Bible Commentaries
Romans 14

Verses 1-13

The Strong and the Weak. (14:1-15:13)

Paul now comes to something which is a problem always and everywhere: moral questions about which sincere Christians differ. Just because Christian life cannot be managed with a brass rule, just because a slogan like "Love is the answer" or "Christ is the answer" does not untangle all problems, the Christian often has to think his problems through—only to find that other equally sincere Christians have thought the same problems through and have come up with quite different answers. Then what?

Paul mentions two such problems. We can pass by the first, the question of whether or not to observe certain special religious days (was one of them the Sabbath?), as Paul says little about it and what little he says is clear. The other question was a very thorny one. We find him dealing with it in the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 8). It had to do with eating meat. For some Christians today that is a religious question, but it was a different kind of religious question in the Roman Empire. The fact is, in a Roman market you could hardly find a steak or a roast or any kind of meat that had not come from some animal slaughtered in a heathen temple. The animal would be killed as a sacrifice; then the priests (who, numerous though they were, could not possibly eat all the animals the people offered) would sell the meat through retail outlets. This being the major source of meats on the market, the Christian shopper was faced with a problem: in buying and eating this meat, am I or am I not helping out the heathen wor­ship? Is not my witness for Christ better shown by simply not eat­ing meat at all? Some Christians answered both questions "Yes," and so would not eat any meat. Others said that meat was meat—it was people who were heathen, not beefsteaks.

Paul assumes that both sides are right, from their own point of view (14:14). Then which viewpoint is right? Paul is personally sure that the more liberal point of view is the right one. Nothing is unclean (unfit for a Christian to eat) in itself. It is quite true that a steak is only a steak; there are no steaks infected with heresy! The "strong" man, the man with the broader view, might ask Paul: Am I right? Paul would say, Yes. The man might ask, What harm can come to me if I eat such meat? Paul would say, No harm whatever. Is it a sin? Not even a tiny one.

But Paul lifts the question clear out of the self-centered level of what I think, what’s good for me, and sets it on a different level altogether, the high level of love. What will your action do to this weaker man? Remember he is your brother. Suppose he follows your example, as he is very likely to do? Then he will be going against his conscience, and that will cause his "ruin" (vs. 15). If the "strong man" complains that this ties down his free­dom, Paul reminds him that Christ did more than give up freedom —Christ died for him.

The reader will find much more in this section, but this is the main point. (The word "faith" in 14:23 clearly has a different meaning from what it had in earlier chapters. Here it means con­viction or assurance.) The chain of quotations in chapter 15:1-13 and the prayers in that chapter are along this same line of raising a moral problem out of the rulebook and looking at it in the light of the divine love. No human problem has been seen right until it has been seen in the light of God. No human problem can be wisely approached and solved apart from applying the principle of love. There will always be differing opinions, but they should not mar the harmony Christians enjoy "with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus" (15:5).