How Should We Navigate Our Convictions and Consciences? (Rom. 14:13–23)

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Ray Ortlund
Jesus did not die and rise again to create a debate club where we can have an argument about eating and drinking. He died and rose again to create a living body where righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit is appearing in human form. You Ray, welcome back to you’re not crazy. I’m Ray ortlund. I’m here with my dear friend Sam Albury. Good to see you, Ray. And we are thinking out loud together about Romans chapters 12 through 15, and the beauty of human relationships that the gospel inevitably creates when we allow it its full authority.

Sam Allberry
We are, and we’re in this section within that, those four chapters where Paul is helping us think through what it means to bear with one another, over different opinions, over differing levels of conscience sensitivity, all those kinds of things, an issue which we all recognize is there in church life. But I think the fact that Paul gives this much space to it, again, we found very challenging.

Ray Ortlund
It’s true to life, isn’t it? For example, let’s just think out loud together, what are some matters of personal opinion and preference and taste and so forth, where sometimes it can be hard to get along in church?

Sam Allberry
Yeah, it might be the music, what style of music you sing, the volume of the music, what sort of instruments you do or don’t use.

Ray Ortlund
It might be the liturgical format of the service. And I mean that in the broadest sense.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, for some it’s too structured. For some it’s not structured enough.

Ray Ortlund
Wherever we do anything, it’s possible to disagree.

Sam Allberry
Yes, what time the service should be? Because if you’ve got this age kids, well, that time would be much easier. And for other people, this other time is much easier.

Ray Ortlund
A healthy church is a massive ongoing compromise where everyone is adapting and making room for others, and the reason we do that is not that we’re such nice people, because we’re not. The reason we adapt and make room for each other is that Christ has welcomed us as we are. He doesn’t ask us to shape up first and then we become presentable to him. He says, Come as you are, and receives us. Okay. Now we know.

Sam Allberry
Yep, and we are to one another, the welcome of Jesus.

Ray Ortlund
So here in Romans, chapter 14, verses 13 through 23 he in verse 15, he uses this language, walking in love, or walking according to love. And that’s kind of the wraparound category for this. This whole section, he states negatively, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer in verse 13 and positively in verse 19, let us pursue what makes for peace and mutual, a building so getting together as a church. It’s not for denominational pride, it’s not for platform. It’s not for selfish Kingdom building. He says, let us pursue press hard toward what makes for peace and mutual up building. We’re always looking for the win, win.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, which often means I shouldn’t be wanting to get everything my way, because I’m having to adjust to the needs and preferences of others. It’s very, very sobering Ray how high the stakes are with this. Because, again, we tend to think this is a nice kind of add on to the Christian life. You know, try and try and pursue what makes for peace, try and try and get along. Paul says in verse 13, therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. And you think, okay, yeah, I don’t want to slow down someone else’s progress in the Christian life. But then Paul uses even stronger language in verse 15, if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love by what you eat, you destroy the one for whom Christ died. So when he talks about a stumbling block or a hindrance, he’s not talking about a kind of a small little obstacle in someone’s path that they can just easily step over what what is going on here has the the potential, on the one hand, to destroy someone’s faith, or for us to be walking in love and making the gospel of justification by faith alone, easier for each other, to wonder, to Believe.

Ray Ortlund
He says it again in verse 20, do not destroy the work of God. What could that look like? Sam, that inadvertent but effective destruction of a friend in Christ?

Sam Allberry
Well, he walks us through it in verse 14. So he’s talked about how some may have sensitivities about what Christians should or shouldn’t eat do. And we can understand, if people have come to faith from a background of, you know, following the law of Moses, they may still have those categories of some foods are clean, some foods are unclean. So Paul says of himself, I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. So that is the truth Paul has come to understand as a mature Christian. But it is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean. If your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love and so on. So Paul seems to be saying, if someone’s conscience thinks something is unclean, then to them, it is unclean. And if you make them eat something that they think is unclean, you’re destroying their faith, because you’re teaching them to disregard their conscience. And this may be an area where their conscience is more sensitive than it needs to be, but if you’re teaching them to disregard their conscience, then they’re going to be disregarding their conscience on other things where their conscience is exactly right, because you’re basically saying, If it feels wrong, ignore that feeling. So even if someone’s conscience isn’t as mature as it could be, in this case, as mature as Paul’s conscience is, people are still to obey their conscience.

Ray Ortlund
Sam, in the last episode, you offered an illustration that was clarifying to me, and that is the Christian use of alcohol. And Scripture is clear that alcohol in itself, is not a problem. It is something God created, and everything created by God is good and is to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. First, Timothy, four, one through five. So there’s a wide open freedom as Christian people walking into God’s creation. But some Christians, understandably and legitimately have serious reservations about the use of alcohol. Let’s say you’re that kind of Christian, for whatever reason your conscience is not okay with your or really, anyone else’s use of alcohol. I’m fine with it. If we’re together in a social setting and I’m holding a glass of wine and I say, Sam, Here, take this class. I have some. Don’t be ridiculous. This is fine. The Bible is clear. What’s your problem? And I press it on you. That’s the very kind of intolerant pressuring of a tender conscience that Paul forbids here, and he’s using twice in this passage, using the word destroy to alert people like me that I’ve got to be sensitive and alert and respectful of other people’s sensitivities and reservations.

Sam Allberry
And it builds on what he was saying in the previous passage, where he was talking about how the one who eats eats in honor of the Lord, the one who abstains abstains in honor of the Lord. If in that scenario you just mentioned, if you press me into having a an alcoholic drink just to show me that I can, that the world hasn’t ended if I do, I’m not doing that for the honor of God. I’m doing that because you’re pressing me to I’m not doing it out of my own sincere devotion to the Lord and the thing Paul seems to want us to honor in each other, even if people are ending up concluding things that they don’t need to conclude about these, these issues, the thing Paul really wants us to honor is each other’s sincerity towards the Lord. And so if a Christian has a differing conscience to me on some issue where I know that the Bible says it’s okay, I still want to not just respect but actually I want to cheer them for seeking to do what they think is right before the Lord.

Ray Ortlund
So I’m seeing in my imagination. Here is an Amish Christian at one end of a sociological spectrum, and here is an East Nashville hipster Christian at the other end of the sociological spectrum. Each and they go to the same church. Each looks at the other with admiration. Each looks at the other to make space for that other Christian to be him or herself. Each actively, warmly, sincerely, supports the other in in their respective convictions.

Sam Allberry
And defends the other. So on whatever the issue might be, the one is actually wanting to say, hey, we need to protect this, this conscience of this other Christian over here. So we’re not trying to push our get our own way. We’re actually trying to most honor and protect and defend the Christian who has the differing opinion to us.

Ray Ortlund
So I wonder if that changes our ideal church scenario, rather than marketing a church to a certain. Human profile that would exclude others. Why not just throw our arms open as wide as the arms of Christ?

Sam Allberry
Yeah, it would be church. In one sense, would be easier if everyone had the same opinions as me, but I would grow so much less as a Christian because of that, because so much of Christian growth in these chapters is learning to bear with each other and to bear with each other. We need, we need those differences. We need those those things that make us not want to bear with each other. So what I’d actually be hindering my Christian growth if I, if I was at a church where everything fitted in with my natural preferences.

Ray Ortlund
Christians who rubbed me the wrong way are doing me a godly service, and you’re welcome. You’re great. Sam, now you said something before we began our podcast episode about verse 23 for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. That is a remarkable sort of principial distinction to make. Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. What are your thoughts about that bold statement?

Sam Allberry
Yes, well, he’s again, he’s talking about those who might end up doing the biblically right thing for the wrong reason. So verse 22 the faith that you have keep between yourself and God. In other words, don’t steamroll other people into doing the thing that you think is right. Whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. And so if someone is feeling as though, as a Christian, for example, I shouldn’t eat pork, maybe that’s their conscience. Then if you end up coercing them, because the only thing you serve at the church meal is is a bacon sandwich, and they end up and, come on, just eat it. Everyone else is eating it. Paul is saying that person is condemned if he’s because the eating is not from faith. He’s not now following his his conscience before the Lord, he’s he’s eating because you’ve made him eat, which means it’s sin. Whatever does not come from proceed from faith is sin. So he’s condemned because he’s actually going against his conscience and doing something he believes in his heart to be sinful. And what you’ve done is you’ve taught him it’s okay to do something you feel in your heart as a sin. And I think this is, this is such a significant verse For those of us in Christian leadership, because sometimes, if particularly if we’ve got a strong personality, we can make people do things just through force of personality. But if someone is doing something, even if someone is doing the right thing, if they’re doing that just because we’ve made them do it, we could actually be endangering their faith, because they’re not doing it out of devotion to the Lord. They’re not doing it out of sincere obedience to Him. They’re doing it because we’ve made them do it. We’re training them to be, to be pushed around by us, rather than led in their own heart by the Lord. I’ll give you one example, Ryan, I knew of a pastor who very, very strong personality, was trying to, you know, the church was needing more small group leaders. There was a shortage of small group leaders. There was a couple who had been approached by one of the staff to think about leading a small group. They’d thought about it, they’d prayed about it, and they said, we just don’t think we’ve got the capacity right now. We would love to another time right now, in this season of life, we don’t think we’ve got the capacity. So this, this, that wasn’t the answer the overall leader had been hoping for. So he then steps in, meets with them, and says, afterwards, yeah, they’re going to lead now, I basically made them do it. Kind of steamrolled them, pushed them, pressured them into doing it. So they said yes. And I remember thinking on that that is not that is a failure of Christian leadership, not an example of Christian leadership, because what they’re doing now isn’t coming from their own faith. What they’re doing is because they’ve been made to do it. If we’re making people do things, we’re not actually leading them in a in a Christian way, because what if, you know, we’re teaching them to go against their conscience. So they might end up going against their conscience on some very serious sins, or they may move to another church, where all we’ve done is trained them to do what the pastor tells them to do. They may have a pastor who doesn’t believe the Bible, or we’re training them to be led by man, not be led by the Lord. So it is better for someone to have a biblically incomplete conclusion and to be holding it in sincerity of faith before the Lord. Lord, than for someone to have the right answers and be doing the right thing, but not doing it in sincerity of heart. Does that make sense?

Ray Ortlund
That is so striking. It’s a new way of grounding our ethic. Yeah, in this area of legitimately debatable opinions, yeah, the ground of a true ethic is not that we all align, but rather that we are all consecrated to Christ. Yeah.

Sam Allberry
And all aligning feels easier, because if we’re all doing the same thing and not having hang ups about what we eat or what we do as a church, or any of those things, that’s easier, but it’s it’s less spiritually healthy. The very presence of these disagreements. And you know, there may be pastors listening to this who were right in the heat of churches that are squabbling over some of these kinds of issues, the very presence of those differences is a sign you’ve got, you’ve got real Christians, and the real gospel at work here, it’s an evidence of health. It really is now it’s, it’s an occasion where things could go very wrong or things could go very right, which is why Paul is walking us through this so very carefully. But it’s actually a potentially better position to be in than to be in a church where there are none of these corporals, either because everyone is from the very same kind of background, or because the strong personalities have Yes, have overruled everybody else.

Ray Ortlund
The ideal scenario in a church is not that we share the same opinions and get along, perhaps too easily, yes, but that we all revere Christ and are living with an eye upon him and his lordship over the whole of life, and we’re all making room for each other. We’re giving space to each other to work out what that means personally, for each and every one of us as a grown up standing before the Lord, yeah, and we’re supportive of one another, and it maybe it would seem crazy in the eyes of the watching world, like, how do you people get along? You should not be together. There’s no way to account for the fact that that you stick together the way you do what? What’s going on here? Well, it’s because Jesus is here.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, for example, Ray, you might think Christians should never go to the movie theater, or Christians should never watch TV. You just feel in your conscience That’s That’s so wrong. I don’t agree with you on that, and I will still watch TV in private at home when you’re not around, but I will love the fact that you care so much about honoring the Lord and doing what is right in his eyes that you you’re getting in my face about that. You might have a conclusion that is unnecessary, but I will love your working and hey, and that matters more. And there are so many areas in the Christian life where I’m less interested in what someone thinks than I am and how they got there. And I think that seems to be Paul’s focus here.

Ray Ortlund
There’s always something to admire about a conscientious Christian exactly,

Sam Allberry
even if they’re doing your head in because they’re unhappy with everything that’s going on in the church, they’re unhappy precisely because they’re trying to serve the Lord as best they know how, and we always want them to be doing that. And we hope in time as consciences become more educated. And for pastors, you know, we’re playing a long game here, that the more we teach and disciple, the more informed consciences become, and that that is the way to win a conscience is to is to feed it and grow it over time, rather than to steamroll it.

Ray Ortlund
Persuasion, not coercion, exactly, while we’re plowing through those years of laying new foundations in a church, I just noticed yesterday afternoon, Sam this wonderful piece of wisdom from George Whitefield during the first Great Awakening, 1742, he writes a letter to a friend and describes the revival that he’s observing. And then he says, he changes the subject. He becomes sad. He says, I despair of a greater unity among the churches, till a greater measure of the spirit be poured from on high. Hence, therefore, I am resolved simply to preach the gospel of Christ and leave others to quarrel by and with themselves, to contend where there is no probability of convincing only feeds and adds fuel to an Unhallowed fire. Love, forbearance, long suffering and frequent prayer to the Lord Jesus is the best way to put that fire out. Oh, love, true. True, simple Christian undissembled Love, whither art thou fled? Wow, yeah, so we as pastors are called to set that tone. There is a nobility to the absorbency of not getting pulled into negative, futile arguments about issues that don’t deserve that kind of attention, and we keep presenting Christ faithfully, cheerfully, ruggedly for years upon years, while we trust God to bear bear fruit in that church that only He can create, not arm twisting.

Sam Allberry
Ray, all of this is in the context of, you know, welcoming those who are weak, welcoming one another as Christ has welcomed us. I think that also means Paul is assuming these, these differences are going to be worked out born with in a physical human environment. There’s probably very little point in trying to get into these discussions online. Wow, because the bearing with one another happens at a physical in person level, where I am physically welcoming someone that I know has been welcomed by Jesus. When we when we transfer these squabbles online, I think we’re making it much, much easier to pass judgment on each other and much much harder to welcome each other. Ray thinking about how we bear with one another, obviously we’re thinking about this in in our church communities that I wonder, too, whether I’m a single man, you’re married, many pastors listening will be married, whether there’s also some of this dynamic that happens within the marriage, and how, how this, these teachings, play out in that context.

Ray Ortlund
Jenny married an adventurer. And there’s, there is benefit in being a hard charging go, take that hill adventurer. There’s also peril in bringing that kind of human package to the table. Jenny herself is a nurturer and is more cautious by nature, and she’s the one who handles the family finances, for example, which is saving me a lot of trouble, but I would be not only a bad husband, I would be a foolish and unkind pastor if, in my enthusiasm for some new step to take for Christ, I would run roughshod over her feelings, Her sense of caution, her reservations. We had this conversation a few months ago about a matter that we’re considering, and I felt I I had to slow down and give her time to think it through, ask me questions, press into the matter more deeply and just give her space to settle in wherever she was going to land. And it’s not as though there was only one right answer she could one right conclusion. But, and indeed, she she, she was magnificent and so kind to me, but I did feel conscience bound not to lay down the law and just tell her how this is going to go. I mean, what kind of a husband would that be? What kind of pastor would that be? Godly pastors and godly husbands delight in people they love disagreeing with them.

Sam Allberry
I can imagine this is relevant to lots of elder boards too. Yes, within an elder board, you’ll have some who are functioning like the gas pedal and some who are functioning like the brake pedal, yes, and it’ll be easier for each to be annoyed at the other.

Ray Ortlund
That’s exactly what happened with me, deep in my heart at Emmanuel church there, I’m a gas pedal kind of guy and the man who tended to tap the brakes more, they asked me really good questions that would not have occurred to me, like, okay, Ray, you’ve got this wonderful new idea. How are we going to do that? Well, rather than be annoyed by that question, that good question, I learned to respect that question, and now I look back on those years, those wonderful years, and those are the very men I miss the most. I learned the most from those guys. They deepened me and stretched me, and I’m grateful for those very men.

Sam Allberry
Well, the hope, then, is that we actually begin to love those things that are initially presenting themselves as frustrations in other people, those differences, we actually then become come to love those differences, come to cherish them. Yes, come to. Value them. Ray that let’s let’s wrap up with verse 17, for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. That is really what we’re wanting to be about here, not whether we’re doing this or doing that in the church, but whether we are growing in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. That’s our prayer for ourselves and our own church here in Nashville. That’s our prayer for those who are listening for your churches too. It’s a challenge for every single one of us, all of us are going to have to do some bearing with others, but what a glorious work the Lord will do in us.

Ray Ortlund
Jesus did not die and rise again to create a debate club where we can have an argument about eating and drinking. He died and rose again to create a living body where righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit is appearing in human form with all that complication that inevitably we bring but every single one of us is adjusting to righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. A healthy church is not a church of entire agreement. A healthy church is an ongoing miracle that Jesus had to die and rise again to create.

Sam Allberry
Well, thank you so much for listening. Great to have you with us, and we’ll see you next time