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News flash. God can handle things with out my help!! God doesn’t need me to correct believers. This can be very tough for religious people who steeped in religious instruction year after year.

My only assignment from Jesus, the Messiah and Master, is to love. That, on any given day, is plenty. No need for anything else to focus on at all. That is my assignment. Everything else is for God to take care of.

Jesus challenges us here as well. “Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged” (Matthew 7:1) Pretty clear. Just love.

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. 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 Master is able to make him stand. [1]

Romans 14:1-4 (ESV)

It is not our responsibility to decide the requirements for fellowship in a church; only the Master Jesus can do this.

  • To set up man-made restrictions on the basis of personal prejudices (or even convictions) is to go beyond the Word of God.
  • Because God has received us, we must receive one another.
  • We must not argue over these matters, nor must we judge or despise one another.

Perhaps St. Augustine put the matter best: “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

When God sent Peter to take the Good News to the Gentiles, the church criticized Peter because he ate with these new disciples. But God had clearly revealed His acceptance of the Gentiles by giving them the same Holy Spirit that He bestowed on the Jewish believers at Pentecost. Peter did not obey this truth consistently, for later on he refused to fellowship with the Gentile disciples in Antioch, and Paul had to rebuke him. God showed both Peter and Paul that fellowship was not to be based on food or religious calendars.

In every church there are weak and strong believers. The strong understand spiritual truth and practice it, but the weak have not yet grown into that level of maturity and liberty. The weak must not condemn the strong and call them unspiritual. The strong must not despise the weak and call them immature. God has received both the weak and the strong; therefore, they should receive one another.

The strong disciple was judged by the weak disciple, and this Paul condemned because it was wrong for the weak disciple to take the place of God in the life of the strong disciple. God is the Master; the disciple is the slave. It is wrong for anyone to interfere with this relationship.

It is encouraging to know that our success in the Christian life does not depend on the opinions or attitudes of other disciples. God is the Judge, and He can make us stand. The word “servant” here suggests that disciples ought to be busy working for the Master Jesus; then they will not have the time or inclination to judge or condemn another disciple. People who are busy winning souls to the Messiah have more important things to do than to investigate the lives of the saints![2]

We have good news! Want to know how to be saved? Click here and here for more.

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ro 14:1–4). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

[2] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 558–559). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

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