Chapter 13 deals mostly with how we
as Christians relate to the nonbelieving world, particularly the government. We
submit, we honor, we pay our taxes. In our conduct we need to be living like
people who know that the Dawn is coming, not like people who live in the
darkness. We fulfill the Law by showing real love to our neighbor.
The rest of the book of Romans lays
out how we’re supposed to relate to fellow believers. Specifically Paul’s
talking about what he calls “disputable matters.” What’s this referring to?
Let’s start out by distinguishing
this from in-disputable matters. This is not talking about essentials of
the faith, such as the nature and work of Christ, the Resurrection, the fact of his Return,
the authority of Scripture, the reality of Heaven and Hell, salvation by grace
thru faith, etc. If someone claims to be a Christian and disputes any of these,
there’s a major problem.
For example, the main point of the
book of Galatians is to confront any perversions of the Good News about how we're reconciled with God. Paul called
down (or at least declared) a curse
on anyone—man or angel—who dared to present another message. In another letter
he made it clear
that a belief in the physical resurrection of Christ is absolutely essential to
our faith.
He’s not talking about essentials
in today's passage. So what examples does he provide of nonessentials?
Apparently there were disputes in
the church at Rome over 1) Food and 2) Sacred days. Jews who became believers
in Jesus (or Yeshua as they would’ve called him) came out of a background in
which they were expected to keep the O.T. dietary restrictions and holy days. Now that they’re
believers, it would’ve been difficult for them to just abandon the traditions
of their fathers. Also there’d be Gentile believers who'd worshipped idols
before they received Christ. Now they worshipped the one true God of the Bible
and had abandoned their idols, as they should have. But there was an thorny
question: It was common for pagans to “offer” up an animal to one of their “gods,”
then sell the meat in the open marketplace. Would it be right for a believer to
buy the meat and eat it? Were they participating in idolatry when they did
this?
And of course the Jews kept several
holidays throughout the year, including the Sabbath which they were expected to
observe every week. Now that all of us are under the New Covenant, do we still
need to keep the Sabbath? The religious holidays and festivals?
When Paul is talking about the “weak”
here, he’s referring to less mature believers. To a “weak” Christian who hasn’t
known Christ all that long, these were weighty issues. If they ate whatever was
available in the market and didn’t observe the Sabbath, they felt like they
were sinning against their Lord.
When Paul is talking about the “strong,”
(in another passage),
he’s talking about more mature believers (in which he groups himself). These
know that under the New Covenant we’re free to eat whatever we like, that there’s
no
such thing as “unclean” food (as far as God is concerned) anymore. They
also know that there’s nothing
intrinsically
wrong with buying meat that’s been offered to idols and eating it. They also know
that under the New Covenant we’re under no obligation to observe Jewish
holidays (including the Sabbath). Of course,
this applies to Jew and Gentile alike.
So now that we have the background,
how do we apply this? We’ll get into more detail tomorrow. But first and
foremost, the first step we need to take is to be careful about what God’s word
actually says. That means you read it (all of it) on a regular basis. If
he’s made something a categorical sin (like adultery), then he’s made it explicit
in his word. Sorry to be repeating myself, but one of my favorite aphorisms
comes from Alistair Begg: “The main things are the plain things and the plain
things are the main things.” Before we delve into the less important, let’s be
sure to focus on what’s most important, in fact “as
of first importance”: “that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according
to the Scriptures.” This sort of thing we all agree on, and we must.
Lord Jesus, may I never ever ever get over who you are and what you’ve done. . .for me. Everything else is just trivia compared to that.
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