This week we are in Romans 14. The plan for this week is to look at the context and the background today and tomorrow. Then on Wednesday and Thursday we will zoom in on the text specifically. Then Friday we will apply it to today.
Remember from last week the situation of the Jews having been excommunicated from Rome and now retur ning under Nero five years later created tensions about whether or not to pay taxes and how to interact with the governing authorities. This tension of the Jews leaving, then returning likely comes into play in the tensions of chapter 14 as well. Most likely, the Christian house churches in Rome became much more "Gentile" in the five years that the Jews were gone. Then, upon their return, the typical tensions that arose in every community of Jesus followers in Gentile cities were more striking and divisive.
The conflict resolved around the practices of Torah observance. Whereas Paul doesn't state them specifically he gives us a number of references that indicate what the conflict was about:
Romans 14:1-2 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.
Tomorrow we will discuss who the weak and the strong are but for today let's just try to get to the bottom of what the situation was. Remember when we study scripture we must first grasp the immediate issue that the text is addressing before we can accurately apply it to our own context. It seems a bit strange that nature of the conflict is whether to eat meat at all or only vegetables. Nowhere in the Torah does it forbid the eating of meat in general. In 1 Corinthians 8-10 the conflict there revolves around meat sacrificed to idols and whether or not Christians can partake of that. Many believers had decided to abstain because they didn't know if the meat being sold in the market had been sacrificed to an idol or not. Paul's argument there is very similar to his argument here in Romans 14. The situation is further complicated by his mention of wine in 14:21. Again there is no prohibition against wine in the Torah or the Jewish rabbi's teachings of the day.
These difficulties can be easily remedied, however. Likely when the Jews were exiled from Rome their slaughterhouses were shut down as well. So upon returning 5 years later they could not be certain that the meat they were purchasing in the market was prepared in a kosher manner. The solution for those who were concerned about kosher laws would have likely been to simply go straight vegetarian. Even when the Jewish slaughterhouses got up and running again they may have discriminated against the Jewish Christians for their acceptance of Jesus and refused to sell them meat.
Going straight vegetarian in a foreign city in which they had just been exiled from would certainly remind them of Daniel's experience in Babylon where he and his buddies decided not to eat the food of the kings table because it would certainly be unclean. They also decided to forego drinking the kings wine (Daniel 1:8-21), hence the reference to the Roman Christians avoiding wine as well in v. 21.
Paul lumps into this conversation another point of tension as well:
Romans 14:5 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.
Here the reference to days is almost certainly a reference to the Jewish holy days, most notably the sabbath. This is simply a different expression of the first concern. The tension was focused on what to do about the practices of the OT law. Some were still practicing certain aspects of it while others, likely mostly Gentile Christians, were not.
This may seem like a minor, insignificant conflict to us today but we must do our best to not read back into the text our culture and assumptions. The dietary laws and the sabbath were the most distinctive features of the Jewish culture that they carried with them to every city where they dwelt. These practices marked them as the people of God and they were quite proud of them. Now that the people of God was expanding to people of every cultural expression, what was to become of these distinctive practices? In the immediate community, this meant that they couldn't eat together, according to Jewish law. This was a huge problem because one of the main aspects of a gathering on the Lord's Day was a meal that the house church would share together. These practices were destroying the unity of the church.
This is a major issue that much of Paul's writing is devoted to. Tomorrow we will begin to explore his solution by defining who the strong and weak are in his mind.
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Reflection
For reflection time today just try to put yourself in the place of a first century Jewish Christian. You've come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. Your whole life you have believed the path to being close to God revolved around adhering to the practice of his laws. You haven't ever eaten unclean food like shellfish or pork out of reverence for God's law and you're quite proud of that achievement. Every week you take a day off of work to rest and worship. Your friends and neighbors don't do that but you do because God's law requires you to. Now you're being told you don't have to do that anymore to be right with God and you're in a worshipping community with people who have never done those practices. How would you be processing all of this?