Presented to TSA Corps 614 Regent Park , Toronto
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
.
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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.
.
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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- Romans
14:2: Some believe in eating anything, but the weak eat only vegetables.
- Romans
14:5: Some (the weak) consider one day to be better than another.
- 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)
.
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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What is the one thing that we need to remember today? (Don’t condemn and don’t despise others!’)
.
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:
.
.
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
[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
[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.
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