Romans 14:17-20 – “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.”

Here, Paul explains the meaning of the Work of God. We define “the Work of God” as the way we serve Christ and please God, as this passage says. The Kingdom of God has righteousness, peace, and joy as three of its defining characteristics, and these three things should always be pervasive in God’s Work.

Paul addresses a complicated problem in the early church, a point of division. On the one side, some of the early Christians (especially those from Jewish backgrounds) felt that they should boycott eating meat sold in the public markets, because all of the butchering in ancient times involved pagan rituals and offering the animals as sacrifices to false gods. The association of the meat market with paganism troubled their consciences, so they abstained from it. The problem was that they sometimes pressured others in the church (who did not share their scruples) to conform to their self-imposed religious restrictions. It is one thing to expect other Christians to live according to what God has clearly revealed in his Word. It is another thing to make our own rules, usually “as a matter of principle,” and then judge fellow church members for not being as strict.

On the other side, many early Christians understood that material items (like a piece of meat) could not have a spiritual dimension, because they are inanimate objects. For them, it did not matter what the meat vendors had done to associate the animal with some false deity beforehand. All that mattered, they felt, was their own intentions. Boycotting the meat market seemed silly. The problem was that they would push back against the more scrupulous members by flaunting their “freedom” in front of them, inviting them to dinner and announcing that they were sereving meat from the pagan marketplace. The more conscientious members would understandably feel offended by this.

The problem was that both sides were partly wrong. Paul does take the doctrinal position that inanimate spiritual objects cannot transmit curses, pagan spirits, or anything like that – meat is just meat, no matter where it comes from. There is nothing magical about food. In this sense, he sides with the second group (those who saw nothing wrong with the meat).

What makes food potentially sinful is attitude or intentions of those eating it. In this sense, Paul sides with the boycotters, those with extra personal religious rules. For some, usually those from a pagan background, the association of certain items with paganism was so strong that it represented for them an actual participation in idolatry. In such a case – where a person strongly associates an inanimate object with something wicked – their conscience may require them to abstain.  God will honor them for being conscientious about their faith in Him. This is why Paul leaves the matter up to each person’s conscience. Even though the meat from the marketplace was not inherently evil, it affected some Christians in a way that undermined their fellowship with Christ.

Those members who were flaunting their disregard for the consciences of others in the church were also sinning, by provoking and shocking their brethren unnecessarily. They should have respected the other members’ sensitivities and conscientiousness. Similarly, those with self-imposed rules about this matter should have refrained from imposing their sensitivities on others, because the others actually had the correct view of the spiritual reality.

MUTUAL EDIFICATION – The real solution, Paul writes, is that everyone in the church needs to become more conscientious about edifying fellow church members, instead of winning and argument or teaching the other person a lesson. We should all be more scrupulous or sensitive about how our choices affect others.  Paul himself made the personal choice to abstain from anything that might disturb the faith of those he loved (1 Corinthians 8:9-13; Acts 15:20, 29).

Today, the dispute is usually not about eating meat from the market instead of home-butchered fare. Instead, there are other things in our culture that derive from paganism, the occult, or immorality – such that many Christians cannot ignore the strong association. Perhaps you are confident that it is not sinful to do a certain thing that others in the church find spiritually objectionable. Even so, it is sinful to flaunt your choice in front of them. This unnecessarily provokes, discourages, and scandalizes other church members. For some, they may misinterpret it as a sign that it is OK to do something that truly would be sinful for them.  They could misunderstand and think that God has no expectations whatsoever, that even immorality is acceptable for a Christian. One member’s refusal to respect the sensitivities of more scrupulous members can nudge the others in the direction of outright apostasy or backsliding.

Of course, developing a mentality of mutual edification – being sensitive to the sensitivities of others – requires a self-sacrificing heart. We have to become less self-centered and self-absorbed in order to devote a lot of mental energy to the effects of our behavior on others in the church. Yet if the whole church works toward this mentality, we will come closer to our goal of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.