Christian Liberty
Lesson 25 Notes: Romans 14
“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17)
People from diverse cultures, traditions, and generations express their faith in Jesus in various ways. Are some right and others wrong? Perhaps you have heard disagreements and strong opinions about the best way to honor Jesus in this life. People who share a common love for Jesus might disagree about music, hobbies, art, social circles, fashion, vocations, diets, or religious practices. Disagreement among diverse Christians seems inevitable. So, when is disagreement acceptable? How can Christians disagree without treating one another with suspicion, prejudice, and injustice?
Paul offered practical help to the diverse believers in the church of Rome. He explained the value of following personal convictions and adapting preferences for the good of others. When cultural differences, backgrounds, and convictions clash, believers should honor and support one another as God’s precious servants. God sees the hearts of His children beyond the clothes they wear, languages they speak, music they listen to, and education they receive. God calls believers to love one another even when they disagree on disputable matters. God’s love, shared among His people, offers belonging to everyone saved through faith in Jesus Christ.
In the final chapters of Romans, Paul applied God’s righteousness to believers’ lives in important yet practical ways.
The issues related to love and unity addressed over this and next week’s lessons in Romans 14 and 15 seem to be mission-critical for the believers in Rome. Paul wanted Jews and Gentiles to get along. Believers today can also learn much from Paul’s wise teaching.
Accepted by God – Romans 14:1-12
Paul opened Romans 14 with an unqualified command: “Accept the one whose faith is weak.” Two verses later, he explained why: “For God has accepted them.” Christians have no right to reject believers God has accepted in Jesus.6
Paul emphatically told believers not to quarrel over disputable matters. Faithful Christians may disagree about matters that do not involve salvation or sin. Disagreement is permitted regarding disputable matters that do not undermine the truth of God’s grace in Christ through faith or deny God’s commands.7 Paul offered the Roman believers two relevant examples. He also gave them principles and guidelines that remain helpful for believers today.
Paul used special diets as his first example. In this and other examples, believers with “weak” faith prefer restrictions to protect their consciences. The weak may lack understanding of justification by faith alone, while believers with “strong” faith have trained and matured their consciences through God’s Word. Paul may have had several cultural issues in mind: Jewish food laws, Gentile self-denial for spiritual reasons, or food previously offered to Roman idols.
In Paul’s day, the Old Testament continued to influence Jewish dietary convictions. Nothing in the Old Testament required vegetarianism. However, Jews who lived among Gentiles sometimes chose to avoid meat8 to maintain kosher standards.9 Faith in Jesus did not negate a lifetime of eating patterns for believing Jews.
Some Gentiles practiced asceticism, adopting a severely self-disciplined lifestyle. The excesses of Roman life pushed them to the opposite extreme. Ascetics ate only vegetables and drank no wine. When these Gentiles became Christians, their dietary restrictions remained important to them.
Many ancient religions commonly sacrificed animals to idols. In Paul’s day, the markets sold the meat of these sacrificed animals. What were Christians to do if friends or loved ones served them such meat? Would eating meat sacrificed to idols encourage idolatry or defile believers? Paul specifically addressed this concern in a letter to the church in Corinth.10
Paul taught the Corinthians, “An idol is nothing at all in the world.”11 Believers who felt free to eat the meat were not free to impose their practices on other Christians who thought eating the meat was wrong. If someone informed them, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then they should abstain for the sake of the one who told them.12 They were to consider the consciences of other believers when making decisions. Paul promised, “If what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.”13 Paul was prepared to sacrifice his freedom for the benefit of believers who disagreed with him.
Paul focused on loving concern for fellow believers, not being right or giving a one-size-fits-all rule. The attitudes of the strong toward the weak and the weak toward the strong matter in the Church. Believers are not to look down on or condemn other Christians. Instead, God calls believers to “be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.”14 Paul called believers not to allow unimportant matters to undermine Christian fellowship and unity. Paul offered three helpful principles for prioritizing relationships over rules in disputable matters.
Principle 1: God Accepts Believers (14:3b) – Paul expressed confidence in God’s acceptance of all believers. Christians receive God’s approval based on Jesus’s righteousness, not their own. Because God has accepted believers, they cannot reject one another. How could a mere human overrule what God has declared as true? “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”15
Principle 2: Believers Answer to God (14:4a) – Paul exposed weak believers’ condemnation of the strong, who did not follow their stricter practices. While the strong looked down on the weak, who did not enjoy their freedoms, Paul asked both strong and weak, “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant?” Christians all serve one master, the Lord Jesus Christ, and will answer to the Lord. Everyone is ultimately accountable to God, who is always the best and perfect judge.
Principle 3: Jesus Makes Believers Stand (14:4b) – Paul continued, “To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.” Believers’ good Master will uphold all His servants. Jesus’s death and resurrection justify every believer before God. He also enables believers to live for Him through the Holy Spirit.
Paul offered a second example: Christians who observed certain days as special and holy. These believers looked down on anyone who did not share their practices. In the churches of Galatia and Colossae, Paul strongly taught that special-day observances were not necessary for salvation.16 The issue in Rome appears unrelated to gaining salvation. However, the weak seemed to think that diet and special day observances were necessary to please God after salvation. Paul addressed the believers’ wrong attitudes toward one another with three helpful guidelines that remain relevant today.
Guideline 1: Personal Conviction (14:5) – Paul did not say people were convinced of whether it was right to keep special days. He said people “should be” fully convinced. The words “in their own minds” point back to Paul’s earlier command to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”17 Believers are not to conform to this world’s pattern. Believers study, think, and pray to discern their convictions about disputable matters for their own lives. Convictions may change as the Holy Spirit helps believers apply growing knowledge of God and His Word.
Guideline 2: Thank God (14:6) – Paul wrote twice in this verse about giving “thanks to God.” The ability to give thanks helps believers discern God’s will. Believers can address doubts about their actions by asking, “Is this a gift from God for which I can give thanks?”18 Believers enjoy such activities in good conscience. When believers embrace the truth that God sovereignly works through each of His children as He sees fit, they can more joyfully accept one another.
Guideline 3: Serve the Lord (14:7-8) – Paul wrote, “If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” Whatever believers do, they are to live as people who belong to the Lord. Paul repeated the vital call to honor God through deeds eight ways in just three verses. Wholehearted love for God frees believers to honor Him in various ways, including through food and holy days. Paul’s teaching challenges every believer to honor and serve God in everything they do, whatever their convictions and practices.
Because all who believe in Jesus belong to Him, “Christ died and returned to life so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” Paul commanded believers not to judge one another because all believers belong to the Lord. One day, every person who ever lived will stand before God’s judgment seat, and the Lord Jesus Christ will judge them with perfect justice. God will judge “people’s secrets through Jesus Christ” on the last day.19
Paul concluded his argument with a solemn reminder drawn from the Old Testament book of Isaiah: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’”20 On that awesome day, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.21
Accommodating One Another – Romans 14:13-23
After establishing that God accepts both the strong and weak in faith, Paul encouraged believers to accept one another, wholeheartedly live for Jesus, and follow the Holy Spirit. Then Paul called strong believers to set aside liberties that would distress, confuse, or tempt weaker believers to sin. Love for Jesus and care for others motivate believers to prioritize people over personal preferences in disputable matters.
Judgment of humanity belongs to God alone. However, in Paul’s day and ours, judgment saturates social conversations, political discourse, and religious gatherings. God calls believers not to use their Christian liberties and freedoms to criticize or condemn others.
Basic Principle (14:13) – Paul paired a negative and positive command in this verse, and the Greek text uses the word for “judge” in each command. The negative command: Stop judging other Christians. The positive command: Start judging your own behavior. Jesus freed weak and strong Christians to love one another, not to judge matters God leaves up to personal conscience. The weak are not to call the strong unspiritual, nor are the strong to call the weak immature.
Words to the Strong (14:14-16) – As he continued, Paul spoke exclusively to believers who think they are strong. Why would Paul shift his focus to the strong? It could be that the weak can only abstain from what they believe is wrong. Meanwhile, the strong can discern when to abstain or not abstain. Paul called the strong to accommodate the weak when the weak cannot accommodate the strong.
Paul insisted that dietary freedom was not sinful. After all, Jesus Himself taught that no food is unclean in itself,22 and Paul followed Jesus’s teaching.23 Nevertheless, love for others should override personal freedoms and desires. Paul warned that the dietary freedom of the strong might “destroy someone for whom Christ died.” Paul was not teaching that one believer’s permissible behaviors can cause another to lose their salvation. However, he did clarify that Christian love does not willingly distress others by doing what they believe is sinful. In love, Jesus Christ did not cling to His freedom. He died for weak and powerless people.24
Paul was also not teaching a new form of legalism—that stronger Christians should live by weaker believers’ standards. The strong do not have to forgo everything about which some weaker believers might object. Instead, Paul cautioned the strong against harming weaker Christians over matters inconsequential to salvation through faith in Christ. One believer’s freedom should never become an excuse for another believer to sin against their conscience and Spirit-led convictions.
Paul taught that Christian love includes protecting and serving others, especially fellow believers.25 All believers belong to God’s kingdom. Paul offered a timeless definition of God’s kingdom that explains why believers should not impose their preferences on others regarding disputable matters. He wrote, “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
God’s kingdom is the realm in which God rules. God rules the entire universe! God rules everything. At the same time, the kingdom of God also describes God’s relationship to people who actively acknowledge His rule—those indwelt by His Holy Spirit through faith in Christ. In a personal sense, God’s kingdom reigns whenever individuals acknowledge His rule and reflect His character.
What believers do or do not eat, drink, or celebrate does not define God’s kingdom. Therefore, believers should not focus on these things except to guard their conduct from harming others. God’s kingdom is present in Christians. God’s Spirit bestows righteousness, grants peace, and produces joy. Believers prioritize God’s kingdom when they submit to His purposes, enjoy His presence, and promote His glory by sharing the gospel and serving others in love.
Righteousness – Christ’s righteousness characterizes God’s kingdom. The word “righteous” occurs more than 30 times in Romans, highlighting God as the judge between right and wrong. Righteousness sums up believers’ salvation. God’s perfect righteousness comes to unrighteous, needy people through faith in the work of Jesus Christ. Among other things, the kingdom of God establishes His righteous reign in believers. In God’s kingdom, the gift of righteousness in Christ transforms hearts and overflows into believers’ lives.
Peace – God poured His wrath on Jesus26 so people might enjoy peace with Him and one another.27 Through faith in Jesus, the barrier between people and God disappears. Believers have peace with God—an objective reality established by God. As believers lay their cares before God, they also experience the promised peace of God.28 Peace with God and from God enables believers to pursue peace with one another.
Joy – The joy of the Holy Spirit flows to believers who receive God’s gifts of righteousness and peace. The night before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed for His disciples to possess “the full measure” of His joy.29 When God brings His enemies into relationship with Himself, He offers them unbreakable peace after relentless warfare, and the joy of the Holy Spirit abounds.
After defining God’s kingdom, Paul encouraged believers that living a life focused on “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”30 pleases God and other people. Paul echoed Luke’s words about the boy Jesus, who “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”31 A life dominated by rules and regulations leads to pride and self-focus. However, when people understand that God only accepts them through faith in Christ’s work, they can humbly accept and accommodate everyone for whom Jesus died.
Paul called believers to “make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” Believers glorify God when they live in peace and serve one another in love.32 Today, “edify” often means “to instruct,” but it once meant “to build.” Jesus Christ is building His kingdom through His Church, and He invites believers to be His coworkers.33 Believers build up one another on the foundation of King Jesus.34
For believers saved by faith, the question is not, “Can I do it if it is not wrong?” Being right was not the heart of Paul’s teaching. Paul expressed his primary concern, “It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.” We should not lead others to compromise their convictions. Instead, we are called to accommodate one another so every believer can serve God with a clear conscience and a heart full of faith. God calls believers to love one another even when they disagree on disputable matters.
Final Judgment
In Romans 1–3, Paul focused on God’s judgment of unbelievers who suppress His truth and reject His righteousness in Christ. In Romans 14, Paul revisited God’s judgment—this time focused on believers. As the sinless risen Lord, Jesus Christ will judge every person.1 Unbelievers will receive their deserved, dreadful, and everlasting punishment for sin.2 Believers will stand on Jesus’s promise: “Whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”3
When Jesus judges humanity, He will consider what opportunities each person had to turn to Him.4 He will expose every secret, every hidden motive, and every pretense of faith, word, and action.5 No one will be able to blame others, make excuses, or steal credit for another’s good work.6 Unbelievers will be judged according to the light they received and for willfully rejecting the gospel. Greater knowledge brings greater accountability.7
God has already justified believers and proclaimed, “No condemnation!”8 God judged believers’ sin at Christ’s cross.9 Jesus fully satisfied God’s wrath against believers’ sin.10 The God who knows all things will remember their sins no more.11 However, God’s holiness will test believers’ perceived good works. All deeds accomplished in human strength for personal glory will burn up and turn to ashes.12 But Jesus will remember and reward even the smallest deed, long forgotten, done through Him and for Him.13 The Lord will fully reward believers who longed for Him and His righteousness14 and will share His happiness with them forever.15
Failure to recognize the certain and comprehensive judgment Jesus will bring leaves people wrongly judging themselves and others with authority that belongs only to God. The truth of God’s just judgment invites believers to stop judging one another. Each time Christians face temptation to judge others, they can instead live for the Lord, focused on their own moment of personal accountability.16 Rewards for living for Jesus make every moment of a believer’s life matter. God’s grace in believers’ judgment prompts gratitude and humility before God and other people. How joyful to know that believers will not receive what their sins deserve. If you do not yet believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, will you embrace the truth of His judgment and turn to Him in faith? Will you repent of living for yourself and trust Him for forgiveness and the gift of His Holy Spirit today?
1. Jesus as sinless judge: Acts 17:31; Hebrews 4:15
2. Perfect justice: Romans 1:18-20; 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9; Revelation 20:11-15
3. Death to life: John 5:24
4. Opportunities: Matthew 11:21-24
5. Secrets exposed: Matthew 10:26; Mark 4:22; 1 Corinthians 4:5; Hebrews 4:13
6. Excuses silenced: Romans 3:19
7. Unbelievers’ accountability: Luke 12:47-48; John 12:48; Romans 2:12
8. No condemnation: Romans 8:1
9. Sin and the cross: Colossians 2:14-15
10. Wrath satisfied: Romans 3:24-26
11. Remembered no more: Isaiah 43:25; Jeremiah 31:34
12. Deeds revealed: 1 Corinthians 3:10-15
13. For Christ: Matthew 25:31-40
14. Full reward: Matthew 5:3-12; 2 Timothy 4:8; 1 John 3:2-3
15. Sharing happiness: Matthew 25:21, 23; Revelation 21:4
16. Evaluative verdict: 2 Corinthians 5:9-10
Take to Heart
Paul laid an indisputable foundation of Jesus Christ and God’s plan for salvation by grace through faith. Then he called believers to mutual acceptance regarding disputable matters. Every believer serves the Lord, belongs to the Lord, and ultimately answers to the Lord. Because God has accepted each believer in Christ, believers should lovingly accept one another. God graciously saves people from various cultures, backgrounds, and demographics. He calls each one to honor Him through their various convictions about behavior and conduct.
Paul taught believers to surrender their lives to the Lord and follow the Holy Spirit’s conviction. Instead of judging the way others live for the Lord, believers are called to build up and support one another as they grow to be more like Jesus. When believers focus on God’s kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, they remove the barriers that inconsequential preferences might create. Wise words often attributed to Augustine remain a vital principle today: “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, love.”
Each week in BSF, you have the privilege of practicing loving acceptance among Christians who hold a variety of personal preferences on disputable matters. What might this lesson on Christian liberties reveal about your thoughts, words, conduct, and prayers for one another? You can choose to extend the gospel of righteousness by grace, not works, in your interactions with others. How you relate to other Christians builds up or tears down Christ’s body, the Church. Ask God to help you welcome believers with different views as beloved brothers and sisters in Christ. Create an environment of belonging by accepting others the way God has accepted you.
What disputable matters have you mistakenly elevated as necessary for salvation and pleasing God? Ask yourself why these matter so much to you. Have you considered why they may not be as important to others? God permits disagreement on disputable matters that do not undermine the truth of God’s grace in Christ through faith or deny God’s commands. God accepts and judges people on one basis only—the infinite righteousness of His Son. Has God accepted you through faith in Christ? If not, come to Him through faith in Christ today.
If you are a believer, do you judge or criticize other believers? We dare not look down on believers who approach Jesus’s service differently than we do. Acceptance pushes us past neutrality to lovingly embrace and encourage others. How much time and prayer could you invest in helping others succeed as faithful Christians? God is building His kingdom through every believer who obediently follows and serves Him.
What do you do when your freedom in Christ clashes with another Christian’s conscience? Are you even aware of when this might be occurring? Unless you prioritize people over personal preferences, you might not notice when your freedom causes others to stumble. Ask God to help you see ways you hinder other believers. What liberty might God be calling you to give up out of love for another believer? God may want to work through your sacrifice to help a Christian brother or sister grow and mature in their faith. As you lay aside your preferences, God will help you lovingly bear with the convictions of the weak. God is a good and trustworthy father to His children. In His time, by His Spirit, and through His Word, God matures each of His children. He frees their consciences from man-made regulations to love Him wholeheartedly and joyfully obey His commands.
1. Transformed mind: Romans 12:1-2
2. Assessment and service: Romans 12:3-8
3. Call to love: Romans 12:9-21
4. Submission to authority: Romans 13:1-7
5. Anticipating Jesus: Romans 13:8-14
6. God’s acceptance: Acts 10:45-48; 15:8-11
7. Indisputable matters: Exodus 20:1-17; Romans 3:21-26; 6:1-2; 13:9-10
8. Avoiding meat: Daniel 1:8-16
9. Dietary restrictions: Leviticus 11; 17
10. Special diets: 1 Corinthians 8; 10:23-33
11. Idols are nothing: 1 Corinthians 8:4
12. Food offered to idols: 1 Corinthians 10:27-29
13. Concern for conscience: 1 Corinthians 8:13
14. Devotion and honor: Romans 12:10
15. Accepted by faith: Ephesians 2:8-9
16. Special days: Galatians 4:8-11; Colossians 2:16-17
17. Renewing your mind: Romans 12:2
18. God’s gifts: James 1:17
19. Last day: Acts 10:42; 17:30-31; Romans 2:16
20. Every knee: Isaiah 45:23
21. Give an account: Matthew 12:36-37
22. Unclean food: Mark 7:1-18
23. Paul’s belief on food: 1 Corinthians 8:4, 8; 1 Timothy 4:4
24. Jesus died for the weak: Romans 5:6-8
25. Christian love: Romans 12–14
26. God gave Jesus: Romans 8:32
27. Peace with God: Romans 1:7; 5:1-11; Ephesians 2:11-19
28. Promised peace: Philippians 4:6-7
29. Christ’s joy: John 17:13
30. God’s kingdom: Romans 14:17
31. Grew in favor: Luke 2:52
32. Be one: John 17:20-22
33. Coworkers: 1 Corinthians 3:9
34. Jesus the foundation: 1 Corinthians 3:11
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