Romans 14 | RCD Podcast

I don't know where else you get something like this.

Because it is it here's what he's what he's protecting is the unity of the body.

That you do, that you're not devouring one another by your judgmentalism and by your despising one another.

And the way that he guards that unity is by emphasizing their individuality.

So there's a the way that I want to say it, just to make it as bring it to a paradoxical of a point as possible, is in order to remain unified, you have to not be unified.

I'm saying that to be paradoxical and provocative.

Because what he's emphasized, he's like, in order for you to not be devouring and despising one another, you have to be differentiated from one another.

Hello, my name is James Rathman.

And my name is Jacob Carr.

And this is the Redemption Church Denver Podcast.

Today we will be discussing Romans chapter 14 about weaker brothers and stronger brothers and how it is we can all just get along.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

That's the point of this one, that we all just get along.

This week's episode of the podcast is brought to you by the Women's Advent Brunch, which is on a December 6th, just a couple of days from now, just Saturday, from 9.30 to 12.30.

And this is a brunch, so it's uh at uh morning time.

And this will take place at Heidi Kushnov's house.

It's a great time to fellowship together, talk about Advent, uh, and fellowship for the women in our church.

Usually there's uh craft, something that is made, and it that's an enjoyable thing to do.

I heard there's gonna be baking as well.

So stuff is being brought that's already baked.

Baked goods.

Baked goods.

That'll be wonderful to consume and fellowship.

Absolutely.

Also, this month on December 12th, Friday, December 12th, we have a our final men's night of the year.

This is the final men's night concluding the topics that we've been going through.

I will be teaching this one, and the topic is love.

And we're talking about how how love is the great Christian virtue and how it's also the fundamental structure of reality.

So that if we do things without love, we're tearing apart existence itself.

I'm not gonna miss it.

Yeah, that's what we're gonna be talking about, the centrality of love among the Christian virtues.

So those should be uh um yeah, great, great times for this holiday season.

Hope you're able to make it amidst the busyness of the season, that these would be joyful and refreshing times for the men and women of our church.

Jacob, let's jump into Romans chapter 14.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

Let's do it.

Okay.

So let's start out.

Do you have it there?

Could you just read Romans fourteen, one to three?

Yeah.

Uh we'll get our topic.

141 to 3.

Um, as for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.

One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.

Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.

Why all this talk of eating?

It's a pretty controversial topic, obviously, in the in the early church, namely because you had a mixing of Jews and Gentiles, right?

Right.

And and for I think particularly, I don't think this lines up directly with the passage that Paul talks about in Corinthians about food sacrificed to idols.

I think that was primarily geared towards the Gentile Christians.

That's right.

This is kind of the inverse.

This is the inverse.

This one is geared more towards Jewish Christians who had grown up their whole lives under the old covenant observing the kosher laws and the cleanliness laws.

So that's right.

So this was a this was a a huge jump for them, which is why there's all this controversy in the church.

Suddenly they're surrounded by these Gentile Christians who, with full freedom of conscience, and some of their Jewish Christian friends, probably, who have this full freedom of conscience, they say, I can eat whatever meat I want.

I can have ham.

Yes.

I can have bacon.

Oh yeah.

Pulled pork sandwiches.

One of the best parts of the New Covenant, right?

Yeah, for sure.

It's an incredible upgrade.

Yeah.

Way better covenant.

Way better.

Yeah.

The other one, obsolete.

But you also got to think in yeah, in the Jewish, in their minds, you know, in the New Covenant, all foods were declared clean because of Peter's vision while he's on the roof.

Yeah.

And then Peter obviously takes that back to the uh the apostles in Jerusalem and they adopt that.

So I mean, uh that's like a man, that's like lightning striking and your world blowing up.

Yes.

All of a sudden it's like, what, this vision?

And now I don't have to observe the food laws anymore.

So I can understand why this was such a contentious point for them.

Oh, yeah, your conscience has been refined through your whole gr life that this is an inviolable boundary that denies who you are, your personhood, and your righteousness before God, your ability to approach God and cleanliness.

And so it's uh it w it would have weighed heavy on their consciences.

Now he describes the weak people and the strong people.

There's a relationship here between weak and strong, is the language that he uses to draw this distinction.

Who's weak and who's strong?

Yeah, in this situation, the weak brother is the one who chooses to abstain from something that God has called good or no longer a sin.

And the strong brother is the one who exercises their Christian liberty, so to speak.

They understand it's not a sin, and in their conscience, they're fully convinced it's not a sin.

Therefore, they are considered the stronger brother.

Anything to add to that?

Otherwise, I want to ask you.

Yeah.

Why is it important to categorize those individuals into weak and strong?

Right.

Right.

So the uh it's uh it's almost paradoxical because the in this one, the weak brother, if we were to videotape them, seems like the one it might seem like the one who is exercising greater self-control.

Yes, absolutely.

The one who is abstaining from something which is permitted.

Yes.

You know what's what's required of them.

But that brother is described as weak because what it demonstrates is a weakness of their conscience before God.

They weakly grasp that everybody's grasping in this.

Some are grasping strongly and some are grasping weakly.

Everybody's in Christ in this.

And they're weakly grasping the fullness of the liberty that quite that Christ has purchased for them.

Yeah.

And the stronger brother, who it might look like, is exercising less self-control because they're at the buffet and they're able to eat whatever they want, is actually stronger in their conscience before the Lord because they strongly grasp the fullness of the liberty that Christ has purchased for them.

And so that so the strength and the weakness is a distinction of each person's conscience as it stands before the Lord.

Yeah, I completely agree.

And I and I think it's important that we highlight that the person who by all appearances seemed to be stronger, meaning the weaker brother who's exercising self-control appears to be stronger, but they're actually weak.

Right.

And I think that's so important for Christians and the church through all generations to understand because there's often times when the weak brother can almost become tyrannical.

Yes.

With their requirements and their judgmentalism towards those who are freely exercising their Christian liberty.

Yes.

And there almost seems to be a draw in all of us, because you know, the gospel is so wonderful.

We're justified by faith.

But we always want to go back to works.

Yes.

We we do it all the time, and that's why we always need to be reminding ourselves of the gospel, reading, reading the Bible.

But there's always this tendency in us to to do a little bit more, do a little bit extra.

Yep.

And that is an incredible danger to the church and to our spiritual lives.

Yes.

So there's a um now I want to establish what what category of things are we talking about?

That's a good point.

So we're not talking about uh things that are sin.

Yeah, Paul says opinions here, right?

He calls them opinions.

What are what are opinions?

These are things which the scriptures neither require nor prohibit for the Christian.

So if it is uh prohibited for the Christian, it is not strength to participate in something that is prohibited, that is plain that is sin.

It's there's no strength in participating in that for the Christian.

And there's no weakness in abstaining from that which would be sinful for the Christian.

That's not those are not the categories that we're talking about here.

This is not about um uh sinning or not sinning.

Yes.

Sexual sin, hating your neighbor, all that stuff.

Like that's non-negotiable.

Exactly.

And abstaining from that doesn't make you weak.

Right.

It means you're you're you're not sinning.

Exactly.

You're you you're faithful and obedient to the Lord.

That's uh that's not what we're talking about.

But what we're talking about is the whole world of things which we want uh which we have the tendency, like you were describing, to push into the category of sin or not sin.

And then draw distinctions among ourselves between the righteous and the unrighteous based upon those things, which are outside the scope of scripture.

So that you could think of this as anything that would be added to the requirements of scripture that are not actually in the requirements of scripture are uh addressed in this place.

The technical term is the adi opera or the other things considered.

This is all the other things, other things outside of the categories of sin.

And so there's it's helpful to see the sort of two sort of tendencies that we can have in our hearts, the uh legalist tendency and the antinomian tendency.

So antinomian, anti-law uh is a way of viewing the gospel which says the law uh is no longer relevant to me.

I can do whatever I want.

I'm under grace.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly.

I can do whatever I want, I'm under grace.

Jesus died for those sins.

Right.

So whatever, who cares?

Yeah, who cares?

Yeah.

The uh legalistic tendency is to say I can be saved by my own righteousness, and it always morphs into I can define what righteousness is for myself.

And so beneath both of those are ways of maintaining autonomy, self-law, anti gnome, antinomianism, gnome, autonomy, gnome, law, gnome.

I'm picking uh the so autonomy, self-law, beneath antinomianism and legalism is a desire to be the lord of the law for yourself.

That's what's beneath both of those.

They're both basically the same thing.

Yeah.

At the heart level.

And with the uh antinomian tendency, which is not not it's it's not as directly being addressed in this section.

No.

The antinomian tendency is to say that there's uh uh Go to the Book of Corinthians if you want to learn about that a little bit more, right?

Exactly.

It doesn't really matter what any of us do.

You everybody can do anything and we're there's no discipline for it whatsoever.

Yeah.

The um uh legalist tendency is to say, you like the law of God, I can do it even better than that.

I can be even more righteous.

And here's how I'll define that righteousness.

You end up creating all of these other categories that have nothing to do with what we're with what the uh Lord requires of you, and it actually become a way, means of neglecting what the Lord actually requires of you.

Because you're creating your own self-righteousness.

So now there's this other category of things which are not intrinsically sin, not of themselves sinful.

Morally neutral.

Morally neutral.

Yeah.

But because of our heart's relationship to them, they can be sin.

That's right.

So in this example, the weaker brother has uh a weak grasp of the freedom which Christ has purchased for them.

And they can't imagine being able to consume this meat that is unclean and maintain a clean conscience before the Lord.

Therefore, if they were to eat that meat, they would be bringing themselves into a category of I'm able to do things which make me unclean before the Lord.

That's sin.

That's there's they're they're in their heart then committing a sin because they are not able to do it in faith.

The stronger brother has such a grasp of their the freedom that's been purchased for them that they can eat the meat and know that there is no sin being committed, and so they're they are able to eat the meat in gratitude and faithfulness to the Lord, and there's no sin in it.

It's the very same action.

But the difference of the heart determines the sinfulness of the action.

Because uh these are things that are neither forbidden nor required in the law of God.

Yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And you know, and and then Paul in uh well maybe jumping ahead.

But no, no, in verse three and verse four, this relationship.

So we have these two groups of Christians, one with a weaker conscience who cannot grasp the fact that they are able to eat meat, then you have the stronger Christian who understands that they are permitted to eat meat.

And naturally, what's that going to cause within the church and within our relationships with other Christians who are outside of the church is judgmentalism.

That's right.

Wait a minute, you can't do that.

Why are you doing that?

Right.

You shouldn't do that.

And then the strong brother, on the other hand, despises.

What are you talking about?

You know?

Of course we can.

I can't believe you don't do that.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Are you ever gonna get it?

Yeah.

We do and we and we despise one another and tear one another apart uh because of these uh regulations that we've made, these either permissions or regulations that we've made around things which the Bible neither requires nor prohibits.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in those places, I think what what's it so yeah, the the the judgmentalism and the despising is the result of these things in our normal fleshly nature.

Yep.

And what Paul is saying is there are categories of things which the law of God neither prohibits nor requires, and the way that you participate in those things is between you and God.

I think this is the most individualistic section of Romans.

That's wild, isn't it?

Yes.

He grounds the argument for this in the uh recognition that although you're all under the same master, the the within the within this category of things that uh like I already described are not required or prohibited, that's between that person and God.

Yeah.

And that's between you and God.

And you in order so I think what's interesting about this, I guess I'll just show the way that he says it.

Uh he says it multiple times.

He says it in verse four, talking about who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another, implying, we're all servants of God.

Yep.

It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

It is before his own master that he stands or falls.

But but even prior to that, in verse three, it's even at the very end where it says God has welcomed him.

So there's this idea that Paul is saying he's like, wait a minute, if if you have a Christian brother, whether you're the strong one or the weak one, whether they're the strong one or the weak one, if God has welcomed them into his kingdom, who do you think you are to play master over that individual?

Yes.

Yeah.

So this is a I I think it just shows that this is deep wisdom about uh unity in the body of Christ and how it's preserved.

There's the it's uh it's deep wisdom about congregational life that Paul is showing here.

I don't know where else you get something like this because it is it here's what he's what he's protecting is the unity of the body that you do, that you're not devouring one another by your judgmentalism and by your despising one another.

And the way that he guards that unity is by emphasizing their individuality.

So there's a the way that I want to say it, just to make it as bring it to a paradoxical of a of a point as possible, is in order to remain unified, you have to not be unified.

I've I'm I want I'm saying that to be paradoxical and provocative.

The it because what he's emphasized, he's like, in order for you to not be devouring and despising one another, you have to be differentiated from one another.

Absolutely.

You have to have this sense of that's between them and God.

And it doesn't that's not mine.

Yeah.

I I don't have a judgment there.

I have no judgment there.

That's between them and God.

And I have things that are between me and God.

And they have no judgment there.

Their judgment there doesn't matter.

Yeah.

It's it's ineffective and basically irrelevant.

Yeah to And I think he also does an amazing job defining unity in this sense as well.

Because he's he's categorizing these things, right?

Like there's gonna be a huge difference of opinions.

I mean, I don't even agree with myself on any given day.

Yeah.

So it's like, how would you expect a church of you know dozens or hundreds of people to all agree on these finer points that the Bible's just silent on?

That that's impossible.

Right.

So there needs to be this diversity of beliefs there, but also the thing that drives our unity is is the things that we agree on that we're supposed to agree on.

Right.

So he's he's doing a lot here.

Like you said, it's it's unbelievable and it's breadth of wisdom of wisdom that he's showing here.

Yes.

I mean, we've heard throughout all of this, like the um the unity between the Jew and the Gentile, how we're all one in Christ.

We've he's established this principle uh throughout the book of Romans.

Like the whole first three chapters is he's binding everybody up together under sin and then releasing us all together through the same Savior who is Christ, Jews and Gentiles all together.

And so there's there's tons of unity of the body, like you're the same in Christ that's being established here.

And then and now he's recognizing and showing to us in order for that unity to be maintained, you have to have a sense of your own responsibility, your own conscience individually, laid bare, naked, no communal supports before the Lord.

Yeah.

And if you get that, then you can be united in peace with each other.

It's very it's like um amazingly insightful.

It's amazingly insightful.

It reminds me of um my favorite like congregational leadership book is uh Generation to Generation by Edwin Friedman.

He has this great quote in that book where he says, it's not hard to get people to come together.

It's easy to get people to come together.

It's hard to get people to come together and stay themselves.

No.

And this is the difference between uh a body that is truly united in something higher than them, or a body that is united under a mutual tyranny of one another.

That that is, I like that quote.

I'm gonna steal it.

Because you actually see in the book of Galatians where the weaker brother runs rampant.

Yes.

Right.

And what happens is, you know, there's the church in Antioch, and Peter, the guy who had the vision that you can eat whatever you want, right, is led astray by the Judah Judaizers, and he actually sides with them and they begin to withdraw and no longer eat with the Gentile Christians.

Right.

And then Paul has that confrontation with him in the book of Galatians.

And I think what you said there with that quote is like that ability to be yourself, right?

Yeah.

You know when legalism starts to run rampant is when a certain individual or a certain group of people enters the room and you change your behavior.

Right.

You you you transform.

Oh, I don't say those things anymore, I don't do those things anymore, I don't while they're around.

Right.

And so how can we be a church where um weaker brothers and stronger brothers can live in harmony with one another?

And I think that's what he's he's really driving at here, too.

Yeah, because it's always gonna be the case.

Yeah.

It's always going to be weaker brothers and stronger brothers.

Hopefully.

Hopefully, there's always new Christians like don't know anything.

Yeah.

And I think even for, you know, we're all gonna be weak also in certain areas.

Yes.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

It's not just it's not that we slot so easily into these categories, aspects of our lives slot differently into these categories.

Yeah, yeah, it's so true.

Um, James, I want to ask you, now that we've kind of talked about judgmentalism and and weaker, stronger brothers, all that stuff, you know, what what do you think are some of the things in our culture?

21st century Christians living in Denver metro area, Colorado.

What are some of the areas that that we could fall into this area of saying, even though this is prohibited, Christians should, or sorry, even though you're allowed to do it, Christians shouldn't be doing this.

Uh-huh.

Well, I think this would have been I I think um it depends on your church and what your sort of peer group is in the church or whatever.

I think that like if this were uh like uh I think that there are times well it's always easier retrospectively to look back and discern.

But I think of the church that my um in-laws grew up in, and they grew up in uh like uh uh fundamentalist Pentecostal.

Yeah.

You know.

No drinking going on there, right?

Exactly.

So so no drinking, no TV, no dancing, um No smoking, no tattoos.

No smoking, no tattoos, exactly.

You can't probably have long hair.

Uh probably but probably.

I don't know that one, but probably.

I don't know.

Yeah.

And so those are those are you'd have to be a rock star first and then you let it happen.

Yeah, it's a big thing.

There's a uh so we look at that now with our our clear eyes now, and it and it's like, oh well that was plainly legalism.

Like the Bible doesn't prohibit those things.

Aaron Powell It's easy for us because we're outside of that culture, right?

Right.

Right.

And I I'm sure that there are uh uh there's there's a tendency, um, and it and there's there's a where you are in the church now, it those things can I think those same sorts of things could easily rear their heads again.

Um because especially in our in our moment sort of removed from those, because on so many of the cultural issues, the fundamentalists were plainly right.

And we didn't know until we had let secularism give full birth to itself, which it has in the last, you know, in the first 25 years of this century.

And it's given such full birth to itself that it's like, oh, well, look, the fundamentalist were plainly right.

Like, like the um uh the they were the they were the ones saying, oh, this is all satanic, and this is look at how the how culture's going to just like Satan worship and things like that, and it's like those guys were crazy, like they couldn't dance, they thought everything was Satan and all this stuff.

And then like you look out at the culture now, and it's like, oh, well, they were basically right.

Like a culture that worships money above everything, and a culture that uh uh celebrates sexual immorality as liberty, but that's plainly satanic.

That's plainly they're obviously right.

And so there's this tendency to want to be like, okay, so we need to adopt this whole we need to adopt all of their insights, all of the prohibitions that they had had that they viewed as protections against those things.

Uh so that's that's so all of those things I think are are fresh and ready to come back.

Uh there's but I think that in our culture today, uh honestly, the ones that you shared with me before the podcast started, I think are so salient and really insightful.

Yeah.

I think like hobbies are might broaden to just like lifestyle choices.

So like health lifestyle choices, I think are are um It's a Colorado thing, the health thing.

Yeah, it's a very Colorado thing.

Yeah.

I think that we can moralize and make make sin things like that that are not necessarily.

Um they're neither prohibited nor required.

Um and that becomes a food thing again.

Yes.

For different reasons than what the Jewish Christians struggled with.

Yeah, but yeah, for different reasons.

Yeah.

Um I think that there's uh uh there's lots of decisions that people would make for different because they have different moral convictions of what would be required of them.

I think some people would be like, oh, I could never shop at a store like that because that company supports these sorts of anti-Christian things.

And there's others that would say, Oh, I can buy from I'm always dealing with some level of sin anywhere that I buy from, so I can shop from wherever I want.

I can go shop at Target, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Um I uh and I think that um those can become uh shibboleths, little markers of r righteousness or unrighteousness that are not actually required.

Yeah.

Which is basically more like the Corinthian example.

Like, can I buy the meat from the that sacrifice to idols?

Because all the butchers Am I not participating in the worship of false gods if I eat that meat?

That's right.

That's a question in their mind.

That's right.

And Paul says, no, you're not.

No, you're not.

Yeah.

You can just buy the meat.

Yeah.

Where else are you gonna get meat?

Get it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um so I think that that's that's one.

So you think of like lifestyle things like that, um hobby things like that, uh diet things.

Uh I think that there's a I think things like um participation with technology.

I think we can moralize in uh ways where it's like this you may think that this is helpful and beneficial to you in some way, but it's it's um uh not a category of sin.

Yes.

Yeah.

Uh and therefore shouldn't be treated as that.

Yeah.

Um and all of those things I think get brought to the fore in this is I'm stealing this from you as well, and uh for parenting.

Oh, you know, you don't know what legalism is until you have a child.

Yes, exactly.

You have a child and there's a whole world opened up before you where you're like, I didn't know all the do's and don'ts in parenting.

And like when you look at scripture, like the requirements of of how to bring up your children.

Yeah.

Bring them up in the Lord.

Yep.

Fathers don't discourage your children.

Right.

Teach them the Bible.

Like, if you if you look at I mean, I'm I might be missing a couple, but that's kind of the gist of it.

Yeah.

It's a really make them disciples of Christ.

Don't be overbearing, don't discourage them, raise them up well.

And when you look at that, that's what the Bible requires of me, you would think that, well, that's actually, I mean, that's hard, but it's not a big list.

Right.

I mean, there's a million things that go into that.

But then when you get into the modern-day parenting world, you're like, oh, there's food laws here.

Yes.

There's screen laws here.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

There's laws everywhere.

There's clothing laws here.

Yes.

Do you use disposable diapers or do you use reusable diapers?

Like and there's like a pecking order amongst parents uh when you raise your children, and it's just like this, you just get hit in the face with it.

So I think yeah, that that that is an opportunity or that is an area whereas Christians you're like, hey, we want to make sure that we understand what the gray areas are here are.

Right.

And we don't want to have any reason to pass judgment on somebody that doesn't do those things.

Exactly.

Because they're because you don't have a right to.

Yeah.

Because they're under their master.

Yeah, absolutely.

They're under their there and that's between them and their master.

Yeah.

In in how these things are being uh relayed.

You know, I I think that it's important.

I I think that we uh and then it doesn't lead to despising or judgment.

No.

You know, like here's what bedtimes look in this house, here's what bed times look in our house.

Okay.

Great.

As long as you are teaching them the gospel and you're doing your best.

Right.

Right?

That's that's the requirement.

Right.

And so I and again, I want to return to we're not talking about categories of sin it when we're talking about this.

Like there is uh such a thing as neglecting to discipline your children.

Yes.

If you're neglecting to discipline your children, that's sin.

Yeah.

Disciplining your children differently, or somebody disciplining their children differently than you, yeah, isn't is not necessarily reglect neglecting to discipline their children.

You're right.

You know, it could be i if you are disciplining your children and somebody else is not disciplining their children, they may think they're just doing it differently.

And the reality may be they're not disciplining their children.

You know, in which case, yeah, there's a conversation to have.

Absolutely.

Because now we're in the category of sin uh and not not adhering to what the Lord requires of you as a parent.

But uh uh mere difference in form is not difference in substance.

That's right.

And so that these take it it of course takes a lot of wisdom to work that out, you know, and this is this is like Solomonic wisdom to be able to apply these sorts of things in the real world in real community and amidst all the variation that we have.

But but if we don't have this category of other things, um then we don't we don't stand a chance of maintaining any sort of unity.

That isn't a tyrannical conformity.

Yeah, I agree.

And I think it's getting down to the the point where it's like, okay, we have these these like just using your example for discipline, we are required to discipline, but that's gonna take a lot of different shapes and forms.

And if you're a wise parent, it'll even take different shapes and forms for different children.

It's different uh I've got three forms of discipline.

Yes.

From hopefully the same principles, different age groups, different temperaments, you know, it's all these things where it's like if you're wise, you're not gonna just have a one size fits all here.

But I think kind of where where Paul lands here, and you know, he talks about in verse five as well, days, you know, obviously there's Jewish holidays, which the Gentile Christians weren't observing.

Right.

And so they were shocked, you know, how how come you're not doing the feast of booths or whatever?

Right.

Uh um, and just to land that, it's like Paul says here, each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

Right.

Like if you're doing these things, right?

Discipline, even lifestyle stuff, which is you know, culturally hot topics.

You know, it's so funny.

I remember don't moms get this the worst.

They oh, they they take the brunt of it.

Oh lifestyle and parenting.

Yeah.

I remember when I I was I worked with a team based out of India at my last job.

And when I was getting to know them, I remember I asked them, I said, like, what's what's your hobby?

Yeah.

And they didn't know what that word was.

And they're like, wait, what's a hobby?

I was like, what do you do have anything that you like to do a lot in your free time?

Uh-huh.

And they're like, I don't understand that question.

And it was one of those things I had that that moment where I was like, holy smokes, like hobbies?

That is a Western invention.

Yeah.

Like we made that up.

Right.

And so, you know, like we and so it's like, okay, so what do you do in your free time?

And and there can be tiers of how do you like to spend your free time, just like there's tiers in parenting, lifestyle choices, fitness, however you name it.

And Paul says, each one should be fully convinced in his own way.

So there's this idea here that Paul is getting at where God's your master, you're the servant.

He even goes on to say, so much so that, you know, um, whatever you do in verses six, like if you do it, if you eat, do it in honor of the Lord, since he gets thanks to God.

And the one who abstains abstains in the honor of the Lord.

Right.

And it's this idea of like wherever you land in these gray areas, it's like you said before, it's between you and God, and you're doing it to glorify him and honor him.

Now, what that requires of you as an individual is that you should not accept the cultural norms of right and wrong in these gray areas.

Right.

If you just adopt them and you know, pick them up and then just put them in Christianity and say this is right and this is wrong, that's not honoring to the Lord.

Right.

There is a conscious decision, there's prayer, there's however you want to, however, you want to say it, there is this very deliberate choice.

I am going to do this or I'm not going to do this because I'm seeking to honor the Lord.

And that just blows all these categories up, doesn't it?

It does.

Yeah.

It does.

Because he puts the emphasis on your conscience before God.

Yep.

That's where this all comes down to.

It's your conscience before God.

So with that, let's talk about what are the responsibilities of the weaker brother to the stronger brother.

Yeah.

Uh what can the weaker brother not do to the stronger brother?

The weaker brother is unable to impose their weakness on the stronger brother.

Right.

So, in a sense of, you know, let's have an example here where um let's say weaker brother, well, we'll just use the example from scripture, or we could use a more modern one, but let's just say Let's get our bearings with the example from scripture.

Yeah.

Um sticking with food, right?

And James, were you thinking 13?

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, what I what what I was thinking was um uh the circumcision party in Galatians.

Oh, yeah, let's do that.

Yeah.

So there's uh the they're requiring separation and they're requiring circumcision for Gentile Christians.

And because of the requirement uh of that um uh by the weaker brother who's adding to the law, because of that requirement, Paul refuses to obey them.

Yes.

So it is it is um it is so what the weaker brother cannot do is they cannot require their uh greater prohibition, their further abstinence or their further doing of something.

Um and they cannot um despise the stronger brothers who are uh operating in their freedom.

Yeah.

They can't they can't despise that um or judge it.

They can't judge it as sin.

Because that's pretending to be their master.

Yeah.

And you guys are more separate than that.

That's between them and their master.

So so in going into so that's what the um the weaker brother uh is is required of is is not judging the stronger brother.

Um or imposing like imposing their their weakness, so to speak.

Right.

Likewise, I think while we're sticking with the weaker brother, likewise the weaker brother cannot participate in the fullness of the freedom that the stronger brother is in uh if they're unable to do so in faith.

It would be a sin for them.

Then it would be a sin.

Then it would be a sin.

So if they think it's a sin for me to drink, and they think, ah, but I'll drink, well now it's a sin.

Yes.

It's not a sin to drink.

No.

But if you think it is, and then you're doing that without faith, then it's a sin now.

So you can't.

You can't do it.

No.

So they can't violate their own conscience and they can't require what their conscience requires of them of others.

That's right.

Because then others would be violating their conscience.

Exactly.

And here's the danger of the weaker brothers.

So you can see in um I think I had it here.

Yeah.

1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 3.

1 Timothy 4:3

Um Paul actually talks about false teachers in this passage.

And he says, false teachers are those who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God has created to be received with thanksgiving.

So in one sense, the weaker brother, if they abstain from foods, they're the weaker brother and they're honoring God.

But as soon as the weaker brother begins to impose their convictions, their weaknesses upon other brothers, they become a false teacher.

Right.

That's that's that's terrifying.

Yes.

That that's a message for all of us, right?

Yes.

The moment that I take something that is permitted by scripture and I start to tell other Christians, you can't do that.

That's a sin if you do it, because it's a sin if I do it, you pass on, you you you transform from a weaker brother into a false teacher.

Right.

Which is a category that nobody wants to be in.

No, you don't want to be in that.

You don't want to be in that.

No.

And so the now now I guess that's a good transition into the responsibilities of the stronger brother.

Yeah.

So the responsibility of the stronger brother is if the weaker brother requires the stronger brother to uh conform to the weaker brother's conscience, then the stronger brother has a responsibility to not conform to the conscience of the weaker brother.

They must not conform.

Because they're not serving the weaker brother.

They're not serving the weaker brother, they stand before God.

That's right.

And this is demonstrated by Paul because he refuses to uh circumcise Titus.

Yeah.

And in Galatians, Timothy gets circumcised.

Timothy gets circumcised.

Yeah, yeah.

Out of his own will.

Out of his own will.

We'll get there for the stronger brother.

Yeah, let's okay, sorry, sorry, sorry.

So Timothy, so so he refuses to circumcise Titus.

He says in Galatians 2, verse 3, but even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.

Galatians 2:3

Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery, to them we did not yield in submission, even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved.

For you.

So it is it is important to not yield to the requirements of somebody who's saying that there's there's something outside of the law which you must do uh in order to be conform to the law, or must not do in order to be uh conform to Christ.

Uh then you have a responsibility to say, sorry, I serve the Lord, and he's the one who's Lord.

Um I don't serve you.

So if a weaker brother were to come to you and say, James, uh I believe it's a sin to drink alcohol, you shouldn't be drinking alcohol either.

That at that point it's it's the responsibility of the stronger Christian in that sense to say, No.

No, I can.

I can.

I can.

And I will.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And it now, here's the other responsibility of the stronger brother to the weaker brother.

It's to protect the conscience of the weaker brother.

Understanding that although the freedom that you're operating in is not intrinsically sinful, it is sin to the weaker brother.

And you have to protect the conscience of your weaker brother so that you do not cause them to sin.

Because if you so in that instance, to recognize it is to this person a sin to drink.

Therefore, as the stronger brother, I will not I will seek to protect their conscience and not tempt them towards something that would be sin for them.

That would be to walk them towards rebellion against their God.

And that's uh uh a denial of the communion that you have with them and the responsibility that you have with them towards the stronger brother.

It's to say that the more important thing here than uh the sin of my brother is the expression of my freedom.

And that's not true.

The more important thing here is the um righteousness of your brother.

Your freedom you can just lay down uh and and lay down for the sake of the weaker brother.

Yeah.

And so no nobody gets to flaunt and nobody gets to tyrannize.

The weaker doesn't get to tyrannize, and the stronger doesn't get to flaunt.

Because these are both ways of making you Lord of your brother, and your brother stands before his master on his own, and you stand before your master on your own.

And so what you need to do is what the Lord requires of you.

Yeah, I like that with the with the stronger brother.

Paul says in verse 15, never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way.

And it's one of those things where it's like, hey, you know, for weaker brothers, like let's use the example of like a, you know, maybe a Christian who grew up in a very strict environment where, you know, a lot of the things that are okay were abstained from, and they go to a new church and they find out at this church, like, hey, everybody gets tattoos, everybody's drinking, but their conscience isn't ready yet, right?

They're they're not there.

Um, they're not mature enough, honestly.

Let's uh that's probably the way to say it.

But they become a kid in a candy store.

Oh, I can drink, I'm gonna drink.

And then the older brother's like, yeah, come on, let's be drinking.

You should be you should be at where I am.

Right.

And then all of a sudden, I mean, I can see this uh with like just playing out where it's like, oh, uh, I can do anything I want.

Exactly.

And then you end up destroying their faith.

Because you're training them to violate their conscience before the Lord.

Oh, the conscience is so important.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

What what does he say?

Or he says, blessed um oh uh Blessed is the man who 22.

Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.

Yes, that's the blessing that we want for each other.

Yeah.

The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God.

Crazy, huh?

The faith that you have, keep it between yourself and God.

Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.

This is that differentiation that this is grounded in.

Yeah.

You can't be you you won't be able to have unity, you won't be able to maintain unity if you're not differentiated from one another.

That's right.

There's not you and God, yeah, fundamentally.

Um if it's if you're always in enmeshed with one another, and you always have to get everybody to be doing and saying and speaking in in the exact same way, in this absolute conformity, in order for there to be unity, then you're you will just devour one another.

That's what will happen.

That's crazy.

You know, it was funny.

I was having this conversation with it's our our individuality before the Lord preserves our unity.

That's right.

Yeah, so it's a remarkable insight.

It's just an incredible insight that Paul has here.

It's funny, I was going but kind of off of what you said, but sorry, I was thinking about this conversation I had with one of my sons just this week.

Yeah.

He came to me and he's like, Dad, I I feel guilty when I don't listen to Christian music.

So when I listen to music that's not Christian.

And immediately I was like, like, dude, non-Christian music is like way better than Christian music.

No, I didn't say that.

I didn't say that at all.

But you know, I was well, listen to this.

Yeah, that's because you're not listening to what I'm listening to.

Yeah.

But that was a moment where I had to realize, like, I don't want to teach my son to violate his conscience.

Yes, great example.

But at the same time, I want to help him know, like, hey, you can, you are permitted to listen to non-Christian music.

But at this point, if your conscience is telling you that you shouldn't, then then you're not ready to listen to non-Christian music.

Right.

And that's one of those those moments where I was like, I need to make sure that I don't teach my son to violate his conscience in this matter.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Now there's so I think we've captured the responsibility of the weaker brother, the responsibility.

Yeah.

Responsibility of the weaker brother, the responsibility of the stronger brother to one another, uh operating in this category of things which scripture neither prohibits nor requires.

Well, one thing I want to add to this is I think that we uh the I think generally the tendency of our age is is a is um uh I think this is less and less true all the time.

I think legalism is i uh you know uh r rearing its head and can rear its head in all kinds of ways.

Uh but there I I just want to be clear that what we're talking about is things that aren't sin, things that aren't conformity to the law of God, uh that that don't have to do with conformity to the law of God.

Those are the categories that we're talking in.

Because there are lots of things I think that we can um slip under the banner of Christian liberty that are actually just sin.

And I and I think that there are things that we uh often just neglect that are like the reality is like that's that's probably a sin.

Because you haven't put any thought into it, right?

Because we haven't put any thought into it, we haven't recognized what the law actually requires of us.

There's things that we look and discover and find in the scriptures and see like that's that's actually required of me.

You know, there's uh um or this is actually prohibited from me.

You know, like it's um uh like I I know I can't watch pornography, but if it just happens to be in a movie, then it then that's not enough.

That's probably actually prohibited.

I would think so.

You know, like that's uh it doesn't change the category.

But we but those sorts of things slip in easily uh uh as like pretenders in the category of Christian liberty, which are actually just violations of the law.

Um and so that's just an awareness to have as well.

So we don't want to be um uh neglectful of our pursuit of holiness in the category of Christian liberty.

Likewise, we want to recognize the terrible danger of adding to the law of God.

Uh it's not safer to make additions to the law.

Uh as though that will that will make us more protected for righteousness.

It's actually unrighteous to make additions to the law of God uh and to require those of to require those of fellow believers.

Yeah, I agree.

And I think Paul covers that as well.

I I in the midpoint I close my Bible, but um, where he talks about, you know, whether we live or we die, we live, you know, essentially we're living for Christ in these matters.

Exactly.

So there's no area that's off limits to God.

Right.

That movie that you're like, well, you know, it's not pornography, but I know there's that scene in there, it's it doesn't count.

Yep.

Like it your life is not your own.

Right.

You you belong to Christ wholeheartedly.

Right.

And if if you feel at any moment you're going to stand before your master, your God, your judge, and and your testimony doesn't add up, then you shouldn't be doing that.

Yep.

You just shouldn't.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

So the I I think that like the grounding thing, and because it feels like the central principle from which he's working all this out is you stand with your conscience before the Lord.

Yeah.

And you must honor that.

Where he has granted you liberty, you must honor that.

Where he is granted where there is weakness, you must honor that before the Lord.

Because our hope is to stand with a clean conscience before the Lord.

Because that's what we'll all do.

That's what we'll all do.

And we hope that for one another.

So we don't try and bind people's consciences where the scripture doesn't bind it, and we don't seek to cause people to transgress their own consciences where it is bound.

Then we can live together in freedom.

Yep.

And I think honestly, like what that often looks like is yeah, yeah, they do it that way.

He does that thing, that's fine.

I do this thing.

No big deal.

No big deal.

If they're doing it, then they're honoring the Lord with it.

Yeah, game on.

Who cares?

I hope it works.

Yeah.

Because I'm part of a body with them.

Have a great time.

Yeah.

And then you can then you then you get a body.

Yeah.

Like I know you like cycling.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't like cycling.

No.

I think that's like the worst way to spend my free time.

Totally.

You think it's like a great way to spend your free time.

Yeah, I yeah.

At least theoretically, I never do.

I have before.

But yeah, it's what I was saying.

But I'm like, eh, you know, I didn't have a great time, James.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm not going to say you shouldn't, and you shouldn't say I should.

So it's great.

Right.

There's I'll close with this.

This is in the um the Book of Church Order opens with these preliminary principles.

Let's do it.

And they're very good, I think.

And so here's um I'll read you principles four and five.

So it's principle four.

Godliness is founded on truth.

A test of truth is its power to promote holiness according to our Savior's rule.

By their fruits ye shall know them.

No opinion can be more pernicious or more absurd than that which brings truth and falsehood upon the same level.

On the contrary, there is an inseparable connection between faith and practice, truth and duty.

Otherwise it would be of no consequence either to discover truth or to embrace it.

Now here's the fifth principle.

So that one's truth matters.

There is a truth, it matters.

Do not pretend that truth could be falsehood or that falsehood could be true.

Here's the fifth principle.

While under the conviction of the above principle, it is necessary to make effective provision that all who are admitted as teachers be sound in the faith.

There are truths and forms with respect to which men of good character and principles may differ.

Do you hear that?

There are truths and forms with respect to which men of good character and principles may differ.

In all these, it is the duty of both private Christians and societies to exercise mutual forbearance toward each other.

We must exercise mutual forbearance toward one another.

Although we all agree that there is truth.

That is a that's one of those seemingly paradoxical dynamics that Christianity seems to always push you into.

Yeah.

And it yeah, I love those.

And I think it goes back to me for verse three, where Paul talks about if God has welcomed them, who are you?

Who are you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is like a path to unity, and we should embrace.

It's hard to discern.

It takes discern, it takes like Solomonic wisdom to discern this in real time.

It does.

Um and to discern one another, our consciences need to be sensitive, that there are likely sins in our lives that we don't have the wisdom to discern, that our brothers and sisters have the wisdom to discern and need to have the space to speak into.

That's a very good point.

With these gray areas or the morally neutral things that we've been discussing.

Romans 14 doesn't mean we can't talk about them.

Aaron Powell Right.

That's right.

And it doesn't mean that something that you might think is a category of liberty is actually a category of sin.

And that can be discovered.

That's okay.

Yeah.

And likewise, uh it doesn't mean that it means that there is such a category of things that are uh not sin and ought to be protected by the stronger who know that they're not sin and uh not imposed by the weaker.

Uh so that the fullness of the life that the Lord has called us to, we're able to participate in together as a body.

So that's a good way to round us out.

Yeah, let's I think that's a good round out.

Fifty-eight minutes, not bad.

Cool.

Thanks, James.

Thanks, Jacob.

Goodbye.