Critical Carnivors

Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. (Romans 14:1-3)

I keep coming back to verse one here and every time I read it I feel convicted. I feel convicted about my tendencies to criticize others both in my own church or from other persuasions for the beliefs they have different than mine. I feel frustrated about the damage that others in my church have caused in the hearts of people they try to strongarm into joining my church. I have begun to notice how often the urge springs up in a conversation to “correct” someone else's opinion about some subject feeling that I have more insight than they do about what we are talking about. And while it may be true that I have spent more time studying something or even have received the gracious gift of insights about something from the Holy Spirit, that attitude of superiority reflected in that moment inside of me comes under the scrutiny of the presence of Christ and I realize that I need to, at the very least hesitate before speaking until my own spirit is in harmony with the gentle and gracious Spirit of God.

This passing judgment on other's opinions is just far too easy of a temptation to slip into. Ever since I first approached this verse maybe several weeks ago I came under this conviction and it has only grown since. That is not to say that I should ignore opportunities to share with others things different than what they already believe. I still believe that God holds me accountable to share the wonderful things He has been sharing with me over a number of years and continues to do on a very regular basis. But as I have become much more aware of over the past few years, it is the condition of my own spirit that is far more crucial as to whether my witness is useful or is damaging to God's reputation, than the correctness of the knowledge that I have to offer someone.

But I am really very glad to have this ongoing sense of conviction. It is not something that I resent but that I deeply appreciate. It means that the Holy Spirit of Jesus is present and active in my life to warn me when I am in danger of damaging the reputation of the wonderful God that I am getting to know better and want to share more with others who are so afraid of Him due to the millions of lies they believe about Him. I want to be convicted when I am about to misrepresent Him and when I certainly am not cognizant enough to know until after the fact many times that I am doing that. If it were not for the convictions of the Spirit in my heart ever-present to guide and coach and alert me I would cause terrible havoc in the Kingdom of God and make a terrible mess of other people's lives as well as my own.

Thank-you Jesus for being active and applying Your Word to my heart even though I continue to many times push past it in my own pride and self-confidence. Stay with me and do not remove Your Spirit from convicting me and encouraging me. Please prepare me to be more effective in being used by You to touch hearts for You, to attract others to Your true beauty and gentleness and kindness and to help free them from many of the false fears that I have suffered under for so long myself. Reveal Yourself to me more clearly and please show me Your perspective much more clearly today in every moment that I have in relationship with others. Fill me with Your love, Your compassion, Your patience, Your kindness and Your rest.

I have been pondering the following verses that come after verse one for several weeks now hesitating to draw any conclusions about them until I feel more at rest in my own spirit as to what God intended in these writings. But it is starting to become more clear in my mind that Paul was speaking in the context of the hot-button issues of the church in his day and had nothing in his mind about vegetarianism or the keeping of the Seventh-day Sabbath set up before sin even entered this world. He was addressing, sort of in shorthand as we often do when speaking of things our listeners are all too aware of, the problem of meat offered to idols and the residual intense arguments still swirling around in a church very much under the shadow of Judaism, about whether or not to observe the many “holy days” called Sabbaths, the feast days observed by all good Jews.

It helps to understand that Christianity in the minds of new believers back then did not make a clear distinction or break between their identity and that of the Jewish religion. Unlike many Christians today who almost resent Judaism, the early church very much identified with most of the fundamental beliefs and teachings of Judaism because it was very clear to them that it was founded by the very same God who was still leading them to broader insights about salvation. So in their minds, Christianity was not a new religion whatsoever but was an expansion, an unpacking of the real intent of the religion God had guided the Israelites in for many centuries.

Given this context and the intense debates among the believers that this caused, one of the main hot-button topics of intense debate was whether it was spiritually safe to eat meat that had been first offered to pagan deities as an act of worship to them. If we could place ourselves in their sandals and realize all the implications on both sides of this issue while still appreciating their desire to serve God with their whole heart correctly, we would not be near so quick to draw premature and ignorant conclusions from this passage about a supposed freedom to eat anything that moves on the face of this earth. Paul was not at all dealing with dietary issues in this passage but was addressing a spiritual principle and simply was using a hot-button issue that everyone was painfully aware of as an illustration for a far deeper principle that they needed to practice in their lives.

That is why is it so important to view this passage in the context of verse one as well as an understanding of their unique issues. Paul is trying to get everyone to realize that there are far deeper issues at stake in true spirituality than the externals that we so easily get caught up in arguing about. And while those externals have other implications and dangers if not properly addressed, if we miss the underlying problem of the condition of our attitude and the effect that our spirit has on those we disagree with, we really miss the main point altogether in this chapter of what God considers important.

An early New Testament Christian that is referred to here who is weak in faith eats vegetables only is not weak in faith because he is not a carnivor but is weak in that he is still deeply affected by the fears of the power of false gods to infect his soul if food offered to idols happens to be eaten. False gods were much more front and center in the lives of millions of people in that day than what we are familiar with in our culture and we forget that old superstitions and fears do not just disappear overnight when they have dominated all of your thinking for all of your life up to that point. Eating meat offered to idols was such an intense act of participating and inviting the demonic powers of evil into one's life in their culture that many had difficulty believing that these false gods really did not have the powers and authority that they claimed to have.

So when Paul refers to those who are strong in faith not being afraid to eat meat, he is not promoting a lifestyle full of red meat, pork and anything else your stomach can keep down in the name of freedom, but he is referring to one who has become freed from the fear of control by the spirits behind the idols due to eating some meat that might have been offered to them before being set on the table for people to enjoy. And in that context, a person who is not so sure that they are safe from demonic infection may easily feel that the safest thing to do is to simply avoid all meat and eat only vegetables.

Why would they do this? Why wouldn't they just ask which meat was offered to idols and avoid that only? Because I am sure their family or friends knowing their convictions and fears about being involved in any way with idol worship might enjoy tricking them by trying to slip in meat unknowingly onto their plate or even outright lying to them about whether or not this meat had been first offered to idols. Because of this situation, some had chosen to simply stop eating all meat altogether so as to avoid any chance of being fooled into participating in a demonic activity that they were keen to avoid at all costs.

Evidently, according to what can be seen implied in this passage, there was a lot of tension between those who chose to abstain completely from all meat in order to avoid any contact whatsoever with idol worship and those who had come to believe that God's power would protect them and idols were nothing but a farce. These later ones Paul says were stronger in faith because they currently had more confidence in the Word of God about the powerlessness of false gods and were not afraid of unintentionally ingesting some food that had been sneaked into an idol's presence before being presented to them for dinner.

But just because a person has more insights or a more advanced grasp of the truths about God's reality and power gives them no license whatsoever to look down upon or criticize anyone else who does not yet have the confidence or knowledge that they enjoy. And this is the main thrust of this whole chapter. The illustrations that Paul uses here in this chapter are not the main point of what is being taught but are simply that – illustrations and tools which are used to convey a crucial truth about the condition of our spirit while relating to others who are at a different place in their journey with God.

Today the illustrations would be something completely different no doubt. We do not typically struggle with fears about our food being offered to an idol and likely have no notion whatsoever what strong emotions that fear elicited in the hearts of early believers. But we certainly have similar hot-button issues that haunt believers today that generate intense debate and create bad blood between people claiming to belong to the same Savior. It is the spirit of criticism and pride that is being addressed here exclusively, not vegetarianism or Sabbath-keeping. And if we miss that most important aspect of this passage we have missed the whole point that Paul is making altogether.

Father, please expose to my awareness the pride that still thrives in my own heart and attitudes and that poisons my spirit. Do this by increasing Your light and presence in my heart so that I can see my selfish tendencies by contrast. Show me Your humility and love and help me to see those I look down on in the light of the value You have for them. Cleanse me of all desire to pass judgment and condemnation on anyone else and fill me instead with Your passion to reveal the heart of the Father to them. I really mean every word of this, Father. Dwell in me by Your Holy Spirit today as I mingle with others who are hungry to know Your love, even if they are not aware of it. Make me an instrument of Your peace for Your glory.

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