Sorry for the slight overlap of
verses from yesterday. I’ve put some effort into figuring out how to divide up
the verses in the passage that deals with this. The problem is that it’s pretty
difficult to sort through Paul’s thoughts on this topically, and I fully
realize that most people can’t or won’t read through a chapter and a half for a
devotional. So I’m going to suggest you read the above verses, and if I reference
something that’s outside of today’s reading, I’ll prepare a link for that when I
cite it.
Today we’re going to examine what
Paul has to say to the “strong” believer (who’s more mature). Hopefully as you’ve
known the Lord longer chronologically, that’ll roughly correspond to more
intimate knowledge about God and
knowledge of him (on a personal
level). As you know him better, you come to a better understanding of what’s more important to him, and what’s less important. Worshipping the Lord as who
he really is, not some made-up version of him—that’s important. The eternal
fate of souls—that’s important. Whether or not I eat certain foods or observe
certain holidays—much less important.
In Christ, everything is either sinful
or it’s not. And as we saw yesterday, Paul made it clear that—as far as
ultimate truth goes—the Christians who ate whatever was sold in the market and
who didn’t feel obligated to observe special days were in the right. Maturity
in Christ gave them a better understanding of 1) what’s sinful and 2) what’s
not, based on God’s revealed word.
But to anyone who’s more mature in
Christ than the siblings around you, Paul has some words to say. This is so
important, and especially to Christians in modern America, since this goes
sooooooo much against our inclinations: Your freedom in Christ is not the most
important consideration here. Yes, there’s no intrinsic moral issue
involved in stuff like this. But that’s not the point. As Paul put it in vss.
7-8: “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.” Or as he put it
in another context:
“You are not your own; you were bought at a price.”
Because of this, we need to “make up
[our] mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother
or sister.” “Make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual
edification.” Act in love towards your sibling. “Do not destroy the work of God
for the sake of food.” What does this mean?
Well, as best as I can tell, it
means that you don’t flaunt your freedom in front of someone who can get
confused. To take an example from this context, let’s say that you’re the more
mature brother, and someone else has just come to faith in Christ, and they
came out of an idolatrous background. To them, there’s an inextricable
association between buying the meat and literally bowing down before a statue,
and to them the two are morally equivalent. So if they see you, a mature
believer—a model for them to follow—buying meat in the marketplace, they might make
the logical leap that idolatry really isn’t all that bad, or even that bowing
before an idol is compatible with being a follower of Jesus.
And you, as the more mature
believer, have caused harm, perhaps irreparable, to a babe in Christ. And you
haven’t acted in love towards him. Quite the opposite. And may I submit here
that in this case, if I were you, I’d be very afraid that Jesus’ warnings
would apply. Our Lord apparently takes this sort of thing very seriously, so it’d
be a good idea for me to do so too.
And as a final note, I’d point you
to his admonition near the beginning of the chapter: “The one who eats
everything [the more mature] must not treat with contempt the one who does not.”
If you have a deeper understanding and better discernment, then the last
thing this should produce is arrogance or pride or looking down on someone who
disagrees with you. In fact, I’d submit that this type of attitude shows ipso facto that you’re not as mature as
you might think. I know from my personal experience—backed up by the experience
of everyone I’ve ever heard of—that the closer I get to Christ, the humbler I get,
and the easier it is for me to see how far I have yet to go.
“Let us stop passing judgment on one
another.” “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.” In other
words, instead of worrying so much (with a judgmental attitude) about someone
else, how’s about I focus on the one
person I’m going to ultimately give an account for someday: ME.
Father God, I confess that it’s awfully
easy for me to fall into the trap of looking down on someone who doesn’t know
the Bible as well I do, who’s not as far along in their walk with you as I am. Wow.
How arrogant can I get? Please forgive and change.
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