1We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me." 4For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 5May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. (Romans 15:1-7)
Distinctions
When we read Romans 15:1-7 we encounter several difficult things. Perhaps one of the most difficult here is the idea of distinction between the “strong” and the “weak”. How carefully we must tread when we speak of language such as this. It is obvious that Paul draws a line of identification between those who are strong versus those who are weak. Paul speaks more about this in 1 Corinthians 14 by saying that each of us should be infants in evil but mature in our thinking. The book of Hebrews gives us yet more instruction about being “mature in our faith”. The author of Hebrews uses “milk” to describe the basic principles of God. The author then goes on to say that those who live on milk are “unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child” (see Hebrews 5:13). In the next verse of Hebrews 5 the author goes on to describe the nature of the mature by saying, “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” It is obvious that the Bible supports the idea that there are believers who a mature (strong) and those who are like children in their thinking (weak). It is important to know that both “classes” of people are believers. However, the faith of one is more developed while the other is less developed.
The inherent danger in calling one weak and another strong is the temptation to become full of sinful pride and arrogance. It is for this very reason that we must be very leery to not think more highly of ourselves than we ought (Romans 12:3). Instead we should “think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” (also Romans 12:3) So how did Paul exercise sober judgment in Romans 15 when he said that the strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak? He did this by not seeking to please himself but rather seeking to please his neighbor for that the good of that person, for the act of building them up rather than tearing them down. We can only do this if we are pursuing righteousness with the wisdom of God churning within us, giving us the proper discernment at the proper time.
Before you look at any other person, begin by looking at yourself and asking the question, “Am I a weak or strong believer?” This can be very difficult because nobody likes to think of themselves as weak. Many people are convinced that just because they’ve gone to church pretty much all their lives that this means that they are strong and well practiced in their faith. Sadly, this is too often false. Sometimes the weakest Christians you’ll meet are those who have been going to church all their lives. You might ask, “How could that be possible?” Easy. The dominant church culture in America is training people what to think rather than teaching them how to use their own brains to explore the Bible to see what the Bible tells us we should think. Too many people rely too heavily on pastors and Sunday school teachers to tell them what God’s word is saying. Unfortunately, many believers feel that this is all the Bible time that they need in order to be a person seeking righteousness. The excuses are many in the area of not investing time in God’s word. My kids lives take up most of my time. I’ve got dishes to do. I’ve got laundry to do. I’ve really got to pick up the house. I need to mow the lawn. I just need a night to myself. When I hear these things I actually hear this, “Me, Me, Me, Me, and more Me!” People who know me might say, “That’s easy for you to say Chad, you don’t have kids. You don’t realize how different things become when you have children.” It’s true that I don’t yet have children, but I have several friends who have several kids and somehow they still manage to invest time in God’s word and a significant portion of that time is spent doing this with their children. Weirdly, these people, who I consider to be strong and mature Christians, seem to never spout the list of excuses that I often hear other Christian friends of mine saying. Why is that? I think the difference is that these families have learned to not just include God in their lives but rather make their whole lives revolve around God. The simple fact of the matter is that a copious amount of Christians lives their lives trying to fit God into their schedules. Some of you may be reading this and find yourself feeling an uncomfortable tug of realization that says “yeah, I do that”. It’s marks like these in our conscience that can help us answer the question, “Am I a weak or strong believer?”
I have been a believer for about thirteen years. For about 11 of those years I was a shamefully weak believer. During that time I was content to live only on “milk” (the basic principles of the oracles of God). I never attempted, or even felt that it was necessary to try to move on to solid food. I had no concept of what it meant to be a mature Christian. I didn’t even realize that there was a huge difference. I foolishly thought “believers are believers and some are just better studied than others.” The concepts of strong, weak, mature, and immature were things that were totally lost on my infantile Christian mind. The day that I realized this was a day of personal embarrassment for me. The stink of my personal arrogance began to suffocate me and it was during this time that I decided that I no longer wanted to be a weak, immature Christian. I wanted solid food. I was tired of being a sulking, sinful moron. Today, I feel like I have covered a lot of ground in spiritually maturing but I also realize that I have a ridiculously long path yet to walk. I know enough to know that my maturity is really just beginning. There are areas of my faith where I have to admit that I am yet weak and undisciplined. I see these and simply refuse to tolerate them. When you identify your personal failings as a Christian you should not sit around and do nothing. You should seek the wisdom of God’s word. You should seek the counsel of others. You must be intentional about your maturity otherwise it won’t happen.
How Should the Strong Deal with the Weak (…and vice versa)
We have an obligation to one another as Christian brothers and sisters to build one another up. When Paul says the “strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak” I don’t believe he meant that we should never challenge one another to grow in our faith. Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” How can we truly sharpen one another if we’re never challenging one another to grow in the maturity of our faith? I don’t know that we could. There are a number of pitfalls to sharpening one another and I’d like to take some time to explore precisely what those kinds of things are.
(1) Overconfidence in Self-Assurance: It’s easy to become overconfident in thinking that we are much more spiritually mature than those around us. When we reach the peak of this kind of mentality the potential for sin drastically increases if we’re not focused on the sovereignty of God. We must always remember to humble ourselves. Heed the words of Biblical authors such as James who said, “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” We do not want to be found guilty of boasting in arrogance at any point in time. Let the flood of God’s word deeply saturate you in the wisdom of the counsel of God. In this way you will know how to maintain a heart of humility. You will also learn how to teach others with the wisdom that comes from God. James describes this wisdom as pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
(2) Abusing Others With “Knowledge”: When a person feels confident in what they believe, they have a tendency to be stubborn and unmovable in their convictions. This is both a good and bad thing. For example, I would consider it a good thing if someone were unmovable in the conviction that Christ is Lord. I would consider it a bad thing if someone were unmovable in the conviction that summer is better than winter. Who is willing to draw lines of division over an argument as silly as that? Hopefully no one. When we have a conviction and we meet somebody with an opposing view we must pray that discernment would fill our hearts. Both persons need to first commit to actually listening to one another. Too often people butt heads over opposing viewpoints without really ever listening to what the other person is saying. That is the very reason why watching political talk shows makes me, quite literally, sick to my stomach. We very rarely see a positive example of two people discussing differences of opinion in a loving way. What is more common is the sight of one person abusing another with their “knowledge”. Sometimes people get so convinced that they’re right that they forget to use common sense. You can usually identify a fallacy in someone’s thinking. For example, I feel that the Bible makes God’s purpose of unconditional election quite plain. Yet I encounter many people who feel that’s not what God does. People say God does not predestine (determine in advance) those who will be conformed to the image of Christ. I look at a verse like Romans 8:29 (For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son) and say to myself, “Isn’t it so apparent what Paul is saying? He says things like this in more than one of his letters. Doesn’t that make the truth of these words evident?” I have yet to hear a scripturally based argument that would refute the idea of God’s purpose of election. Unconditional election is a conviction of mine. I believe that I see the scriptures correctly regarding this issue. However, I also realize the very palpable possibility that I could easily abuse people with my conviction. I could take my conviction to a place of sinfulness with alarming ease. If I stop conveying my conviction with the aim to build others up, then I will have officially arrived at the threshold of boastful arrogance. James reminds us, “All such boasting is evil.” (James 4:16)
(3) Failure to Receive: When I say “failure to receive” I’m referring to the all too common act of failing to receive the criticisms and critiques of others. The simple reality is that most people don’t like being disagreed with. I’ve noticed that we Christians seem to get particularly miffed when people disagree with us. In my pre-Christian days I noticed that Christians got really bent out of shape when you suggested the possibility that a particular belief that they held on to was wrong. It’s was as though they didn’t even want to talk about it. Looking back on these encounters I never recall any Christian ever taking me to the Bible to show me where my deficiency of thinking existed. Now, as a Christian, I notice the same thing amongst fellow Christian brothers and sisters. Typically speaking, when people (Christian or non-Christian) aren’t really that well informed about something they tend to create uninformed opinions. Whenever these opinions are challenged, these individuals, who can’t really defend their stance all that well, usually resort to retaliatory tactics that advance the argument nowhere but down. I see this happen amongst Christians who are still in the “living on milk” stage of their spiritual maturity. As Christians we must learn how to receive the criticisms of our beliefs as an opportunity to illustrate the glory of God. We must acknowledge moments such as these to spiritually mature. That means we also have to be willing to accept the possibility that we could be wrong. This means that we also have to be willing to accept that the beliefs that we’ve held for a very long period of time could either be true, half-true, or not true at all. In other words, we must surrender any kind of sinful thinking or speech that could potentially hinder us from giving God glory, even in the process of maturing our faith. This is only made difficult by the fact that we hang on to selfish passions. “But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:25) Instead of hanging on to that which is earthly in us, we should look in the law of God’s word, see what it demands from our lives, believe it and do it. This includes receiving the critiques of others.
Hopefully these words have helped. I want to conclude with one final thought that you’ve already read. I simply want to remind you of the goal in all this talk.
5May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. (Romans 15:5-7)
Chad, this is such a good word. I was especially struck by this one (bold) statement:
"The simple fact of the matter is that a copious amount of Christians live their lives trying to fit God into their schedules."
What a provoking thought to ponder and be challenged by. You are correct, we will never "fit" God into our schedules, because our schedules are already too full as they are. But when God is the center and purpose and driving force behind all we do, then He IS our schedule. HE shapes it. He determines it. And He shows up in all areas of our lives.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
Posted by: Chris | May 07, 2007 at 10:39 AM