Scripture Daily

Context No. 2033 of 4322 · Romans

Context · Reflection

Romans 14:10-21: in context

10But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. 11For it is written, “‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘to me every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess to God.’” 12So then each one of us will give account of himself to God. 13Therefore let’s not judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block in his brother’s way, or an occasion for falling. 14I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean of itself; except that to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. 15Yet if because of food your brother is grieved, you walk no longer in love. Don’t destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. 16Then don’t let your good be slandered, 17for God’s Kingdom is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men. 19So then, let’s follow after things which make for peace, and things by which we may build one another up. 20Don’t overthrow God’s work for food’s sake. All things indeed are clean, however it is evil for that man who creates a stumbling block by eating. 21It is good to not eat meat, drink wine, nor do anything by which your brother stumbles, is offended, or is made weak.

Paul addresses believers divided over matters like what foods to eat, some free in conscience, others scrupulous. He warns against judging or despising one another, since each will answer to God. But then he turns to those who are free, and asks them to consider the weaker brother: resolve never to put a stumbling block in a brother's way. If your eating grieves your brother, he says, you are no longer walking in love. It is good not to eat meat, drink wine, or do anything by which your brother stumbles.

Paul's counsel to those who are free is striking: for the sake of a weaker brother, willingly limit your own legitimate freedom. He does not deny their liberty; he affirms that all things are clean. But he tells them that love may require them to give up their rights, to forgo what they are free to do, so as not to wound or trip up a fellow believer whose conscience is weaker. The question is not only what I am free to do, but what love for my brother requires; and love may mean setting aside my liberty rather than using it in a way that harms another. This corrects a way of thinking that stops at our own rights. We can be so concerned with what we are free to do, so ready to insist on our liberty, that we do not consider how the use of it affects others, whether it wounds a weaker conscience, trips up a brother, or grieves someone for whom Christ died. Paul calls us higher: to love, which willingly limits its own freedom for another's sake. Take care, he says elsewhere, that your liberty does not become a stumbling block to the weak. The mature use of freedom is not to insist on it at all costs, but to lay it down where love requires, seeking not our own right but the good of our brother. This is the way of Christ, who did not insist on his own rights but gave them up for us. And it reshapes how we hold our liberties. We are called to consider not only what we may do but how it affects others, to follow after what makes for peace and builds one another up, and to give up even legitimate freedoms rather than wound a weaker believer. Do not destroy with your food, Paul warns, one for whom Christ died. Love limits liberty; and the call is to hold our freedoms loosely enough to lay them down for the good of a brother, seeking peace and the building up of others above the insistence on our own rights.

Do I insist on my own freedom, concerned mainly with what I am entitled to do, without considering how the use of it might wound a weaker brother or trip up someone for whom Christ died, and can I follow Paul's call to a love that willingly limits its liberty, laying down even legitimate rights where they would harm another, and seeking peace and the building up of others above my own claims?

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