Romans Part 6: RESPONSESample

How to Love Your Neighbor

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He summed up the entirety of the Law into just two points: (1) Love God and (2) Love your neighbor (Matthew 22:34-40). This, of course, begs the question: “How do we love God? and how do we love our neighbor?” Today’s reading provides concrete advice that relates to the latter question.

In Romans 14, Paul is referring to a set of related controversies in the early church that had to do with questions like “Should Christians eat kosher? Is it okay to eat meat sacrificed to idols? How should we follow the commandment to keep the Sabbath? What about alcohol?”

This passage provides not only practical advice on how to deal with these specific controversies but also provides a model for certain concrete ways Christians can love their neighbor. Paul’s advice on this topic can be boiled down to two points:

1. The one whose expression of piety results in a specific diet, strict avoidance of alcohol, specific Sabbath practices, etc. should not judge the one who does these things differently.

2. The one who, like Paul, understands their freedom in Christ as giving them some liberty in these matters should not use that freedom to cause the other to stumble.

Loving your neighbor isn’t about being right; it's about helping the other to love God. The brothers who came to Christ when they gave up alcohol may associate drinking with alcoholism and ungodliness. The brother who drinks in moderation could make that brother stumble if he encouraged him to have a drink with him, especially if he were to use scripture to argue why it is okay to drink. What Paul is saying here is that it is far better to give up something for the sake of a brother that isn’t, strictly speaking, a sin, than to risk hurting your brother’s faith. As Christians, we are called to take up our cross and follow Jesus (Matt 16:24). With that in mind, putting something away or giving something up for the sake of our brother is really the least we can do.

-Wesley Viau