The second part of Romans (chapters 12-15), address the many specific areas of obedience which reflects God’s holiness in our lives. In the first section of Romans (Rom. 1-8), Paul has focused on what God has done for us in Christ. God has given us His best, His Son, in order to redeem us. God has also given His Holy Spirit to indwell the believer’s inmost being (Rom. 8:1-17).
Reasonable & Practical Worship
In turn, the believer is to yield his/her entire life to God. This is a reasonable act of worship and service to the God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ (Rom.12:1). When we learn to do this on a consistent basis, real transformation into the character of the LORD Jesus occurs. We begin to more and more to think God’s thoughts after Him (Rom. 12:2). It is from this yieldedness to God, this kind of worship of God, that we are to live the Christian life.
The first practical area of life that Paul addresses for the believer is his/her life in Christ’s body, the church. In Romans 12:3-8, we read that every believer has a ministry role within the Christian community. Each Christian is gifted and enabled by God’s Spirit to build up Christ’s body, and to make an impact in this world. In Rom. 12:9-21, Paul teaches what practical love for our neighbor entails and how to overcome evil with good.
In Romans 13, Paul addresses the Christian’s relationship to the State. He instructs us regarding our obligation to the government, and what should our attitudes be that reflect godliness. If our Christian lives do not show God’s character in our lives as citizens, than our faith is of not much substance. It is interesting to note that though the Letter to the Romans is very theological, it is also very practical. That should teach us something. Let us not be just theological Pointdexters who like to hear good biblical teaching. Let us be doers of the Word also (James 1:22-25).
Disputable Areas
In Romans 14 & 15, the Apostle Paul discusses what a Christian’s response should be in disputable matters (Romans 14:1). Specifically, he discusses the area of eating meat and the celebration of special days. In 1 Corinthians 8, we have a similar discussion regarding the eating of meat. These are areas where believers will have different convictions of how to live out faithfully our Christian lives.
In both Letters, Paul uses these disputable matters as an opportunity for believers to demonstrate real spiritual maturity. The eating of meat was a real issue in the 1st century, since there were so many pagan temples in which animals were sacrificed, to the many different idols that people worshiped. The marketplace would get a lot of the meat that they sold from these pagan temples. The Jewish people knew this, and many of them chose not to buy and eat meat from the marketplace, since they didn’t know whether the meat was offered to an idol or not. For some Jews it didn’t matter, so they had no problem buying and eating the meat from the marketplace.
This difference of conviction regarding the eating of meat carried over into the Christian community. Some Christians had the conviction that you shouldn’t eat meat while others had no problems buying and eating the meat from the marketplaces.
Paul’s response is that the person who eats everything should not look down on the one who doesn’t eat meat, and the one who is a vegetarian should not condemn the steak lover (Romans 14:3). Whether we eat meat or not, we do it as unto the LORD, and He is our judge in these grey areas, where believers differ in conviction (Rom. 14:4-12). According to Paul, the believer who tends to tighter scruples (i.e. legalism), is the more immature believer.
Paul offers some very useful principles in these areas. The first one is that of love. I may have the freedom of conscience to eat meat, but if I’m dining with a new Christian who has just come out of worshiping in pagan temples for years, I’m not going to eat meat in front of him. We don’t want our freedom to be exercised in such a way that it will cause our brother to stumble. The young brother is prone to stumble because he so strongly associates the meat with idol worship (Romans 14:13-21; 1 Cor. 8:1-13).
In our culture, the eating of meat is not so problematic as it was in Paul’s day. It is more of an issue today, however, than 40 years ago, since more and more people are going vegetarian. Even in this regard we are to remember Paul’s instruction from Romans 14 & 15 and 1 Corinthians 8. We are also to remember Paul’s words from 1 Cor. 8:8 in which he says food doesn’t bring us nearer to God. The only issue would seem whether we are gluttonous, or whether we eat so much junk food that we become poor stewards of our bodies, which are a gift from God. We need to remember that we honor or dishonor the LORD as we live in a physical body.
Another principle, which seems to be very important in exercising our freedom in disputable or grey areas, is that we will not let ourselves become enslaved by what we allow (1 Cor. 6:12-17). This is especially relevant as we contemplate the quantity and the quality of the T.V. programs we watch, and the video games we play.
Whatever we decide in these grey areas, we need to ensure that our actions spiritually edify others and ourselves, and honors the LORD (Romans 15:1-3, 1 Cor. 10:24, 31-33). Let us not lose sight that the kingdom of God is not primarily a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).
QOTD: In view of God’s mercy, are you daily offering your body as a living sacrifice to God as a reasonable act of worship and service?