in North America where people draw those lines in all kinds of different ways and places. A friend of mind from England tells a story of different taboos in different parts of the world in terms of what it means to be a Christian. The story is told of a visiting American Christian doing missionary work in Europe who was talking to a Dutch woman, also a believer. The American woman was talking about things that she was doing, and her faith, etc. They were having a good conversation until the American mentions something about a movie she had watched the night before. The Dutch woman was horrified that she had gone to a movie, a sister in Christ desecrating herself in that way. She was so upset; tears were streaming down her face onto her cigar and then into her beer. (laughter.)

We are all familiar with people drawing lines in different places. In Wheaton, we don’t think it is a very good idea to smoke, but we don’t pay much attention to the Sabbath. You go about ninety miles east to Calvin and you had better observe the Sabbath but if you’re a professor smoking a cigar in your office, it is not a problem. 

Granted the biblical distinction between these two things, where do we draw those lines? Some Christians have a very small category of required things and a lot of adiaphora. Other Christians have a huge list of required things and a very small adiaphora. Even in this room, we will have disagreement probably. Is this a practice that belongs in things required that are implicit, natural, inevitable outgrowths of our Christian faith and the kingdom system of values or is it an entirely an indifferent matter that we can decide to observe with complete freedom. That is something we all have to keep facing and trying to figure out in our different contexts. The important point about Romans 14 and 15 is to recognize that it does belong in the category of the adiaphora.

Student:  
When you talk about Christ’s law governing us that is part of the challenge - what does Christ’s law mean varies in interpretation of the individual believer. Some will live a narrow life and some will live a broad life. 

Dr. Moo:  
In a sense you can take a very narrow view of Christ’s law: what are the specific commandments we have in the New Testament? All of us realize it has to go beyond that. When we are told don’t get involved in sexual immorality, porneia, e what does that include? What does it not include? We are told to love; what are the requirements under that? This goes on and on because we are not given those kinds of specifics nor obviously is the New Testament contextualizing for our own world in a way that would help us to figure all of these things out. 

Student:  
Some of the approaches for some of them, I have been helped some with health for example. Even being a Christian and being born again, I didn’t even get to that. I have picked up enough emphysema patients that gives me a passion to say, I’ve seen people go through that. You are not going to be able to do what you need to do if you keep doing that. 

Dr. Moo:  
There are a lot of practical issues of wisdom that come out of scripture. 

Student:  
I have seen in different parts of the world, every one of these having significance. In some Muslim areas, you don’t even bring pork into a neighborhood or else you will be banished and you have no ministry there. In Dubai, Friday is the time that even Christians worship. In France, they had a church meal and they passed around a wine bottle. In Kenya, there was one tribe warring against another, trying to commit genocide over the matter of circumcision, one trying to kill the other because they were not circumcised. 

Dr. Moo:  
I agree with you about some of those illustrations. I think it is a slightly different issue though. It is one issue to say that as a Christian trying to live in and evangelize a particular group of people, I need to respect what their taboos, habits, customs are and fit into that to the degree the gospel allows me. So, it is one thing to say that I am not going to eat pork in this context in order to evangelize these people; but it is another thing to say that your faith doesn’t allow you to eat pork anywhere. These are two slightly different things. 

Student:  
In Paris, they asked me do you drink wine? I said no. They asked me why and I said I’m an American. I don’t see anything wrong in drinking it in moderation, but Americans have never been known to do anything in moderation. And they received that!

Dr. Moo:  
It is really important to see this as an adiaphora matter so as we think about contextualizing this text and preaching it, we need to apply this to issues in our churches where we have decided that this is not a gospel matter; it is not something that our faith is requiring us to preach or we all have to live this way. A matter where my people have legitimate differences of opinion; some might be strong; some might be weak, and the concern here should be of acceptance which is not grudging. The way Paul uses the word, we can also use the language of welcome, giving full recognition to someone else. So, there is recognition of difference that nevertheless doesn’t necessarily divide.

 

E. Liberty and Love: 

Two or three other quick practical things to say. Paul spent a lot of time focusing especially on the strong. He spent much more time talking about the strong and their need not to give up their liberty but to curtail the way they express their liberty by love. That comes back to our basic slogan of liberty and love. 

In other words, no other Christian has the right to take away my liberty in Christ, but my concern for and my love for fellow believers might lead me not to use my liberty in certain contexts and certain ways. Paul’s ‘bottom line’ here is not to do anything that causes a fellow believer to stumble. I would paraphrase that: don’t do anything that causes a fellow believer spiritual harm. I think spiritual harm is the issue. 

In saying that then, what this doesn’t mean is that if I am a strong believer, in a certain issue, I shouldn’t do something just because another believer disagrees with me. Neither does it mean that I shouldn’t do something because another believer is unhappy with me. The criterion is: is what I am doing causing spiritual harm to that brother or sister? If I think it is then I need to try to curtail my liberty. However, if it is just a matter of disagreement, then I don’t have to restrict my exercise of liberty at that point. The weak believer should never have the right to have veto power over anything a strong believer wants to do. This could happen if we interpret this too strongly in that particular way. 

Last thing I will say is, let us recognize also that while we, like Paul, want to be strong in our faith, we also appropriately recognize areas that we might be subject to particular temptation and be unapologetic about choosing to refrain from certain activities or habits if we think they might cause us spiritual harm. We shouldn’t be embarrassed in saying that here are some things that I am not going to get involved in. I think that I have the liberty in Christ to do them, but I am not going to because I am afraid they might cause me spiritual harm. We shouldn’t let others look at these decisions we have made in a critical way or make us feel less Christian than we really are. 

We live in a world where each of us, sometimes because of our history, family context, or simply the way which we are made, we are susceptible to certain kinds of sin. It is utter foolishness for us to pretend that such temptation for us may not exist and not do what we can do to make sure we avoid that particular temptation. We need to put some rules for ourselves in place. This is not to say that every faithful Christian will observe the same rules as I am, Other Christians may not do that, and that is great. But for me as I work out my faith in honoring God and avoiding falling into sin, here are some guidelines that I have established for myself. 

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  • This lesson offers a fresh view of Paul's theology, focusing on Romans. It emphasizes the first-century context, highlighting Gentile inclusion and unity in Christ, challenging traditional views. Gain insights into Paul's message and its relevance today.
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  • Listen along as the class discusses questions and answers revolving around Romans 1:16-17.
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  • The lesson discusses Romans 2:1-11, it highlights the use of the diatribe device and the transition from focusing on Gentiles to Jews. It underscores the Jewish belief in their special status and their potential misunderstanding of God's judgment. The lesson reviews the focus of the text on key themes such as judgment, righteousness, and the relationship between faith and good deeds.
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  • In this lesson, you will gain insights into the potential challenge in translating Romans 3:23-24, particularly the term "all" and its connection to the debate on universalism in evangelicalism. Dr. Moo stresses the importance of coherence in biblical interpretation and explores the themes of God's righteousness, faith, and grace in justification. The lesson reviews the cultural background of redemption, drawing parallels with the Greco-Roman slave market and emphasizing the need to understand both the problem of sin and the Gospel solution.
  • Embarking on this lesson, you'll gain insight into the historical development and contemporary challenges surrounding the doctrine of justification. Through exploring classic Reformation principles and contemporary reassessments, you'll understand the tensions between Protestant and Roman Catholic perspectives, particularly regarding the infusion of righteousness and the role of grace.
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  • In Romans 8:1-22, discover the Spirit's transformative power over sin, leading to a life free from condemnation, intimacy with God, and anticipation of future glory amid present sufferings.
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  • Gain insights into faith versus works, Christ as the culmination of the Law, and the inclusivity of righteousness through Him. Embrace unity in Christ, transcending cultural divisions, and embodying love and holiness.
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