AP

Romans 14:19  Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.

The people in the fellowship of believers in Rome who were receiving this letter from the Apostle Paul, as they struggled applying the implications of their new-found belief system to their daily lives, were coming to different conclusions with regard to some very practical issues.

Should they, or should they not, buy and eat meat that had been offered to idols in a pagan temple?  Paul talked about those who were ‘strong’ in their faith and those who were ‘weak’.  The trouble is, because they all felt very strongly about the view they held, either on one side or the other, each would have assumed they were on the  ‘strong’ side of the faith issue, and those who took the opposing view were among the ‘weak’.  That’s how it works with our (fallen) human nature, even today.

Concerned about the life and health of the Church, Paul knew very well what the big trouble is: that Satan, whose purpose is to destroy the Church, could use this reality as a very effective weapon in his hands.

Each New Testament Church had its own problems in this regard: in Corinth it could be about the gift of ‘speaking in tongues’; in Galatia it could be about the importance of the Jewish rite of circumcision; in Ephesus it could be about whether one came from a Jewish or Gentile background; in Philippi it could be about the place of ‘faith’ and ‘works’ in salvation; in Colossae it could be about ‘humanism’ and the divinity of Christ and his being the source of all wisdom and knowledge; in Thessalonica it could be about eschatology; and so on.

The same thing can easily happen in our  churches today for all sorts of different reasons, and Satan is too ready to act!  Paul’s key to all this is, as in his other letters, is. “make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.”  He is not telling us to compromise on what we believe as if it doesn’t matter, nor to not hold any of our beliefs strongly and with conviction.  But he is telling us to separate essential Gospel truths from things that include personal opinions coming more from our personality and background than from God’s revealed truth.  Against the Devil’s cunning and scheming we need to be intent on ‘agreeing to differ and resolving to love’ and edify!  I personally have learnt so much that is helpful and edifying for me from fellow-believers who, for some strange, unknown reason are quite ‘wrong’ in some of their ideas!  As Paul so tellingly said to the Corinthians: “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?  If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?  But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.  If they were all one part, where would the body be?    As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” (1 Corinthians 12:17-20)  Yes, we all need each other.  I need my left-leaning Christian friends (painful as it is!) to keep me from falling off the conservative end of the spectrum.  The Calvinist George Whitfield needed the Arminian John Wesley (and vice versa), and God used them both mightily in the work of his Kingdom.

– Bruce Christian