Romans 14
A specific dispute in the Roman church about food and holy days becomes Paul's extended lesson in the limits of individual conscience and the primacy of the community's peace.
Summary
Romans 14 addresses what appears to be a real and specific dispute within the Roman community. Some members — the weak in faith, in Paul's framing — eat only vegetables and observe certain days as holy; others — the strong — eat anything and treat every day as the same. The strong are probably Gentile Christians or Jewish Christians who have moved away from observance; the weak are likely Jewish Christians who retain food laws and sabbath observance. Paul does not say one side is theologically right and the other wrong in a way that requires a ruling; he says they should stop despising and judging each other. The one who eats should not despise the one who abstains, and the one who abstains should not pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed both.
The chapter's governing principle is accountability to God, not to one another. We will all stand before the judgment seat of God; each will give an account of himself. Therefore do not pass judgment on one another; instead, decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. Paul's position is that all food is clean — he sides with the strong on the substance — but that the strong have a responsibility that goes beyond their own clean conscience. If your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The chapter ends with the individual principle: whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Each person must act from conviction, but the strong must bear the weakness of those for whom conviction has not yet reached the same conclusion.
- Romans 1Chapter 1 is the opening of a long letter to a community Paul did not found and has not yet visited.
- Romans 2Chapter 2 is the turn in Paul's argument.
- Romans 3Chapter 3 is the hinge of the letter's first movement.
- Romans 4Chapter 4 is Paul's exegetical demonstration of justification by faith, built entirely from the figure of Abraham.
- Romans 5Chapter 5 opens the second major movement of the letter (chapters 5-8), which draws out the consequences of the justification argued in chapters 1-4.
- Romans 6Chapter 6 opens with Paul's most pointed rhetorical question: Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? The question follows logically from the last verse of chapter 5, where he said grace abounds where sin increases, and it is the objection he expects.
- Romans 7Chapter 7 addresses the role of the law in the new life.
- Romans 8Chapter 8 is the climax Paul has been building toward since chapter 1.
- Romans 9Chapter 9 opens the three-chapter meditation on Israel — the hardest sustained argument in the letter.
- Romans 10Chapter 10 continues the argument of chapter 9 but shifts from divine sovereignty to human responsibility.
- Romans 11Chapter 11 brings the three-chapter meditation on Israel to its resolution.
- Romans 12Chapter 12 opens the practical movement of the letter with the word therefore, gathering everything from chapters 1-11 into a single imperative.
- Romans 13Chapter 13 contains the verses that have generated more controversy in the history of Romans' reception than any other passage in the letter.
- Romans 14Chapter 14 addresses a concrete dispute in the Roman church.
- Romans 15Chapter 15 continues directly from chapter 14.
- Romans 16Chapter 16 is the longest closing greeting in any of Paul's letters.