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When I was in college, I had to win every argument I started. I loved being right and hated losing a debate. Because I was a very opinionated freshman, I started a lot of arguments my first year. I paid a huge social cost for my combativeness the next year. My friends didn’t want to argue with me, and since that’s all I seemed to do, they left me alone. I eventually learned that not every debate can or needs to be won. Friends live with differences of opinion. 

In Romans 14.1-15.13, Paul outlines a Christian perspective on how church members can live with their differences. The Roman church consisted of both Jewish and Gentile believers. Given their respective cultural and religious backgrounds, Jewish and Gentile Christians disagreed about many things. Paul mentions two of those disagreements: whether Christians should eat only kosher food and whether they should observe the Sabbath. Many Jewish Christians said yes, but many Gentile Christians said no. How could the church at Rome live with this difference of opinion? 

Paul answers that question in Romans 14.1: “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.” Let’s work our way backward through this verse, starting with the phrase, “disputable matters.” The Greek word Paul uses is dialogismon, which is related to the word dialog. We might say that there are some issues in Christian faith and practice that we can legitimately dialog about. For Paul, kosher diets and Sabbath keeping were two such issues. 

But not every issue in Christian faith and practice is open for debate. In the early years of the church, some Jewish Christians taught that Gentile converts needed to be circumcised, keep kosher, and observe the Sabbath in order to be saved (see Acts 15.1 and 5). The Council of Jerusalem determined that this teaching was in error and that Gentiles did not need to become Jews in order to become Christians (Acts 15.6-35). The early chapters of Romans make the theological case for the same conclusion. That is what Paul means when he writes in Romans 3.28, “we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” About justification by faith, there can be no difference of opinion. 

And yet, in the early church, many Jewish Christians continued to eat kosher and observe the Sabbath. They acknowledged the truth of justification by faith, but given their cultural and religious upbringing, they had scruples about food and calendar. Gentile Christians could have ridden roughshod over the consciences of their Jewish brothers and sisters, and forced the issue. But such is not the Christian way of doing things. Loving the weak is more important than winning an argument about disputable matters. So Paul commands us to “accept…without passing judgment.” When I teach my church’s new members’ class, I emphasize three things: On essential issues of faith and practice, unity; on non-essential issues, liberty; on all occasions, charity. That seems like an apt summary of Paul’s teaching here.