Two Believers, Opposite Practices, and One Instruction for Both

The question has been sitting there for eleven years and he has never gotten a straight answer.

Two people he respects hold opposite positions on it. Both of them are serious. Both of them can quote something. Both of them are better people than he is in ways he can name.

And the way it works in practice is that whichever one he spoke to last is the one he agrees with, and he goes home from those conversations feeling like a man with no spine, which is worse than being wrong.

He has looked it up. He has read the chapter people point to. What he found was that the chapter does not say what either of them says it says, exactly, and that both readings are available if a person wants them.

So he has settled on the only stable position, which is to keep quiet about it and do whatever will cause the least trouble in whichever room he is standing in. And that has worked for eleven years, and it costs something he could not have named until recently.

There is a chapter about this and the surprising thing about it is what it refuses to do.

He states both positions and does not pick

Here is the passage, in the King James Version:

One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. (Romans 14:5-6)

Read what is not there. There is no answer.

He describes two people doing opposite things. He gives both of them the identical motive: unto the Lord. He credits both of them with acting toward God, which is the last thing a man expects in an argument like this, because in every version of it he has been in, one side is assumed to be sincere and the other side is assumed to be careless.

Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

That is the instruction, and it is not the instruction to figure out who is right. It is the instruction to know why you do what you do. Which is a completely different assignment, and it is one nobody else can complete on your behalf.

You are not required to win this and you were never handed the job of settling it. Romans 14:5 says let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind instead of ruling, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than a better argument who does the persuading that verse is talking about.

The question he asks instead

One verse earlier he asks something that reframes the whole business.

Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4)

Another man's servant. The picture is of a household. You do not correct somebody else's employee about how they do their job, because they do not answer to you and you do not have the standing.

And then the sentence that keeps it from being cold: yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.

That is a promise about the other man. Not about the reader being generous. About the person on the other side of the disagreement, and it says God will hold him up.

Which means the anxiety underneath most of these arguments, which is that somebody is going to be lost over this, is answered directly and it is answered in the other man's favor.

You have somebody else holding him up and you were never responsible for keeping another man standing. Romans 14:4 says God is able to make him stand about the person on the other side, and it is His Spirit rather than your success in the argument who does that holding.

What keeps this from being indifference

And here is where the chapter refuses to become a shrug, because it would be easy to read all this as saying nothing matters.

So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. (Romans 14:12)

Of himself. That verse is usually quoted as a warning and it is one, and it is also the strongest possible statement of the thing this reader has never been given: the account is his own, and it is his own, and nobody else's answer will be read out in place of it.

That is not permission to be careless. It is the opposite. A man who knows he will give his own account has a reason to actually work out why he does what he does, rather than adopting whatever position the last serious person he talked to held.

And the chapter closes the loop by naming what the goal actually is:

Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. (Romans 14:19)

Peace and building up. Those are the criteria offered in place of a ruling, and they are criteria a man can apply on a Tuesday without a scholar present.

You have your own account to give and you were never going to be assessed on somebody else's reading. Romans 14:12 says every one of us shall give account of himself to God, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that a call to be serious rather than a reason to be afraid.

Where the chapter puts the danger

There is one more thing, and it is the reason this belongs in a conversation about rules rather than in a conversation about manners.

I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. (Romans 14:14)

That is a strong sentence and he says he holds it by the Lord Jesus, which is about as much weight as a man can put behind a position.

And then he immediately does not use it as a club. He says that for the person who believes otherwise, the thing genuinely is unclean, and that the man who is persuaded should not use his own freedom to run over him.

So the danger named in the chapter is not that somebody keeps an unnecessary rule. The danger is that a man violates his own conscience because somebody with a stronger position pushed him into it.

Which is, exactly, the eleven years of agreeing with whoever spoke last.

You are allowed to hold a position and you were never meant to be moved by whoever is loudest. Romans 14:14 has Paul state his own conviction plainly and refuse to force it on anybody, and it is His Spirit rather than a stronger personality who settles a man's own mind.