Tuesday, February 19, 2008
weaker brothers (and sisters)
There has been a lengthy discussion on The Submerging Influence blog about whether Christians should refrain from alcohol. Some excerpts to pique your interest:
My father-in-law said something very wise to me many years ago. It is a statement that has lived with me throughout all of my theological education and into my pastorate: “Mature Christians don’t stumble. They just complain.” That was basically the gist of what he said, and the idea is that only new/immature Christians stumble in the way spoken of in Romans 14. Maturing Christians aren’t in danger of stumbling; they are just mad that you don’t agree with them.
That certainly seems to be the case in my experience. If a pastor goes around saying something like, “Beer is a gift from God meant to be enjoyed”, alcoholics don’t relapse back into drunken stupor. Instead, what happens is that people in the church who want to try to be holier than Jesus (he drank and made wine, remember?) start complaining that the pastor is encouraging people to sin.
Chuck Swindoll speaks on this passage admonishing people to be careful because there are “professional weaker brethren” out there. Mark Hitchcock warns that if we always submit to the weaker brethren, then the church will always be bowing to the “least common denominator” and our freedom will suffer.
Ultimately, the weak brother is weak because he is wrong about his convictions (those things really aren’t sinful) and because his weakness doesn’t help him restrain his flesh in the end. But, even though such a position sounds silly to the strong brother, those who are strong must not look down on the weak brother, but should accept him because he abstains in honor of the Lord.
The full blog entry & comments are found here.
My father-in-law said something very wise to me many years ago. It is a statement that has lived with me throughout all of my theological education and into my pastorate: “Mature Christians don’t stumble. They just complain.” That was basically the gist of what he said, and the idea is that only new/immature Christians stumble in the way spoken of in Romans 14. Maturing Christians aren’t in danger of stumbling; they are just mad that you don’t agree with them.
That certainly seems to be the case in my experience. If a pastor goes around saying something like, “Beer is a gift from God meant to be enjoyed”, alcoholics don’t relapse back into drunken stupor. Instead, what happens is that people in the church who want to try to be holier than Jesus (he drank and made wine, remember?) start complaining that the pastor is encouraging people to sin.
Chuck Swindoll speaks on this passage admonishing people to be careful because there are “professional weaker brethren” out there. Mark Hitchcock warns that if we always submit to the weaker brethren, then the church will always be bowing to the “least common denominator” and our freedom will suffer.
Ultimately, the weak brother is weak because he is wrong about his convictions (those things really aren’t sinful) and because his weakness doesn’t help him restrain his flesh in the end. But, even though such a position sounds silly to the strong brother, those who are strong must not look down on the weak brother, but should accept him because he abstains in honor of the Lord.
The full blog entry & comments are found here.
