Romans 14:1–12 (ESV)✞: Do Not Pass Judgment on One Another
This passage contains a very famous sentiment, often quoted by non-Christians as a means of showing the hypocrisy of Christians, which Christians are sometimes quick to point out as an argument that’s not presented in good faith – as well as missing the point. Though… in context, I think it’s actually closer to the point than we might think, and we shouldn’t dismiss it too quickly!
But let’s set that aside for a moment and go through the passage.
Passage
Paul starts the theme with an example:
1 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3 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.
As a side note, we often think of this in terms of a Christian who’s vegetarian as opposed to one who eats meat, but I’m not sure that that’s Paul’s point; it reads to me more like two extremes: one who feels free to eat anything as opposed to one who only feels free to eat almost nothing. I don’t think we have to reduce it to eating meat vs. vegetarians. In fact, Paul mostly likely had Jewish Christians in mind when he wrote this; people who were trying to figure out if they should continue obeying the Jewish dietary laws or not. Regardless, I don’t think that impacts Paul’s larger point: there are those who feel free to eat whatever they want to eat, and there are those with a “weak faith” that only allows them to eat certain things.
Why does that make them “weak?” For Paul, it’s a question of faith: they don’t have enough faith in Christ’s work, so they feel they need to be “extra good” for God. They get that Christ died for their sins, but… just to be safe, they’ll avoid eating things they feel might make them unclean.
So if I have “strong” faith that allows me to eat anything, I shouldn’t “despise” the one who only feels allowed to eat certain things; similarly, if I am trying to keep myself “clean” by only eating certain things I shouldn’t “despise” the one who pollutes their body with unclean foods. In either case I should be looking at my fellow Christian as one whom God has “welcomed.”
In fact, Paul takes this even further in the next verse:
Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? 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.
This is the famous verse I was mentioning earlier, that non-Christians sometimes like to levy against Christians, but we’ll set that aside (for the moment).
Paul is going further than just saying “bear with” the ones I disagree with; he’s saying it’s not my place to judge them at all – that’s God’s job. And, in this case, Paul says that God will uphold that person! So… if I try to stay clean I should know that God will uphold those who pollute their bodies, but if I’m one whose faith is strong enough that I can eat anything I should know that God will uphold them, too!
How can we both be right? But thinking about who’s right and who’s wrong is exactly what Paul is trying to get us away from – even in this case where he’s called out one side of the debate as being “weak.”
I don’t think Paul would have a problem with healthy debate on such matters (see below), but “healthy,” in this context, means being able to offer my opinions on the topic without feeling that you’re somehow less of a Christian than me if you disagree. If God is upholding you, who am I to disagree with Him?
But now Paul gets even more extreme: there are some questions around which there is no correct way of thinking: it’s not a matter of weak or strong faith, it’s just open-ended questions where we each need to make up our own minds:
5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
Gosh! So there are questions where we’re supposed to just… decide for ourselves? Wait… so Paul is telling me that some churches only do communion on certain days and other churches do it every Sunday, and… they’re both right?!? And that some Christians celebrate Christmas and some don’t, and… they’re both right?!?
And I think Paul would say, no, the point is that there is no “right” or “wrong” answer, and no answer we land on is going to bring us closer or further from God. If my local church does communion (or Lord’s Table or whatever we choose to call it) on the first Sunday of every month and your church does it every Sunday, Paul says we’re both serving God.
Paul likely still has Jewish Christians in mind. Are they allowed to keep observing certain special days or rituals in the Jewish calendar? Do they have to? Paul tells them they can decide for themselves. They were Christian but they were also Jewish; if they brought some of their Jewish culture with them that was fine, and if they decided they needed to set aside those things because of their newfound faith that was equally fine. Equally. As long as a person was “fully convinced in his own mind,” he was just as “correct” as someone who’d made a different decision.
What’s more, Paul says it’s more important for us to be getting along with each other than it is to be settling such debates:
For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.
Much as it pains me to admit this… I’m not the only Christian. 🙃 I’m not all on my own out here; it’s not just “me and God.” There’s an entire Church—a local church I’m part of, as well as the global Church I’m also part of—and I need to take that seriously. What I do and say—and how I debate matters of doctrine—impacts other Christians. It’s more important that I help them than that I be right.
This next part is less clear to me:
8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Obviously it’s continuing the previous thought, where Paul said that none of us lives or dies to himself; I think I’m overthinking it because of the last phrase about Christ being the Lord of both the dead and the living. I think he’s just saying that we all belong to the Lord, He’ll do with us as He pleases—up to and including the manner of our deaths—which ties in with the larger point that I shouldn’t be judging His other children.
Paul finishes with a summary that recaps all he’s said so far:
10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; 11 for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.”
12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
I will be answerable to my God, as will those with whom I disagree. It is not my place to be the one to judge others—much as my sinful heart wants to judge others—it’s His. If anything, when I’m in disagreement with someone on some point of doctrine I should be remembering that God will uphold that person. Whether she’s right, or wrong, or neither right nor wrong because there is no right or wrong, she’s a child of God’s just as I am.
Thoughts
Some further thoughts concern the idea that we’re not to judge one another, as well as some thoughts on Christian debate of doctrinal matters.
Do Not Judge
I mentioned above the fact that non-Christians often use verse 10✞ against Christians. “The Bible says not to judge,” they say, “so you’re a hypocrite if you say my actions are morally ‘wrong,’ according to your own Scriptures!” To which the Christian might reply, “We’re not to judge the person but we are to judge the actions; if you murder someone I can’t claim to be better than you, or morally superior to you, but I can say that murder is wrong!”
And that’s true. However, the entirety of this passage also shows that it can also be more complicated than that. Paul says there are examples where we can’t even judge the actions! I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but this kind of Biblical ambivalence makes some Christians uncomfortable.
We want to be able to look at an action and say whether it’s right or it’s wrong. So we’re ok with verses 1–4✞, where Paul uses the word “weak” to describe Christians who don’t eat certain foods—if they’re weak, that means that the Bible says it’s ok to eat meat, so we know what the “right answer” is on that point, even if there are those who don’t “get it” like I do—but then in verses 5–9✞ Paul throws us all off by saying there is no “right answer” when it comes to special days! It’s not a matter of bearing with “weak” Christians who just don’t know any better, it’s a matter of there not being a right answer at all.
In fact, Paul makes it even worse in verse 5:
One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
Romans 14:5 (ESV)✞, emphasis added
That’s the kind of statement that drives Christians crazy! When I wrote this we were in the postmodern age, wherein the general public felt they could choose whatever religion was right for them, choose whatever rules and regulations were right for them, and Christians were having to say that, no, there is absolute truth, there is one God, what He says is true is actually true… but then Paul comes along and says that there are also areas where you have to decide for yourself what’s right and wrong, just like the postmodernists are saying.
So what are we supposed to do with this? Follow the overall guidance of this passage: not judge our fellow Christians when we have disagreements about how things are to be done. It’s very difficult to do—not least because I have to have enough humility to admit that I might be the one who’s “wrong” (if there is a “wrong” answer)—but it gets easier when we remind ourselves that these are not typically life and death questions; we don’t get saved by obeying rules or doing things the right way, so even if it turns out I’m “wrong” I’ll still be with my God forever – and if I’m “right” (if there is a “right” answer) I don’t somehow earn extra salvation for it.
And when a non-Christian comes up to me and says that Christians are hypocrites for judging people, I shouldn’t dismiss the thought too quickly. History is rife with examples where Christians have been vicious and nasty in how we’ve disagreed with one another, and we need to own that.
Debate
Is Paul saying we shouldn’t debate these matters? I don’t think so. A healthy debate on such topics is good for the Church; I think part of the reason Christianity doesn’t have hard-and-fast rules for Christians to follow—aside from the fact that we’re saved by faith not by works, and even well-intentioned rules end up becoming “laws” (such as what the Pharisees were doing in Jesus’ day)—is that such rules would have to evolve over time, as the human race evolves.
To use the most obvious of examples, rules around how Christians are to use modern technology never would have made their way into the Bible because such technologies didn’t exist. Can we use biblical principles to decide how to use technology, as Christians? Yes. Does that make the answers obvious? Not usually, no! So if someone disagrees with me on how technology is to be used, it should never enter into my heart to despise that person for honestly seeking to please God by living rightly, just as I am.
Maybe they have a weak faith where mine is strong; maybe I have a weak faith, where theirs is strong! Or maybe, as in some of the examples Paul has given here, there is no right and wrong – or it’s more of a postmodern example where we’re both right for ourselves!
If I can’t debate in this manner, then maybe it’s better for me not to debate at all. But if I can, I think it’s helpful; such debates move the Church forward. People will raise points that others might never have thought of, which can help us to have a better perspective on others’ experiences.
I should also be prepared, however, for the fact that there will be some things that are “ok” for someone else and not “ok” for me, or vice versa.
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