Instructions to the "Strong" and "Weak" in Matters of Opinion

Thinking about Romans 14:21-23.

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It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak. Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin. (Romans 14:21-23)

Paul concludes Romans 14 by adressing how the “strong” and the “weak” ought to conduct themselves in matters of opinion or scruple.

To the “Strong”

Paul urges the “strong” - who had no problems eating meat and whose conscience did not require them to observe certain “special days” (Romans 14:2, 5) - not to “do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.”

In the matters of opinion Paul’s been discussing - eating meat, drinking wine, observing special days - Paul commands the “strong” to not do anything that would cause their more conscientious brethren to stumble or fall.

As a side note: I’m going to be working on an article that I hope to publish in the next day or two about what Paul writes here about “drinking wine.” There’s a lot of questions around “drinking wine” - and I hope to share a biblical point of view on this subject.

But to keep the main point of the passage in front of us, Paul commands the “strong” not to intimidate or enforce their will upon their “weak” brethren. To do so could be disastrous for their “weak” brethren’s faith.

To the “Weak”

Paul urged the “weak” - the ones whose conscience required them to abstain from eating meats and to observe special days - not to violate their conscience to go along with the “strong.”

As in [Romans] 14:22, the “faith” in 14:23 is not belief in Christ or response to a body of doctrine. Rather, it is the conviction that the right choices were being made (whether to eat or not to eat). Without that conviction, sin was committed if the Christians surrendered to the pressure of the strong by eating and drinking what, in their understanding, was not permitted. Paul wanted the weak to understand that they did not have to capitulate to the whims and preferences of the strong. - Pollard, Truth for Today Commentary, 516

For the “weak” to eat meat based on the convictions and views of the “strong” rather than their own, was to not eat “from faith.”

When a man’s personal faith says: “Don’t eat. It is sin to eat,” he cannot offer eating in faith. There is an inner contradiction. He believes his brother is doing wrong and he joins him in doing what he believes to be wrong. So he has chosen to do that which he believes is sin. This means he is willing to sin, this is his heart. He has chosen the way of a sinner even though, per se, the act he performed was not sinful. - McGuiggan, Romans, 398

Paul is highly protective of the “weak” brethren in the Lord’s church. He knows how easily they could be destroyed by the “strong” over these matters of opinion.