Thursday, May 26, 2016

Romans 14: ‘Don’t Condemn, Don’t Despise!’ ‘But the Weak Eat Only Vegetables!’

Presented to TSA Corps 614 Regent ParkToronto, 29 May 2016 by Captain Michael Ramsay. Presented to TSA Alberni Valley, 06 November 2022 by Major Michael Ramsay
  
This is the 2016 Toronto version, to view the 2022 TSA AV version, click here:  https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2022/11/romans-14-dont-condemn-dont-despise-but.html
 
   

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Today, I want you to remember one thing about Romans 14-16 and that is, ‘Don’t condemn, don’t despise each other’. What is the one thing I want you to remember?
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As many of you know, Susan and the kids are vegetarians: Rebecca and Sarah-Grace are quite devoted to the cause. I have a story about how that all began. Susan tells the story a little differently but this is my recollection.
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Many years ago, Susan and I were studying Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline while we were part of 614 Vancouver. We were encouraged to try each of the disciplines as we read the book. Susan began exploring vegetarianism – for her it was is much about stewardship of God’s earth as anything else. If you ask her another time, I am sure she will quite happily tell you more about this.
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While we were studying Celebration of Discipline and after Susan had experimented with vegetarianism for a couple of days, I went grocery shopping with a 2 or 3-year old Rebecca and a 1 or 2-year old Sarah-Grace. That wasn’t always so easy. To help them settle, I would often tell them that if they co-operated I would let them watch the live trout or lobsters in their tanks at the store. I was trying to get everything on the list Susan gave me and contain a two year-old who wanted to wander here, there and everywhere – the one year-old was firmly secured in the shopping cart, so caging the two year-old there was not an option; thus I let Rebecca look at the trout swimming around as I was getting everything near there in the store. Then as I was putting a packaged fish in my shopping cart, Rebecca looked at the package and asked, ‘Where do fish come from?’
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When I told Susan that story at dinner it led to future discussions with Rebecca and from then on Susan was very good at encouraging Rebecca in her vegetarianism. Rebecca, in turn, encouraged Sarah-Grace who was even younger and for a couple of years Sarah-Grace would say that she too was a vegetarian but her favourite vegetable was sausages.
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Romans 14:2: “Some believe in eating anything but the weak eat only vegetables.”
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What is the one thing I said I want us to remember today? (Don’t condemn, don’t despise each other)
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Romans 14:2: “Some believe in eating anything but the weak eat only vegetables.” Is this was Paul is writing about in Romans… contemporary vegetarianism grounded in a respect for the environment or a view of animals as friends or pets? Does it mean that all vegetarians are weak people who should be more like us strong meat eaters?  No.
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Let’s try to figure out what this verse is saying by exploring the context a little bit. But first, what is the one thing I said I want us to remember today? (Don’t condemn, don’t despise each other)
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This week, I read a lot of Biblical scholars and historians’ writings about these ‘weak’ vegetarians, hoping to gain some insight into why these Christians were not eating meat. Some academics think that these vegetarians were Gentiles.[1] Some think that since some Jews – the Essenes – didn’t eat much meat and were very strong in keeping Sabbath laws, maybe as they became Christians, they were the vegetarians to whom Paul is referring. The problem with this is that the Essenes kept very much to themselves. They were like the Hutterites in the Canadian prairies or even the Amish.[2] They wouldn’t be a part of society as a whole – especially Roman society; they would keep very much to themselves.
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Others have suggested that these people were not Christian Essene Jews but simply everyday regular Christian Jews.[3] Paul in his other letters speaks a lot about meat sacrificed to idols. In the first century they didn’t have Loblaw’s, Sobeys or Safeway. Butcher shops and market places in the Roman Empire were often located in pagan temples. When someone brought an animal to be butchered for eating, it would be offered as a sacrifice. The leftovers from various sacrifices could often be sold in the market alongside other butchered meat; so some Jews and even some Christian Jews didn’t want to risk eating any meat that had been sacrificed to an idol so they just didn’t eat meat at all.[4] The problem with this idea is that – in contrast to his other letters - Paul doesn’t specifically here deal with meat sacrificed to idols and the other mentioned areas of abstinence aren’t generally associated with Jewish culture (but cf. the Nasserite vow) and if they are, they aren’t tied to not eating meat.
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So then who are these 'weak' vegetarians to whom Paul is referring? …Basically the answer is… we don’t know. Some of the best scholars disagree with each other and none of them make an overwhelmingly compelling argument. But we do know that they weren’t like PETA or today’s vegetarians who think of eating meat as eating a pet or even a friend. There is no record of that concept in the ancient world. And they probably were not like Christian vegetarians today who refrain from eating meat as a way of being good stewards of the earth. We don’t really know who these people are that Paul refers to as weak but we do know that ‘eating only meat’ is 1 of 3 attributes of the weak he addresses:
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  1. Romans 14:2: Some believe in eating anything, but the weak eat only vegetables.
  2. Romans 14:5: Some (the weak) consider one day to be better than another.
  3. Romans 14:21: It is good to not drink wine
What was that one thing that I said I wanted us all to remember about today? (Don’t condemn, don’t despise each other)
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We talked about the uncertainties around not eating meat. There was also the same uncertainties around judging one day as better than the other. Jews had a lot of feast days. This could be what this passage is talking about. Maybe the Jewish Christians were still celebrating all of the old Jewish feast days and the Gentiles couldn’t or didn’t want to keep up with all of that. Maybe some Jewish Christians were saying that is what is important and maybe this is what Paul is saying doesn’t really matter. This may refer to – or at least be extended to – the Sabbath. The Sabbath is Saturday and some Jewish Christians would still celebrate the Sabbath in synagogue on Saturday before they would get together with other Christians on Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Paul might be saying that this is what doesn’t matter.[5] Everyday for the Christian is supposed be Sabbath. That might be part of what he is talking about but what is the important thing he is focusing on that I want us to remember for today? (Don’t condemn, don’t despise each other)
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Next there is the drinking. Paul says that just like weak Christians don’t eat meat, they also don’t drink and we have no idea what this is all about but we do know that Paul says here in Verse 21 that it is GOOD not to eat meat or to drink wine. What is the important thing he is focusing on that I want us to remember for today? (Don’t condemn, don’t despise each other)
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‘Don’t condemn, don’t despise!’ This is the main part about all of these things. For some reason the here called ‘weak’ people, they didn’t eat meat or drink wine, and they held some days as more important than others. These people apparently thought that everyone should act like they do. They thought that because they were right in their own estimation not to drink or eat meat that nobody else should. Paul says in Verse 3 and elsewhere that these people were getting a little - what we would call it in my day? - ‘holier than thou.’ Paul calls these ‘holier than thou’ people, weak. He tells them that they are not to condemn people in the church here (v.3). Paul says if they aren’t your employees, they don’t have to answer to you. They serve God so they answer to Him (v.4). If we insult each other like this, Paul says, then we are really insulting Christ (15:3) and that is never good. To the holier than thou group, Paul says, ‘Stop it! ‘You’re not the boss of them.’[6] ‘Don’t condemn others!’
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Then to the others – to the so-called ‘strong’ Christians, Paul says, ‘smarten up!’ They’re not to judge you but you DON’T despise them. How easy is it for people to ‘write off’ others? How easy it is for us to simply despise people as hypocrites and have nothing to do with them? Paul says don’t be so selfish![7] Christ died for those people I just called weak just like he died for you supposedly strong people. Because of this, Romans 14:7-8, we aren’t supposed to just live for ourselves and do whatever we like; we are supposed to live for Christ and live for others.[8] If your friend doesn’t drink, don’t go out for dinner with them and order a pint of beer or a glass of wine. That’s just mean. Don’t tempt them to do something that might be very bad for them. Don’t despise them because they don’t drink. Don’t put a stumbling block in their way.
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Paul also says it really doesn’t matter if some people observe every special day in the church. To bring this into a bit more of a contemporary context: does anyone remember ‘fish Fridays’? In the Roman Catholic Church when I was a kid anyway, they would not eat any meat but fish on Fridays. So – as an evangelical - if you were going to go out to a fish ’n chips restaurant, it would be wise to pick a different day than Friday; they were just packed.
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Also, does anyone remember when there was no Sunday shopping? It was very recently on the prairies. To this day, some Christians still refuse to buy anything on Sundays. I remember my college church group even on secular Vancouver Island, decades ago, would have spaghetti lunches at one point so that we wouldn’t go out for lunch on Sundays. The Apostle Paul is saying none of this matters; so stop despising your friends who want to keep these days as holy. And for those of you that are just keeping one day as holy, remember that God made all of the days and so as such, every day is the Lord’s day.
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What is the one thing that we need to remember today? (Don’t condemn and don’t despise others!’)
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To the weak Paul says, ‘don’t condemn!’ To the strong Paul says, ‘don’t despise!’ This is so important. We are not supposed to fight with each other. We are supposed to help each other; we need to stop our bickering.[9] If you flip to Chapter 16:17-20, that we read earlier, you will notice what Paul says about all this and about all of us:
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I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who cause dissensions and offenses, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them. For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded. For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, I want you to be wise in what is good and guiltless in what is evil. The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet.
In other words, don’t bud into things that are none of your business! Don’t cause trouble! Don’t despise or condemn one another! Instead encourage each other in obedience, be wise in what is good and be guiltless in what is evil and then God will crush Satan under our feet. Jesus died on the cross and rose again not so that we will despise and condemn each other; quite the opposite. He died and rose again so that we may live and that we may live our life abundantly. So to that end I encourage us all today to encourage each other, uphold the week, and support the strong in Jesus Name.
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What was the one thing we should remember today? (Don’t condemn and despise others!’)
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Let us pray.
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[1] Paul J. Achtemeier, Romans. Interpretation: (Atlanta, Georgia: John Knox Press, 1985), 214
[2] W.E Vines, “Week in Faith”, in Vine's Word Studies of New Testament Vol. III. (Nashville, Tennessee: Royal Publishers Inc., 1939), p. 166.
[3] NT Wright, Romans for Everyone Part 2: Chapters 9-16 (Louisville, US: WKJ, 2004), 95.
[4] Cf. Michael Ramsay, 1 Corinthians 6-10: In Tents Storm of Life: Everything is Permissible but Not Everything is Beneficial. (Swift Current The Salvation Army: Sheepspeak, 01 June 2014) On-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2014/05/1-corinthians-6-10-in-tents-storm-of.html cf. also N.T. Wright, '1 Corinthians' in Paul for Everyone, (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 98.
[5] Cf. William Hendricksen, Exposition of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, NTC (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic: 1981), 458.
[6] The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, 2919: ‘Krino’, (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 1995), 51.
[7] Cf. N.T. Wright, The Letter to the Romans (NIB 10: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 475.
[8] Cf. Alan Le Grys, The Expository Times 122 (11). ‘11th September: Proper 19: Vision and Reality’.(August 2011), 549
[9] Cf. John Stott, Romans, (Downers Grove, Ill., IVP, 1994), 369.