“Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on the one who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him.”  Romans 14:1-3

In Romans 14 Paul addresses a variety of issues that deal with gray area issues made black and white in the first century church.  Ironically, the same kinds of problems plague the church and Christians today.  First century Christians would hang their hats on such issues as eating meat or sabbath days and it would cause dissension in the ranks. They would take things of little consequence and make them cornerstones of their beliefs.  They would even take things that were not specifically addressed in the Bible and make them doctrine.  We do the same kinds of things today.

Our main concern should be for others.  That is hard for us to grasp.  We are in a day that promotes looking out for Number One.  We are encouraged to look out for ourselves first and if along the way we can help someone else, so be it, but we should never sacrifice our own wants to meet the needs of another.  It is this kind of thinking that causes division in what should be unity in the Body of Christ.

It is said that when the British and French were fighting in Canada in the 1750s, Admiral Phipps, commander of the British fleet, was told to anchor outside Quebec. He was supposed to wait until the British army arrived and then support them from the sea.  Phipps arrived early and became irritated by the statues of saints that dotted the harbor’s shoreline.  He told his men to target practice on statues.  No one knows how many rounds were fired or how many statues were knocked out, but when the land forces arrived and the signal was given to attack, the admiral was of no help. He had used up all his ammunition shooting at the “saints.”   That is what we are in danger of doing in the church.  We fire so much upon each other, that we have nothing left to face the enemy with.  We get caught up in fighting one another on small battles and ignore the true war that is waging around us.

My uncle was on of the most well-known Apostolic Faith ministers in the country, maybe in the world.  Apostolics had some very specific ideas that kept my uncle and me from having the kind of relationship that Christians should have with each other.  Little things like the wearing of jewelry and modes of dress were essentials in their doctrine. They were very outspoken on all issues regardless of whether they were gray areas or not. What we would consider personal preference they would consider doctrinal truth.  Thus if someone wore rings (even though they could wear incredibly expensive watches), they were in disobedience to God.  If one was in disobedience to God, their salvation was in great jeopardy.  It was very legalistic.  The very unfortunate part was that my uncle’s church had little to do with any other churches.  After all, the others were all wrong.

We all have our list of “preferences” that we make bigger than they should be.  In Paul’s time the people argued over eating meat that was sacrificed to idols.  Some said it was sacrilegious and others said that since idols were non-gods, the meat was just meat.  Both had their points and neither was wrong.  But neither should have built their church on that rock and some tried!  Here was what they should have kept in mind according to Paul.  It might be fine to eat the meat, but examine whether eating would cause another to stumble.  So, in other words, it might be legal for us to eat the meat, but is it profitable?  Will it affect my walk or another’s walk negatively.  Before we do something, we should examine the possible consequences of our actions to us and to others.  So, let’s take it a step further.  We should watch our own actions for the sake of others, and should also avoid being too critical of the actions of others.  Our actions and how they affect others should be a priority rather than how others actions fit into our priorities.  We often get these two mixed up.

Moms are much better at pointing out possible consequences to their children than men are (oops, that might be sexist).  They might be heard saying something to their kids like, “Don’t run with that stick or you will poke both your eyes out.”  (I have often wondered how they could poke out both eyes unless they got up after they poked out one and fell again or were carrying a forked stick, but that is not for me to question.)  We need to scrutinize the situation as closely as moms do when they add up stick plus child plus ground plus running.  What will our actions possibly add up to?  What are the consequences of our behavior.  We too often scrutinize the behavior of others, while ignoring the consequences of our own.

I am not big on guys wearing ear rings.  Not sure exactly why that is, but I have never liked it for some reason.  Maybe my mom was insulted by a man wearing ear rings when I was in the womb, I don’t know, but it has never invoked a positive feeling in me.  I think I see it as juvenile.  But can I use ear rings to judge others by.  Is there scripture I can use for questioning someone’s spiritual maturity?  Can I doubt someone’s salvation because “no ear rings go to heaven.”  Of course not.  In some cultures that is the norm.  But unfortunately Christians too often use other peoples taste in dress, music, activity, food, etc. as a basis for judgement.  According to the Word, we are not to do that.

C.S. Lewis wrote about this in Mere Christianity.  He said, “One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting everyone else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons—marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning.”

I am really making four points here and am trying to pull them together.  1) We make too big a thing about the insignificant things that those around us do.  2) We often ignore much more evil things that go on around us.  Things that we should probably get upset about.  3)  We don’t worry about how our own actions affect those around us and don’t keep that in mind as we should. 4) The only true way to judge ourselves and the world around us is by looking through the lenses of God’s Word.  Trying to cover this much in one devotion is way above my ability, so this is the…

…end of part one!