Romans 14:1-12
English
Standard Version (ESV)
Do Not Pass Judgment on
One Another
14 As
for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over
opinions. 2 One
person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only
vegetables. 3 Let
not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who
abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. 4 Who are you to pass
judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master[a] that
he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him
stand.
5 One
person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days
alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes the
day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the
Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains
in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives
to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live
to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live
or whether we die, we are the Lord's. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived
again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
10 Why
do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother?
For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; 11 for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall
bow to me,
and
every tongue shall confess[b] to
God.”
12 So
then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
In Romans 14 Paul is
commanding us to not pass judgement upon one another because we are not
righteous judges. In the first verses, he says that in dealing with someone of
weak faith, it is important to welcome them and not argue with them for the
sake of arguing. By weak in faith, Paul can be referring to new Christians or
perhaps believers whose faith had been under attack. We must not pass judgement
on those that we feel are below us. Verse 3 tells us that we are all the same
and welcomed by God. So we are all believers and no one is better than his
brother.
Who are we to pass judgement
on the servant of another master? We are nobodies. We are all servants under
the same master. We all serve the same God. The Lord is the only just judge.
Because of the fact that we serve the Master, in everything we do, we must do
in honor and thanksgiving to God. We cannot live in selfishness to ourselves.
We live and die for Christ.
And we will all stand before the same
Judgement before the throne of God. Paul quotes Isaiah 45:23, "As I live,
says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to
God." Paul is telling us that in the end, we all bow to Him and be judged
ourselves. We all will have to give an account to God for all the times when
our faith is weak.
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