Day 329: Romans 13, 14, 15 and 16

Accept those whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters (TNIV, Romans 14:1).

 

St. Augustine is usually credited with the statement: In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.

Paul tells us there definitely are such things as non-essentials. He says we are to accept those who disagree with us on these gray areas without feeling the need to set them straight even though we think they’re wrong.

Disputable matters are those about which God has not seen fit to give us detailed instruction. But even though God did not set down in black and white what we are to do or believe in regard to these things, he left nothing to the imagination about how he expects us to treat those with whom we disagree.

Too often in today’s polemical atmosphere, we have taken what are rightfully matters of opinion and elevated them to the level of doctrine or even dogma. If not quarreling (feeling the need to prove someone wrong) is how Paul describes acceptance, then quarreling must be a synonym for rejection, and we will never win someone over to our way of thinking while at the same time rejecting them.

If God, rather than giving us a paint-by-numbers Christianity, chose to leave some issues to our discretion, then perhaps even more important than defining answers to these disputed matters is how we treat one another.

Is there someone you need to accept without struggling to set them straight?