Friday DIVE – July 11, 2025 – Romans 14:5-12

The Weak and the Strong

¹ Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things.  

• Rom.14:1 (NLT)  … ¹ Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong. 
• Welcome the man who is weak in the faith, but not with a view to passing judgment  on his scruples.

According to William Barclay …

 two lines of thought. There were some who believed that in Christian liberty the old tabus were gone; they believed that the old food laws were now irrelevant; they believed that Christianity did not consist in the special observance of any one day or days. Paul makes it clear that this in fact is the standpoint of real Christian faith. On the other hand, there were those who were full of scruples; they believed that it was wrong to eat meat; they believed in the rigid observance of the Sabbath tyranny. Paul calls the ultra-scrupulous man the man who is weak in the faith. What does he mean by that?

Such a man is weak in the faith for two reasons.

(i) He has not yet discovered the meaning of Christian freedom; he is at heart still a legalist and sees Christianity as a thing of rules and regulations.

(ii) He has not yet liberated himself from a belief in the efficacy of works.  In his heart he believes that he can gain God’s favour by doing certain things and abstaining from others. Basically he is still trying to earn a right relationship with God, and has not yet accepted the way of grace, still thinking more of what he can do for God than of what God has done for him.

When we are confronted with someone who holds the narrower view there are three attitudes we must avoid.

(i) We must avoid irritation. However much we may disagree, we must try to see the other person’s point of view and to understand it.

(ii) We must avoid ridicule. No man has a right to laugh at what some other holds sacred. 

(iii) We must avoid contempt.  A man’s views are his own and must be treated with respect. 

Before we leave this verse, it should be noted that there is another perfectly possible translation. “Welcome the man who is weak in the faith, but do not introduce him straight away to the discussion of questions which can only raise doubts.”  There are some people whose faith is so strong that no amount of debate and questioning will really shake it. But there are others who have a simple faith which is only needlessly disturbed by clever discussion.

There is one good rule which should guide the progress of any discussion, even if it has been a bewildered discussion, and even if it has been discussing questions to which there is no real answer, it should always finish with an affirmation. There may be many questions left unanswered, but there must be some certainty left unshaken.

Romans 14:2-4  NKJV

² For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats  only  vegetables.  ³ Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for  God has received him.    ⁴ Who are you to judge another’s servant?  To his own master he stands or falls.  Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.  

• Rom.14:2-4 (NLT) … ² For instance, one person believes it’s all right to eat anything.  But another believer with a sensitive conscience will eat only vegetables.  ³ Those who feel free to eat anything must not look down on those who don’t.  And those who don’t eat certain foods must not condemn those who do, for God has accepted them.    ⁴ Who are you to condemn someone else’s servants?  Their own master will judge whether they stand or fall.  And with the Lord’s help, they will stand and receive his approval.  

According to William Barclay … Rom. 14:2-4 …  TOLERANCE FOR ANOTHER’S POINT OF VIEW   

Within the Church there was a narrower party and there was a more liberal party.  Paul unerringly pinpoints the danger that was likely to arise.  Almost certainly the more liberal party would despise the scruples of the narrower party; and, still more certainly, the narrower party would pass censorious judgment on what they believed to be the laxity of the more liberal party. That situation is just as real and perilous in the Church today as it was in the time of Paul.

To meet it Paul lays down a great principle. No man has any right to criticize another man’s servant.  The servant is answerable to his master alone.  Now all men are the servants of God. It is not open to us to criticize them, still less to condemn them. That right belongs to God alone. It is not in our judgment that a man stands or falls but in his.  And, Paul goes on, if a man is honestly living out his principles as he sees them, God can make him able to stand.  

Many a congregation of the Church is torn in two because those who hold broader views are angrily contemptuous of those whom they regard as die-hard conservatives;  and because those who are stricter in their outlook are censorious of those who wish the right to do things which they think are wrong.  It is not open to us to condemn each other … We must banish both censoriousness and contempt from the fellowship of the Church.  We must leave the judgment of others to God, and seek only to sympathize and to understand.  

Romans 14:5-6  

The Law of Liberty

⁵ One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike.  Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.  ⁶ He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; ^{[NU omits the rest of this sentence.]} and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it.  He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks.   

• Rom.14:5-6 (NLT) … ⁵ In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike.  You should each be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is acceptable.  ⁶ Those who worship the Lord on a special day do it to honor him.   Those who eat any kind of food do so to honor the Lord, since they give thanks to God before eating.  And those who refuse to eat certain foods also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God.   

• What “day” do you think may be in view in verse 5?  Why?
• What does the phrase “fully convinced in his own mind” suggest to you?
  • has no  doubt  that he is doing the right thing
  • See NLT of v.5c above …
• What does the phrase observe it to the Lord mean to you?
  • the thing is being done to please God
  • See NLT of v.6a above …

According to William Barclay …

Romans 14:5-6  …  A DIFFERENT ROAD TO THE SAME GOAL    

One man rates one day beyond another; one regards all days alike. Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind. The man who observes a particular day observes it to the Lord. The man who eats, eats to the Lord, for he says his grace.  The man who does not eat, does not eat to the Lord, for he too says his grace to God.

Paul introduces another point on which narrower and more liberal people may differ.  The narrower people make a great deal of the observance of one special day.  That was indeed a special characteristic of the Jews.  More than once Paul was worried about people who made a fetish of observing days.

• He writes to the Galatians: “You observe days, and months, and seasons, and years: I am afraid I have laboured over you in vain” (Gal.4:10-11).
• He writes to the Colossians: “Let no man pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath.   These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col.2:16-17).

The Jews had made a tyranny of the sabbath, surrounding it with a jungle of regulations and prohibitions.  It was not that Paul wished to wipe out the Lord’s Day – far from it; but he did fear an attitude which in effect believed that Christianity consisted in observing one particular day.

There is far more to Christianity than Lord’s Day observance.  When Mary Slessor spent three lonely years in the bush she frequently got the days mixed up because she had no calendar. “Once she was found holding her services on a Monday, and again on Sunday she was discovered on the roof, hammering away, in the belief that it was Monday!”  No one is going to argue that Mary Slessor’s services were any less valid because they were held on Monday, or that she was in any sense breaking the commandment because she was working on the Sunday.  Paul would never have denied that the Lord’s Day is a precious day, but he would have been equally insistent that not even it must become a tyranny, still less a fetish.  It is not the day that we ought to worship, but him who is the Lord of all days.

In spite of all that, Paul pleads for sympathy between the narrower and the more liberal brethren.  His point is that, however different their practice may be, their aim is the same.  In their different attitude to days, both believe that they are serving God; when they sit down to eat, the one cats meat and the other does not, but both say their grace to God.  We do well to remember that.  If I am trying to get from Glasgow to London there are many routes I may use.  I could in fact get there without traversing one half mile of road that another man might use.  It is Paul’s plea that the common aim should unite us and the differing practice should not be allowed to divide us.

But he insists on one thing.  Whatever course a man chooses, let him be fully convinced in his own mind.  His actions should be dictated not by convention, still less by superstition, but altogether by conviction.

• • He should not do things simply because other people do them; he should not do them because he is governed by a system of semi-superstitious tabus;  he should do them because he has thought them out and reached the conviction that for him at least they are the right things to do.

Paul would have added something else to that – no man should make his own practice the universal standard for all other people.  This, in fact, is one of the curses of the Church.  Men are so apt to think that their way of worship is the only way.   T. R. Glover somewhere quotes a Cambridge saying: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might – but remember that someone thinks differently.”   We would do well to remember that, in a great many matters, it is a duty to have our own convictions, but  it is an equal duty to allow others to have theirs without  regarding them as sinners and outcasts.

Romans 14:7-9

⁷ For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.  ⁸ For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.  Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.   ⁹ For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.  

¹⁰ But why do you judge your brother?  Or why do you show contempt for your brother?  For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ^[God].  ¹¹ For it is written:  

¹² So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.  ¹³ Therefore let us not judge one another anymore^{[any longer]}, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way.   

• Rom.14:10-12 (NLT) … ¹⁰ So why do you condemn another believer^{[Greek ~ your brother]}?  Why do you look down on another believer?  Remember, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.  ¹¹ For the Scriptures say,  “ ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,  ‘every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will declare allegiance to God.’ ”  

• ¹² Yes, each of us will give a personal account to God.   ¹³ So let’s stop  condemning each other.  Decide instead to live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall.  

• Judging – NOT the same as showing contempt.  Do you appreciate the difference?  Who would be judging?  Who would be showing contempt?
• Why do you think Paul was exhorting for no judging and no contempt?
  • because we will all be judged eventually (as implied by the quotation in v.11 … and verified by the statement in v.12)
• Paul says we should resolve to NOT put a stumbling block … or a cause to fall … in a brother’s way.  What is an example of a stumbling block?   What is an example of something that would cause to fall?
  • drinking beer … setting a bad example (in behaviour)

According to William Barclay …