Does So to the Lord
November 24, 2022
Romans 14:6 – “Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.”
In Romans 14, Paul is writing to the Romans to teach them that they need to stop judging each other in regard to holy days and the food that they should and shouldn’t eat, which he considers to be “secondary matters” when it comes to practicing religion. Although Christians are free from all the old religious rules and laws that were from Moses’s days, some still had and still have problems with interpretations of the laws.
He was telling them that their focus should be on peace, sharing God’s message and avoiding fights. Apparently these issues were causing a lot of quarrels among the Christian disciples. Some still wanted to keep and observe specific days as holy with different festivals. Those that believed in them felt that they were honoring God with them. Yet others felt they didn’t have to observe them because God no longer required them. The same with the eating of meat. The laws used to be all about clean and unclean meets, and Paul states that as long as you are giving God thanks for the meat, it is fine to eat it.
He didn’t make a big point about who was right and who was wrong, but he explained that because of Christ, we are free to eat what we want as long as we are sensitive to others who don’t believe the same way. The same with observing certain holy days, as long as those holy days are regarded as special days for the Lord. Some people might choose to celebrate a certain day as holy and others could choose to not celebrate that day. Each Christian has the right to make up his or her own mind about special days and celebrations.
As Christians, we aren’t discussing the primary points of the doctrine, which are things like the Trinity, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, sent by God to save the world, the second coming of Christ, the plan of salvation and more. But there are many secondary points, like personal practices, that caused problems with the disciples then and still cause problems between believers today. Paul was telling them that secondary matters should be left with the Lord.
We need to use grace and not judgement when we interact with others on certain issues. We need to seek to understand each other first, and then let each person be accountable to God, rather than disagree with each other.
If God still welcomes us and accepts us regardless of our views on food, drink, special holidays, and all kinds of different things, then why don’t we?