Monday, June 22, 2009

Your right, I'm right

So I was reading Romans 14 the other day and here's what it said for your convince (niv)

1Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.3The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
5One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. 10You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. 11It is written:

" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,
'every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.' " 12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.13Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. 14As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. 15If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. 16Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. 17For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.
19Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. 20Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.
22So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

Now the verse I tend to see get used for this type of point tends to be 1 Corinthians 8, but I think this verse says so much more. Where as 1 Corinthians 8 talks about food sacrificed to idols, this passage talks about food in general, drink, and even theology.

Now don't get me wrong I believe in absolute right, and absolute wrong. However there are somethings where what is right for me is wrong for you, and of course vice versa. Now it says something very important mostly mostly that we shouldn't in these situations tell the others they are wrong. And if its a stumbling block for them to not do it in front of them.

Now on a few things I would consider myself to be the Christian of stronger faith. For this example I will say I think it is ok to eat pork, because I don't actually know any Christians that feel other wise. So I can happily eat my pork, but my brother who is a recent convert from Judaism thinks that this is wrong, guess what we both are right. Which is honestly the part i have the most trouble with. My tendency is to want the weaker Christian to get it through their think skull that ham is ok. And upon finding out I eat ham, his natural tendency is to convince me I'm wrong. Which of course I'm not... but nether is he, because of his conscience.

Next theology. Again I will use another example that doesn't really affect most people. I used to consider crap a bad word. If I were to say it, it would have been a profanity. My friends said it all the time and found nothing wrong, and this is what was weird, I knew at some point I probably wouldn't ether. But at the time I knew I still considered it bad, so it would be a sin to use it, even if I wanted to fit in, but i keep it to myself, and let the others be fine with it. Gradually it became ok for me to say crap. However my mother still thinks of it as a bad word, so out of respect for her I choose not to say it.

I'm sure you can think of many other example, and I know I definitely can, but I wanted to keep away from things that would target actual people I know because as the last point I want to make "22So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God" To some extent we are to keep our dumb mouths shut. Letting my faith be mine, and letting your faith be yours, without telling each other were wrong, about the petty things. I know its something I have trouble with, maybe not actually attacking them, but wanting to.

No comments:

Post a Comment