This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, I want to welcome you to our iPod devotions through the Book of Romans. I'm
Pastor Tom Holliday and this week we are looking at Romans chapter 14, today
looking at the first couple of verses in that chapter. I want to get you ready
mentally for the message of this chapter during this week.

In many ways it is like walking into a shop that's filled with fine china. If
you and I don't walk carefully through this you can easily cause a mess. You can
easily misunderstand some of the truths that are in this chapter to the
detriment of your own spiritual health and especially to the detriment of other
people's spiritual health.

If you just slow down for a minute and you look carefully at the truths in this
chapter you begin to see, like in a china shop, the real beauty of what is
there. This is a chapter that talks honestly about the fact that Christians
disagree. Christians struggle with disagreement.

That's obvious. All you have to do is look at the New Testament to see that.
Almost every church in the New Testament had disunity to contend with.

Corinth argued over which leader to follow. Galatians, they were, Paul said,
biting and devouring each other. In Ephesians, Paul had to encourage them to
unity.

In Philippi, Paul had a right to two women who were fighting within the church
and hurting the church. And so we've got to deal with this thing of the fact
that we disagree as believers. That's why Augustine, one of the early teachers
of the church, said, "In essentials we need unity, in non-essentials we need
liberty, and in all things we need charity.

We need love. " And in this chapter, Romans chapter 14, Paul talks about how do
you deal with disagreements between believers, especially on things where maybe
the Bible isn't exactly clear. Romans 14.

1 is really the entire chapter in a sentence. It lines out everything we're
going to talk about this week. Romans 14.

1 says this, "Accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on
disputable matters. " How do you have unity with another believer or in a church
when you have such widely varying opinions about things? The Bible says where
two or three are gathered in my name, Jesus says there I am in the midst of
them.

But also where two or three are gathered in my name, there will be a difference
of opinion. For instance, something like music and what people think about what
is the right music maybe to sing in a worship service. Even in a family, my own
family, we don't all agree about music and the style of music that we like.

So obviously in a church, there are going to be disagreements. I'd like us to
work through this verse, Romans 14. 1, together this week, from the end to the
beginning.

It ends by talking about disputable matters. So today we're going to talk about
what is a disputable matter without passing judgment on disputable matters.
We're going to talk in the days to come about what does it mean to pass
judgment.

Accept him who his faith is weak. We're going to talk about that issue of what
does it mean to have a weak faith. Who is this talking about?

And then the very beginning of the verse says, "Accept him. " The last day of
this week, we're going to talk about what does it mean to accept one another as
believers. Let's start with that first question.

What is a disputable matter? Accept him whose faith is weak without passing
judgment on disputable matters. Verse 2 says this, "One man's faith allows him
to eat everything, but another man whose faith is weak eats only vegetables.

" What is this talking about? We'll talk in a moment about what this thing about
meat and vegetables is all about. When we talk about disputable matters, you
might think of it this way.

These are things that are neither commanded nor prohibited in the Bible. The
Bible is very clear on many matters. That's not what we're talking about here.

For instance, the Bible very clearly says Jesus is the only way to have a
relationship with God. He's the only way to salvation. This is not saying we
should accept whatever people happen to believe about that and just believe
whatever you want.

This is saying disputable matters are where we need to have a sense of
acceptance. We're not talking about issues that are clearly sins, saying, "Well,
if you don't think it's a sin, then it must not be. If God said it's a sin, then
it is.

" God is very clear about many things. An important point here is this. Just
because people disagree doesn't make it a disputable matter, according to this
verse.

Just because it's a controversial issue doesn't make it a disputable matter.
He's not talking here about things that people have disputes over because people
have disputes over, for instance, clear sins all of the time. We don't want to
change.

When somebody challenges my life when it comes to a sin, I'm going to dispute
that. He's not saying you have to accept that their opinion about that sin is as
great as God's opinion about that. Of course, that's not true.

He's talking about something where it could be seen in two ways, where the Bible
doesn't clearly command or clearly prohibit things that are neither commanded
nor prohibited in the Bible. In that day, in these verses, he talks in Romans
14. He speaks specifically about diet and days, days of worship, and drink, what
people would drink.

He uses the first illustration of eating. One man's faith allows him to eat
everything. Another man's faith is he eats only vegetables.

As you and I read that today, we might think it's about being a vegetarian or
whether you eat meat, but in Paul's day it was different. This issue of eating
for them had more to do with what was happening with the meat that some people
would eat. Some of the meat that was sold in the marketplace had been sacrificed
in an idol's temple, and it was usually sold in the marketplace at a pretty fair
price because of that.

Some Christians thought, "Well, it's okay to eat that meat even though it was
sacrificed in the temple of a false god because I know the god is false and it's
a good deal and it's good meat. " Other Christians felt, "I don't feel good
about that. " It was part of a worship of a false idol, and I feel like to eat
that meat would somehow be to partake in that worship.

This was a disputable matter, and Paul talks about that. We're going to talk
about it all during this week. Another illustration is down in verse 5 is days,
days of worship.

He says, "One man considers one day more sacred than another. Another man
considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

" He talks about the fact that some people think you can only worship on this
day or if there's a special holiday of worship you have to observe it in a
certain way. Yet Paul says other people feel like every day is equally as
worshipful before God. How can you say one is right or one is wrong?

In that day it was diet and days and it had to do with more of the worship
practices that they had grown up with. What are we talking about when we talk
about disputable matters in our day? I would say probably the number one
disputable matter, as I talk to believers, is entertainment.

The kind of TV that somebody feels like they can or can't watch, the kind of
movie that they feel like they can or can't go to, the kind of sports that they
feel like that they can watch or even be a part of. Now, it used to be a
generation ago it was entertainment whether you could go to a dance, whether you
could go to play cards, today it's whether you can go to this movie place or
whether you can see that kind of movie. And people have differences of opinions
about this.

And because of these differences of opinions we have to work through all that
that means. I've always loved the old story that Chuck Swindoll told about this
issue of differences of opinion and how it's different in different generations.
He was talking about a church that had called a youth pastor in because he'd
shown a film, a movie, to his youth group.

And they believed that all movies were wrong because of what was in some movies.
So they called this guy in and said, "Did you show the young people a film? "
And the youth pastor said, "Yeah, I did.

We don't like that," the leaders of this church said. And without trying to be
argumentative, the youth pastor said, "Well, I remember the last missionary we
had in, he showed some slides up on the screen of what had happened. " And one
of the church officials said to the young man, "Listen, that was still pictures.

If it's still, it's fine. If it moves, it's sin. You can show slides, but when
they start moving, then you're getting into sin.

" It's just an illustration of how silly sometimes we can get when we try to
divide the line of what's sin and what's not sin when it comes to this issue of
entertainment. I'm not talking about watching things that are clearly wrong and
clearly sinful and clearly dishonoring to God, but I am saying that there are
lines that people have to decide, is this right or is this wrong for me? We're
not talking here about matters of doctrine when we talk about disputable
matters.

We're talking about matters of opinion. And one of the keys to being able to get
along with other believers, to love other believers, is being able to admit the
biblical truth that there are disputable matters, that you cannot find every
answer to everything of every item in our lives in the Bible. Now, that makes
some people very uncomfortable because they want to get from God an exact answer
on every detail of life, and he doesn't give it to us.

Why? Because he trusts us. He trusts our heart.

He trusts that he can give us the overall principles about purity of mind. He
can give us the overall principles about how to treat other people and leave it
to us the mind that he's given us to make decisions based on that. Since he's
done that, sometimes we're going to make different decisions, and the Bible
calls that disputable matters.

Now, as we walk through the rest of this week, we're going to talk about what do
we do about the fact that there are disputable matters. But we have to begin by
admitting there is such a thing and working through that truth. As we pray all
during this week, I'd like to pray as we look at Romans chapter 14 for our
relationship with other believers, and today to pray together for healthy
relationships with those in your own small group, in your own church that you're
connected with as a believer every week, every month in your life.

Let's pray together. Lord, thank you. Thank you that we don't come to know you
alone and then live a relationship with you apart from others, but that Jesus,
you put us in a body in a church and that we grow together, we serve together,
we love together in that church.

That means that we're different together also, and sometimes we have a
difference of opinion on these disputable matters. I pray that you would help us
when we have those differences of opinion to go to your word to find the
answers, to listen to your spirit and follow you, that Lord, instead of becoming
stubborn and deciding to do things our way, in the face of disputable matters,
we would decide to let our hearts be softened by you, Jesus, our love for you,
and that your grace would reign. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to take a look at verses 3 to 13 of this chapter and look
at the important question, what is this whole thing of passing judgment?