150 - Weaker Brother, Stronger Brother [B]

Weaker Brother, Stronger Brother
Romans 14:1-5
Romans Lesson #150
July 31, 2014

Open your Bibles to Romans 14 where we're continuing to talk about the weaker brother versus the stronger brother. The background here is how do we deal with issues, how do we make decisions about issues that are not moral issues in the Christian life? They're neither prohibited by God nor commanded by God. It's amazing how many different activities in life are not specifically directly addressed by Scripture. Yet most of us have rather firm convictions about whether or not these activities are something we should participate in as a believer.

Last time I pointed out a situation that occurred many years ago when I worked many years ago working at Camp Peniel when I ran into a group of Christians coming down from Grand Rapids School of the Bible and Music that we thought were legalistic. Often that's what happens. People identify some Christians as being legalistic when the other group is just being a little more rigid in their precision of application. Legalism is one of those funny terms that is often used and abused. Technically legalism in a Biblical sense is either adding works to the gospel, such as saying that in order to be saved you not only believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins but you have to do something else on the front end or the back end.

On the front end I mean you not only have to repent of sins and clean up your life you have to stop smoking, dancing, going to movies or whatever plus believe in Jesus. You have to change your moral behavior and trust in Jesus in order to be saved. In some denominations it's believe in Jesus and be baptized. In some situations it's believe and be a member of our denomination but the Scripture says its faith alone in Christ alone. So that's one form of legalism. The way it expressed itself in the New Testament mostly as a group of Jewish background Christians who insisted that obedience to the Mosaic Laws, specifically in terms of circumcision for men, was necessary in order to be truly saved and have a relationship with God.

The second way in which legalism entered in was the idea that you had to have a moral life, you had to obey the law, in order to be sanctified in order to grow as a Christian. It taught that if there were certain things that were not present in your Christian life then you were not really living like a Christian. These were things that were added that were not specifically prohibited or commanded in the Scripture. Sometimes we speak of them as "gray" areas. I don't think that's a good term because I don't think they're necessarily gray. They are non-moral behaviors that are not addressed in Scripture but groups come together and some people will make choices and then they expect everyone else to go along with their choices. So the Scripture addresses these in terms of the weaker brother and the stronger brother.

I tried to find an article online but apparently all of Moody Monthly's articles are not on line yet. I tried to locate this the other day. I remember about the time I went to seminary or a little before there was an article in Moody's monthly publication called Moody Monthly, always thought that was too much creativity there, called "Grow up Weaker Brother" that made a good point. There are a lot of Christians who hold to certain dogmatic positions related to these non-moral areas that they believe are moral for one reason or another but they're not addressed by Scripture. They continue to hold them even though they ought to know better. Even though they have reached a level of spiritual knowledge. So there's really a third group here.

It's not just the weaker brother or the stronger brother. I'm going to add a third category that is not addressed in either the 1 Corinthians 8 passage that deals with this issue or the Romans 14 passage. The category I'm adding is the legalistic or the Pharisaical brother who has come to his convictions that are not addressed in Scripture and then wants to impose those upon everybody else. I remember Dr. Ryrie used to use the illustration when talking about the injunction in Scripture not to put a stumbling block in front of a weaker brother. He used to make the point that in order for something to be a stumbling block the other person has to be moving forward so they can stumble over it. A lot of times you have people who aren't growing. They're just being critical so that again is in Dr. Ryrie's terminology a recognition of this third category that exists out there other than just the weaker brother and the stronger brother.

Paul gives a command here at the beginning to receive or accept into fellowship the one who is weak in faith. The word there to receive is proslambano which means to accept into one's company or fellowship, to welcome them as part of your congregation and not to make things that are somewhat unaddressed by Scripture as a test of fellowship. So he says, "Receive the one who is weak in faith." I pointed out last time that the verb here for weak is astheneo and it means to be without strength. It can refer to being without strength physically as in being ill or without strength spiritually in the sense of being spiritually immature or unable to go forward because of difficulties in life. So we are to receive the one who is weak.

We're to accept them into fellowship and in contrast we are not to dispute. The word here for dispute is the word diakrisis, which means to argue, to debate, or to quarrel over something. So he's saying not to have quarrels, which is a word for debating, expressing your opinion, or getting involved in issues where you may have legitimate differences of opinion but the Scripture doesn't specifically address those issues. So he's saying to receive the one who is weak or immature and do not get engaged into quarrels over opinions.

"Doubtful things" is a doubtful translation. Disalogismos just means ideas or opinions or topics of debate or discussions so he's saying not to get involved in quarrels over opinion as opposed as things that are clearly stated as absolutes in Scripture. As we look at this passage we have to understand who these weak believers are in the context of Romans. As we look at this there are several positions that have been suggested that you may run into them in a study Bible or in some other writing.

The first view is that the weak were mainly Gentile Christians who abstained from meat and particularly wine on certain fast days under the influence of certain pagan religions. Now the problem with this is that when we look further down in the passage at Romans 14:14, Paul says, "I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself but to him who considers anything to be unclean to him it is unclean." Then he goes on in the next passage to talk about food. So he introduces the category of clean and unclean when he's talking about this food. The issue here is really dietary.

That wasn't a problem with the Gentiles. Clean and unclean indicate that this is a Jewish issue. There was a large segment of the Romans church who were from a Jewish background, believers who had accepted Jesus as the Messiah. That seems to be what the real issue here so it wouldn't be Gentile Christians here causing the problems. Now in 1 Corinthians 8 you had a slightly different problem, a variation, where the food that was being eaten was food that might have been previously sacrificed to idols or offered to idols so that violated the conscience of some believers. So the first option suggested here doesn't work.

The second option is that the weaker Christians, perhaps both Jewish and Gentile, who practiced an ascetic lifestyle for reasons that we cannot determine. This is just sort of leaping at the conclusion that they were just being ascetic but you don't really have asceticism as being a major issue in the early Church so that's probably not the right option.

The third option says the weak were mainly Jewish Christians who observed certain practices derived from the Mosaic Law out of a concern for established righteousness before God. Now the real issue in this third option is that last part that they were seeking to establish righteousness through their obedience to the dietary laws of the Mosaic Law, the Torah. Now those laws are described in the Old Testament by the Hebrew word kashir which is where we get our word kosher and also the variant of that which is the laws of kashrut which has to do with determining what is clean, what is unclean, and what can be eaten and what cannot eaten according to the dietary rules and laws of Leviticus.

Last time we looked at Acts 15 when we talked about the Jerusalem council. If we go back to Acts 10 there is the situation where Peter was on the rooftop at the home of Simon the tanner and he is in prayer and God the Holy Spirit gave him a vision as an apostle. The apostles were still receiving visions and dreams and direct revelation from God because the New Testament canon had not been written yet. Peter sees this huge tablecloth or sheet descending from heaven that had all of these animals and food on it that was prohibited by the laws of Kashrut. There were scallops and oysters and shrimp and catfish and pork, and bacon, all of these things and God gives him directions to take and eat.

Peter wouldn't. He said, "No, no, Lord. Nothing unclean has ever passed my lips." There's a self-righteous trend in Peter we see there. Three times the Lord says to take and eat and finally God makes a point to Peter that what He's declared to be clean is clean and not to separate from it Immediately there's a knock on the door that these messengers from Cornelius asking Peter to come. The reason is that in a Jewish/Gentile environment where you had Jews who were observant to the Law (you can see this some today with those who are Orthodox and eat according to the Laws of kashrut) and they didn't go to the homes of Gentiles to eat.

They're very strict in how food is handled, meat slaughtered, and food prepared. You can't use dishes and pots of pans that have had meat on them, chicken and beef used for other things. There's a complete separation of dairy and meat. The reason is there's an injunction in the Mosaic Law that you were prohibited from boiling a kid or a calf in its mother's milk. This had to do with certain pagan practices. In order to make sure that you're not mixing the meat of a calf with the milk of the mother they have a complete separation of meat and dairy. You can't go to a McDonald's in Israel and get a cheeseburger because you can't mix dairy and met. You can't have a hamburger and a milkshake because you can't mix meat and milk at all. Even in the home there's a possibility that if you have a pot or skillet and you're going to cook a steak in that skillet there may be a couple of molecules that don't quite get cleaned in your dishwasher. Then if the next day you use milk in that pot you have run the possibility that that molecule of that meat might have come from a calf and the milk from the mother so you can't run that risk. So there's one complete set of dairy dishes and one complete set of meat dishes and all of those are kept completely separate.

You either have a dairy meal or a meat meal, one of the other. You go to certain hotels in Israel that cater more to a Jewish clientele and there main kitchen will be either a meat kitchen or a dairy kitchen. The hotel where we're going to stay in our Israel trip this year is the Inbal. Their main kitchen is a dairy kitchen. First time I took a group there we were there five or six nights and I learned Americans like a little more variety in their diet. Pasta and fish can only go so far. I've stayed there a couple of times since then and I discovered that the room service kitchen is a meat kitchen.

These differences truly matter and they matter especially in the 1^st century because you didn't have conservative Jews and reform Jews and non-observant Jews. Everyone ate according to the dietary laws of Leviticus. So Jews would never eat in the home of a Gentile. You just wouldn't do it because you weren't sure if the animals were killed according to the proper laws or if they were prepared according to the proper laws. This would have been a problem in a congregation where you wouldn't have any fellowship outside of the Church.

The Jews would not go the Gentile Christian's homes. Paul is having to address this particular issue. It's not based on this concept of trying to gain righteousness. This was addressed back in Romans 10:3-4 where Paul does talk about a specific group of groups but there he's talking about unbelievers who were ignorant of God's righteousness. He says, "And seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness for everyone who believes." Paul had already addressed that. In this context he's not talking about believers who are wrong because they were trying to gain righteousness through the dietary laws. That would be a violation of revelation and a violation of Scripture. Here he's addressing the weaker brothers who are doing something that's not prohibited from Scripture.

The fourth option you may find is that the weak were mainly Jewish Christians who had ascetic trends who were assimilating or blending Mosaic traditions plus pagan traditions. There was some of that going on but that's probably not the main issue here. The fifth option is that the weak were mainly Jewish Christians who like some of the Corinthians believed that it was wrong to eat meat that was sold in the market place and was probably tainted by idolatry. Again the verse dealing with the clean versus the unclean issue would negate that as an explanation and so we're left with the sixth option.

This option is that the weak were mainly Jewish believers who refrained from certain kinds of food and observed certain days out of a continuing loyalty to the Mosaic Law. They're not looking at the Mosaic Law as a means of righteousness for salvation or as a means of righteousness for sanctification. That would be wrong. Paul would have blasted them for that as he does in Galatians for adding works to either salvation or sanctification so we see that the problem according to Romans 14:14 is related to the Mosaic dietary laws.

Now we go back and look at Romans 14:2, "For one believes he may eat all things but he who is weak eats only vegetables." So what you have shows that the stronger believer has knowledge. He's informed. He's studied the Word. He's come to a mature understanding of the Word and a mature conviction about what he should and should not do in terms of his Christian life in areas that are not addressed by the Word of God, things that are neither prohibited nor endorsed. On the one hand, one says you can eat everything including that which is prohibited by the Mosaic Law but the other one eats only vegetables.

Now if I were an observant Jew at this time and you were a Gentile and you invited me to your house for dinner I might avoid the meat that's on the plate and just eat the vegetables. That would be one way I could eat at your home and not violate the tradition of the fathers. That's what they're concerned with here, just the tradition of the fathers. That's their culture, they respect it and they want to honor what they believe. Both the weaker brother and the mature believer are operating on humility. They're teachable. They're willing to have their opinion changed by the Word of God.

The legalist, on the other hand, is arrogant and they have come to their conclusions regarding these areas that are not addressed in Scripture and they're seeking to impose their conclusions on other believers. The weaker brother, though, is uncertain about whether or not he should participate in these activities or whether or not he should eat this food. He is an immature believer. He's unlearned. He's untaught. The mature believer, though, has come to a thoughtful conviction. He's thought through the issues and he's come to specific conclusions about what he's going to do in his life, not necessarily imposing that on anyone else.

The Pharisee has also come to thoughtful convictions but he's trying to impose these on everyone else. The weaker brother is uninformed. He's weak because he hasn't been taught. The mature believer understands Divine viewpoint but he's open to correction in case there's a change. That's one of the principles we'll see. When it comes to the so-called doubtful things, the areas not specifically addressed in Scripture, there aren't any absolutes. You may reach a conclusion that it's okay to drink an alcoholic beverage. That's the classic example in America.

That's one of the more interesting case studies in American culture. Back in the early 19^th century this became a major issue in American evangelicalism. American evangelicalism was influenced by a post-millennial view of history and by the idea that people are not inherently bad. By the time you got into the Second Awakening they were minimizing the doctrine of original sin and total depravity. They believed men were no longer basically evil. They're basically good. If a man is basically good, then he's perfectible. If he's basically evil he's not perfectible. All you can hope for is something that's moral but he's still going to make mistakes.

Well, if human beings are not totally depraved and they're perfectible, then society's perfectible. So the only thing that keeps us from having an America that's truly utopic is that we have to get rid of the social sins. This idea where we're looking at social engineering has its roots in the self-righteousness that came out of, in many cases, a works-oriented gospel that was emphasized by some segments of the Second Great Awakening. Now there were several social evils that they believed needed to be addressed. If you could get these social evils addressed and changed then we could have a utopic society. This theology really took root more in the North than in the South. It was motivated by the arrogance that came out of the New Divinity theology and the Union theology that came out of the Second Great Awakening in New England specifically.

A lot of this was emphasized by the teaching of an evangelist at that time named Charles Finney. Finney didn't even believe in substitutionary atonement. Finney believed in the perfection of man. He was considered to be the Billy Graham of his day. He founded Oberlin College and Oberlin Seminary and it was the fountainhead for the whole abolitionist movement. They believed that the greatest cultural sin in America was slavery and we needed to get rid of it. They didn't really have a concern for the individual slave. They were very idealistic. The idea was to get rid of the social sin and they really didn't have practical working solutions for what would happen once you freed or liberated or emancipated all the slaves.

This became a cultural distinction between the North and the South. I'm talking broad generalizations here and that is that in the North there was that concern for idealism to perfect or bring in this utopia. They would often focus on this ideal and ignore the problems it would create for the individuals. So often it's been said in the North they loved the blacks as a group but individually they would treat them like dirt. In the South that was reversed. They would treat the slaves as individuals as a whole in less than honorable ways but then they would love the individual slave and treat them with respect because of the influence of Biblical Christianity. So arrogance was present in both the North and the South, manifesting itself in different ways.

What happened in America in a whole is that first you have the identification of the problem of slavery. They thought if they could get rid of slavery they could move on to the next problem, which is basically what happened. Reconstruction came along after the Civil War but the real arrogant radicals in the North were no longer concerned about blacks. They were moving on to the next issue. What was the next issue? It was temperance. The next issue was getting rid of alcohol. They even had places like Dodge City by the 1880's became completely dry. All of this led eventually to that massive and failed experiment of prohibition in the early 20^th Century.

You also had the issue of women's rights which grew out of this same era. Then there were the emphasis on abolishing child labor laws. It's not that some of these things weren't evil but it was the motivation behind it culturally that if they could get rid of these things they could perfect and reform America and bring in a Utopic society. It was a right thing in many ways done a wrong way for wrong reasons and that's what led to a collapse.

So American Christians have always had this problem with alcohol. In the early 50's, not long after World War II, when you still had a dominant Christian and Biblical influence in this country Christianity Today, one of the major magazines for the evangelical world, conducted a survey among Christians. Close to 90% of all Christians believed it was sinful for a Christian to partake of alcoholic beverages. Thirty years later in the mid-1980's they decided to conduct the same survey again and the numbers completely reversed themselves. Almost the same percentage that had thought alcohol was a sin in 1950 thought that it was okay by the mid-1980. 90 to 92% by the mid-1980s thought it was okay for a Christian to partake of alcoholic beverages.

There are people who have problems with alcohol. Some folks have a problem that's physical. They have a reaction to alcohol that can make them extremely addicted to alcohol. That's a very small percentage. Other people just have a psychological addiction to alcohol. I went to with a friend to a church called The Believer's Chapel when I was in Dallas, Texas when I was first in seminary. I went there on a Sunday night. We had an argument on the way home because I had grape juice and he had wine. For several months we argued back and forth whether they served wine or grape juice until we found out that they had both in the tray. They had grape juice in the outer two rings and wine in the inner ring so people could choose one or the other. If you had a problem with alcohol, then you could take the grape juice. If you felt like you wanted to be like the New Testament church you could take wine. So they were making something available for everyone.

But you have a lot of Christians who would impose their view of alcohol on other Christians. They say. "You can't drink at all. You can't smoke. You can't go to movies. You can't watch certain television shows." So these people came to a thoughtful conviction but then they imposed it on everyone else. They weren't open to any correction. So we see that both the weaker brethren and the mature believer are oriented to grace. They recognize that whatever we do should be oriented to the Father. The legalist and the Pharisaical believer is works oriented. The weaker brother is easily influenced but the mature believer and the legalist Pharisee were not easily influenced. We'll see those characteristics as we go through the passage.

So you have on the one hand the strong mature believer who believes he can eat all things in contrast to the weaker brother who eats only vegetables. Then in Romans 14:3 we have the command, "Let him who eats…" This verb is a present active imperative, third person singular, which means to let him do something or let her do something. So it says, "Let not him who eats despise or reject with contempt the weaker brother." You're not to look at him and say, "You don't think you ought to eat that or drink that? You're just a fool." We're not to adopt that kind of judgmental attitude toward someone who isn't sure if they should participate in one activity or another.

Then in the next line it say, "Let not him who does not eat judge him who eats for God has received him." This is another application of Matthew 7 which says: "Judge not that you be not judged." We are not to condemn another person. It's not talking about evaluation. It's talking about a critical condemnation of someone else and the reason is given is because it says God has received him or accepted this person in fellowship in terms of the eternal fellowship which is part of the body of Christ so we should not be judgmental toward that person.

Which brings Paul to the point of raising the question, "Who then are you to judge another's servant?" We're all servants of the Lord. If I'm a servant and you're a servant, then it's not my place to judge you in terms of how you think you are best obeying the Lord in areas which are not specifically addressed in Scripture. Then he adds, "To his own master he stands or falls."  This is the principle that there are many areas in life that are not specifically addressed in Scripture. That's an important term. There are areas where we may have convictions. We may try to support them in some sense Biblically but it's not specifically stated in Scripture to do something or not to do something. We are to make a decision of what we think is best in terms of how we are serving the Lord as a servant of God. It's between each individual believer and the Lord and we need to let them make that decision.

Over the course of time we may change our views on things. We may be in different circumstances. Even within a particular day or week we may choose not to do something one day and do it the next day, depending on who is around. We may go out to lunch or dinner with someone and we know that they have a problem with alcohol or maybe we know they're diabetic and they have a problem with sugar so we're not going to order a dessert that might tempt them because that would cause them to have a problem. We're going to be considerate of the other person and understand that they have certain weaknesses. We're not going to exercise our freedom in an area that would be perfectly legitimate because we know it would be a problem for them.

The next day we may be out with someone else and we may have a couple of glasses or wine or beer because it's not an issue with that individual. In a lot of these areas there's no certain absolute. Maybe as a family you were trying to teach certain codes of conduct to your children so you may make a decision not to watch certain kinds of television, not to have cable in your home. Maybe you make a decision not to even have a television in your home and that may be the way you are going to teach certain values to your children. Then when they are in their teen-aged years in order to train them because you know it's not going to be long before they're going to leave the home and they're going to be exposed to all of these things that you may get a television and begin to teach them and to train them how to exercise discernment and judgment in terms of the entertainment that they watch or are exposed to. Different circumstances will call upon you to apply the Word in different ways. There's not an absolute right or wrong.

There are four basic principles or laws here that are identified in the Scripture. The first is the law of love. This is what overrules everything. It's a spiritual law based on consideration for others completely. In this situation it's love for immature believers. It's based on the idea that we are to love others as Christ has loved us in John 13:34-35. So just as we serve the Lord we are to be considerate of others and considerate of their views, their opinions, their ideas. If they are an untaught, immature believer then we need to be sensitive to that. There may be someone who is an immature believer that hasn't worked through the issue on something, like whether or not they're going to drink wine or alcohol and if they see you as a mature believer do it, then they're going to justify it and may end up abusing it. So we need to think through some of these issues.

I think we can go too far with that. You go out to a restaurant and you're going to have good Mexican food and you decide you want to have a really good Mogollon or Dos Equis with your Mexican food. You can't be worried about someone you hardly know who may just pass through the restaurant and see you sitting there drinking a beer. That may justify them going out on a bender and getting drunk for weeks at a time. That's not what it means to put a stumbling block in front of someone. Someone can look at any of us at any time in our life and use something we do possibly as a justification wrongly for their sin.

Putting a stumbling block in front of someone is something much more active. If I were to go out to dinner with someone and I know that they had a problem with alcohol and I ordered them a beer or if I'm going out to dinner with someone and I know they're trying to lose weight, I'm not going to order apple pie and ice cream for them for dessert without them knowing about it. I had that happen to me recently. You're not going to put something in front of them that's going to cause them to stumble. You're not going to knowingly do that.

Several years ago I used that example of a Mexican restaurant and a beer because I went out with Morris Proctor one day. We were doing a Logos seminar here. Mo and Cindy had flown in. He's a vegetarian so we went to a Mexican restaurant because they said they could find something to eat there. I ordered a beer with mine because I think nothing is better than a beer and Mexican food. Three or four months later word got back to me that he was actually using that as an illustration of exactly how Christians should handle these areas of doubtful things. One of his assistants is a guy who's been very much involved with this ministry for many, many years and so he told me, "Mo was so excited. He came back and told me that everybody sits there and they ask if you're going to be offended or bothered. They're so obsequious about it and lack so much confidence in what they're going to do. Robby just ordered a beer like he was ordering a glass of water and that's just how the body of Christ ought to function." I hadn't heard that perspective before but we need to be sensitive to others that are immature. I looked at Morris and from what I knew of him he was a mature believer. He's wasn't legalistic so I didn't think this wouldn't be a problem.

Now if I went out with someone else that I didn't know then I wouldn't have probably done that so I wouldn't create an issue when there really wasn't one. So that's how the law of love operates. Now the second law is the law of liberty. This is a spiritual law directed toward one's self that expresses the believer's freedom to glorify God. Galatians 5:1 says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." We are free from the Law. We are no longer under the dietary and other restrictions that were part of the Mosaic Law. There are no rules of conduct in the New Testament for what we can eat or what we can drink. Everything can be sanctified to the Lord according to Scripture. So we have the right to participate in any activity that is not specifically sinful and that does not violate any of the mandates, either the prohibitions or the positive commands of Scripture, and won't cause a spiritual failure in our own life. We have that freedom but we're not to use that freedom to the degree where it could cause a problem for another believer. The law of expediency then emphasizes consideration for the unbeliever. A believer may refrain from certain doubtful activities, not because they're sinful, but because they may mislead or offend an unbeliever and prevent him from recognizing the true issue of the gospel that Christ died for his sins.

Let's say I'm going to the home of an Orthodox Jew for dinner. I am going to refrain from exercising my freedom to eat whatever I want to so that I will not create an issue that would distract from the gospel. So we have to be careful. We don't want to create issues that distract from the truth.

Then the last law is the law of personal sacrifice which is the principle directed toward God that involves the abandonment of a completely legitimate function in life in order to more intensely serve the Lord in a specialized capacity. Paul talked about this using the illustration of a wife. "The other apostles all have wives," he said. He exercised his option to not marry so he could more intensely serve the Lord in his ministry, not that there was anything special about celibacy or remaining single but it just gave him the opportunity to serve the Lord to a greater degree. That was his choice.

There are these gray areas or these non-addressed areas where we may choose one thing but others may choose something else. If you're in Christian leadership sometimes you have to recognize that while others can do something that you can't. Maybe it's a completely legitimate function but it might cause you to weaken in other areas that lead you into sin. So you have to come to convictions in these areas in terms of your own circumstances and your own life.

Basically what we have to understand is that the Scripture teaches that the spiritual life doesn't operate in a vacuum. We are not autonomous. We are part of the body of Christ. The body of Christ is not just made up of a bunch of individuals who live their Christian life without it impacting or affecting other Christians. There are verses like 1 Corinthians 12:27 that we are "Christ's body and individually members of it."

Other passages talk about the fact that we are members of one another. So we have to recognize that we are part of the body of Christ so we can't fall a victim of this sort of individualistic idea that a lot of Americans fall prey to. We have a history and a culture that promotes rugged individualism. I stand or fall by my decisions and I'm going to make my life work based on my decisions and my efforts and I'm not dependent on anyone else. That's not the picture we have of the body of Christ.

We have a picture in Scripture of the body of Christ where there is interdependency. We are supposed to be a member in a local assembly and a local body. Now that's not possible today for some people. It used to be thirty or forty years ago that even if you didn't have a very strong Bible teaching church in your area there would be one that was acceptable. You could get additional teachings through tape recordings, things of that nature, and reading to enhance what you were learning. It would give you an opportunity to be a part of the body of Christ and to influence that body and to minister to that body.

We shouldn't just go to church because of what we're going to get. That's self-absorption. Never say, "I'm not going to go to that church because that pastor doesn't teach me anything." See, it's all about me, me, me. The pastor may be a relatively young believer. Maybe he doesn't know the Word that well. Maybe he comes out of a background where he wasn't challenged to go beyond the A-B-Cs in Bible teaching. Maybe if you were to get involved in that church, and I know of a couple of examples where this happened, you would have an opportunity to minister to people in that congregation. They were still listening to Bible teaching on line and it gave them an opportunity to be a vital part of the body of Christ and to have an impact on them spiritually.

Today we live in a world where apostasy in the church is reigning supreme. You can go to many large urban areas and not find an acceptable church. If you're in a somewhat semi-rural area you may really have problems. I remember when I was at Preston City someone e-mailed me on this and said, "Pastor, I live up here in Vermont in a small town. I have gone to every church in town and the best church around is the Congregational Church. The pastor there doesn't believe in the physical, bodily resurrection of Christ but I've been going there because I feel I need to set an example for my children that we go to church." I told him not to go. You're compromising doctrine if you go to a heretical church. The principle is that there are some churches that may be very elementary and simple but they're right. You don't have to just hide at home and listen to a MP3 player or listen on line where you're divorced from every other Christian. So we need to be a part of a local body if at all possible.

Some Scriptures that emphasize this are Romans 12:10, 16; 13:8; 14:13; 15:14; Galatians 5:13; Ephesians 4:25; 4:32; 5:19; Colossians 3:16; 1 Thessalonians 4:18; 5:11; John 15:13. You see there's this emphasis on the body of Christ and this interdependency in the body of Christ so we don't live our spiritual life in isolation. We live it around other believers.

We need to be sensitive to who is a mature believer, who is not a mature believer and if there are any issues that exist that may cause a problem for other believers. This is the background. Next time we're going to continue Romans 14:5. Much of what we have here is fairly easy to understand. We need to just remember the basic issue is about loving one another and showing basic consideration for one another, then we can easily work our way through most of these problems.