Surveying key issues in Romans 14 and 15. Strong and Weak Vs Faithful.

Paul gives instructions to those who are strong to be kind to the weak, in Romans 14:1. Then in Romans 15 (after a little summary) he tells everyone to get along for Christ’s sake.

When reading the instructions to the “strong” it was very easy to think of all those “weak” people out there and to conclude that the duty of the strong (like me or perhaps like you) is to put up with “them.” But it is interesting that Paul never defines who the strong ones are and who are the weak.

Have you not noticed that sometimes we are strong and sometimes we are very weak? Paul seemed to know that people who think they have it together have to be given a stringent reminder to be kind to people who don’t.

Is it not true that when we fail, and act like a weak person, at that moment we depend on the “strong” to put up with our non-sense? We depend on the strong, whoever they are, to cut us slack, to bend over backwards, to give us grace, and to be quick to forgive us, when we are full of ourselves?

Romans 14:19, “So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual up-building,” and you could add, “no matter who you think you are.”

Paul zeroes in on faith as the test of how we may consider what makes up strength and what makes up weakness. When you are living by faith, when your choices are informed by faith, when you are expressing your faith verbally and in the way you live, then that is good and acceptable. You can be weak (in the way you act and in your understanding) but if your faith is true and your heart is given to God, others can put up with you. It is when you don’t live by faith and when you fail to believe God’s promises or trust his Person, that you get into trouble, and putting up with you at that point in your life is a waste of light and power. When you are faithless, even the strong can’t help you and they shouldn’t.

Paul’s instructions don’t give the weak permission to act like jerks. His wisdom doesn’t give the strong permission to overlook stupid and gross sins in those who are “weak.” There is a place of commonality between strong and weak and that place is our faith.

The church today seems too concerned to incorporate people into their system and programs, into their way of thinking and their alien god-speak and other strange dialects that we hear being spoken among the religious, and not concerned enough about teaching people who truly and savingly believe in Christ to simply get along with each other with true and unvarnished love.

We are called to accepted one another like Christ accepted us (see Romans 15:7, “Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”) The strong want the weak to shape up. The weak are tired of being left on the outside.

Those who have been purchased by the blood of Jesus are accepted by HIM. The command is simple: If Christ received you, receive each other. This is a picture of the Church that Jesus is building.