Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand. One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. 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. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written:“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’” So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall. So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a quarrel or division? It could be in the office, over a friend-group text chat, or even within an extended family. Sides are formed, people are drawn or persuaded to support one view or the other, and each side now holds a firm grudge against the other. This division could be resolved over time, or it can easily spiral out of control to where people involved refuse to even speak to each other, or the office becomes divided, or the church body is split. These types of serious quarrels and divisions existed in Paul's day as well and he addresses them in today's passage. The truth is that not all divisions and conflicts are bad, but also, not all are good. There is a method to view and work out which disputes are worthwhile and which are trivial and Paul uses chapter 14 to share some Godly wisdom on the subject. While we should have convictions that lead to possible divisions over core Christian doctrine, we should not allow secondary doctrine or that which is not core to Christianity to cause these same types of divisions. One problem within the church (then and now) is that we get these reversed. We often allow bad doctrine, false teachers, false prophets, false saviors, false gospels, and destructive worldly ideas to seep into the church unchallenged, and at the same time, allow ourselves to be unyielding and stubbornly divided over traditions and preferences that do not matter in light of eternity; like how a certain ministry budget should be spent or how someone was picked for a lead in an Easter play over someone else.

Paul admits that many of these squabbles, offenses, jealousy, and rivalries come about because of spiritual immaturity. We are called to walk in wisdom and lead even when we are surrounded by immaturity. Spiritual immaturity in the church is a good thing that should not be eliminated because it means evangelism is happening and new Christians are being reached with the Gospel and giving their lives to Jesus. In today's passage, Paul himself even warns that it is not good to make spiritual maturity a requirement to be included in the body. There is a major difference between someone who is simply a weak or immature believer versus someone who is obstinate, divisive, and rebellious. The problem is not spiritual immaturity in the church. The problem is mature Christians, who should be leading others through these issues, get caught up in them themselves, using their status or authority to drive a certain personal agenda. In Jesus' ministry, He had the most severe words for religious leaders who were supposed to be walking in discernment and humble Godly wisdom but were instead being caught up in religious squabbles, jealousy, drama, political maneuvering, and selfish ambition. How can a church community hope to remain healthy and strong when those who are supposed to be leading it are caught up in and focused on completely the wrong thing? Paul looks at those who refuse to eat meat for a spiritual reason as an example of one of these issues that had been blown up and used for division when it didn't need to become a dividing issue. Some of the more legalistic Christians refused to eat meat because they feared it might be meat sacrificed to a pagan god, and to eat it may be a form of participating in that pagan sacrifice. Others saw no issue with eating the meat because they did not know for certain if it had been used in the wrong way, and even if it was, they reasoned that they were in no way participating knowingly in a sacrifice to a pagan god. Because some Christians saw nothing wrong with this meat and others saw much wrong with it, this became a burning issue among believers in Paul’s day that caused much conflict and division. While the issue of not eating meat for spiritual reasons is no longer directly relevant to most Christians today, there are plenty of issues where some believers believe one way and others believe differently, such as politics, spiritual gifts, communion, infant baptism, speaking in tongues, women pastors and rainbows. The same principles Paul taught can be used to deal with these issues rightly today.

In Paul’s mind, the weaker brother is the stricter one. It wasn’t that they were weaker in their Christian life because of what they ate or didn’t eat, but they were weaker because of their legalistic attitudes and lack of love towards others. Undoubtedly, these weak ones did not see themselves as weak. They likely thought they were the strong ones, and the meat-eaters were the weak ones for giving in to what they saw as a temptation. Legalism has a way of making us think that we are strong and that those who don’t keep the rules the way we do are weak. Paul addresses this by talking more about principles than specific issues. What he says has application to more than just eating meat. In such issues of the day, Paul is willing to leave that which is unclear in Scripture up to the conscience of the individual. But whatever we do, we must be able to do it for the Lord, not using “conscience" as an excuse for obviously sinful behavior. We must understand that from beginning to end, our lives are connected to other lives. Paul reminds the Roman Christians that no man is an island, that from beginning to end, our lives are to be dedicated to God, and that we are open to the possibility that our instincts may be wrong. In that way, what we thought was right may not be right, and we need to be humble and teachable enough to admit the error and change our ways when convicted. In summary, whatever we do, we do it with wisdom before the Lord because Jesus is our Lord, and we will ultimately answer to him, not the person on our right or left.