Let God do the judging!

So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin. Romans 14:22-23

When I was a young Christian over fifty years ago I was taught that it was wrong to go into a shop on Sunday because it was “the Lord’s Day”. It was wrong to drink alcohol. It was wrong to gamble. Some Christians I knew thought it was wrong to go to the cinema not just on a Sunday but any day at all. Such things were “sinful”.

I accepted this pretty much unthinkingly. But in time the question became more pressing: What really constitutes “sin”?

Some things are clear-cut, of course: we only have to skim through the Ten Commandments to know that stealing, murder, adultery, lying are wrong. Christians just don’t do them, full stop – or they shouldn’t, anyway.

But other things are not so clear. Certainly it’s wrong to get drunk – but nowhere does the Bible state that drinking alcohol is necessarily wrong as such (and didn’t Jesus turn water into wine?).

And what about various forms of entertainment? Is it wrong to go to a football match, for example, where you’re surrounded by people cursing and swearing? Or to watch a film or play which, while it’s good in many ways, includes language or humour which is crude or blasphemous or scenes which are sexually explicit? Is that to be guilty by association?

The fact is that there are many things where different Christians will take different views – what is OK by one person will not be OK by someone else. We sometimes call them “grey areas”.

And the Christian principle is this: we are to prayerfully make up our own minds, and not to judge those who see things differently from us.

This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 14 – what he means by “these things” in verse 22. The main issue at stake is vegetarianism – some Christians obviously felt it was wrong to eat meet, others were happy to do so. So… who was in the right?

Says Paul, “Neither of you! Stop getting uptight about this – just be true to what your conscience tells you”.

And that’s what leads to a rather startling statement, in verse 23: “everything that does not come from faith is sin”.

Pardon, Paul. Did I hear you right? Are you really serious? I mean, when I tie my shoelaces, or take a stroll in the park, or read a magazine, I’m not sure I can really say I’m acting “from faith”!

No, that would be absurd. Paul is talking about faith in the sense of “conviction”. He is saying that if we do something our consciences aren’t easy about – if we “have doubts” about them (verse 23) - that is sin. For example, if your conscience really is troubled about drinking alcohol, then to drink alcohol is sin: it’s better to abstain than to bruise your conscience.

There’s a great story about CH Spurgeon, the nineteenth century preacher. He got on a bus in London one day and found a group of young men from his church happily smoking their pipes (this was at a time, I should point out, when the connexion between tobacco and disease was not known). Spurgeon fixed them with a stern eye and said, “Young men, aren’t you ashamed to be sitting here smoking?” Shame-faced, they all put out their pipes and tucked them guiltily in their pockets. (I imagine that a rather awkward silence descended.) But then Spurgeon took his pipe from his pocket and calmly lit up. “I am not ashamed,” he said.

We get the point (as I trust those young men also did).

I’ve talked about the traditional “worldly” things Christians have disagreed over. But there are many others that the modern world has thrown up. Try these for size…

Is it sinful not to recycle your papers and cans and plastic? To drink coffee that isn’t free trade? To eat meat or eggs that aren’t free range? To foul the atmosphere by flying unnecessarily? To go out for an expensive meal when millions of people are starving? To buy clothes that are produced by children in horrible far-away sweat shops?

Right or wrong, can we regard ourselves as responsible Christians if we haven’t at least given thought to such questions?

What matters is to have a conscience which is fed by prayer and the Bible (even our consciences are tainted and can mislead us, remember), and then to obey it. Don’t compromise. Don’t just go with the flow. If you honestly feel that you can look God fairly and squarely in the face over a particular thing, well, that’s what matters. But you’d better be sure first! If not… it is sin.

And, of course, don’t look down on a fellow Christian who sees things differently. That too is sin.

Lord, help me never to hurt another Christian by using my freedom of conscience in such a way as to trip them up. Help me never to violate my own conscience, but always to live and make decisions in order to please you. Help me never to pass judgment on others, but to remember that one day I must stand before your judgment throne. Amen.