A Word about Being a Steppingstone Instead of a Stumbling Block

Today I want to share a word about being a steppingstone instead of a stumbling block as I comment on Romans 14 verses 10 through 23. This passage reads, 

Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”  So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. 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. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.  For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.  The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

We often think of Romans as an intensely theological book, and it is. If we assume that Paul did not write Hebrews, as it is not claimed by anyone, then Romans is probably his greatest theological work. We would be mistaken, however, to ignore the very many practical sections in Romans.

Indeed, in chapter 15, Paul told the church at Rome that he was writing to them so that they could help him go to Spain on missions, which is certainly a very practical ministry activity. We also know in Romans 8 that Paul dealt with suffering. In Romans 12, Paul discussed our service to God. In Romans 13, Paul outlined true patriotism and what it meant to be a good neighbor. In Romans 15, he outlined the tasks of missions, evangelism, and church planting. In Romans 16, he recognized faithful co-laborers in the cause of Christ. You can see, then, that Romans is a very practical book. It is a very theological book, and it is a very practical book, and it can be both at the same time.

Our focal passage for today is not only very theological, but it is also very practical, and it teaches us something very practical. This passage reminds me of the garden walkways, which are often made up of large stones or paving slabs. I often find that these stones are awkwardly placed for me, and I have often tripped over them when I have tried to walk on garden stones that have been spaced for someone else. Instead of becoming a steppingstone, those things for me became stumbling blocks. Paul reminds us that as we exercise our individual faith, which we do, we can be either a steppingstone for someone or we can become a stumbling block. Which should we be?

The first thing we see in verse 13 is that we affect each other.

Verse 13 says, "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."

We affect one another. We are being witnesses for Christ all the time, and so we are being watched. There was a young boy who was being driven to school by his mom one day, and normally he was driven to school by his father. When he got to school, and as he was getting out of the car, he turned and looked at his mom and said, "Mom, where were all the idiots today?" His mom said, "What are you talking about?" "Well, when dad drives me to school, he points out all the other idiots that are driving around us, and that didn't happen today." We need to be very careful, by the way, of having Christian-oriented stickers on our cars because we often don't drive as that would indicate.

There was a quote from Davy Crockett in the movie The Alamo, the most recent one.  This is a quote after Alamo was surrounded by the Mexicans, and things got tense. This is when Davy Crockett said, "If it was just me, simple old David from Tennessee, I might drop over that wall some night and take my chances. But that Davy Crockett fella, they're all watching him" And they're all watching us too.

Because we are being watched, because we are being witnesses for Christ in the church and outside the church, in our families and outside our families, in our communities and outside our communities, because we are being watched, we must not judge each other, but we must judge how we might be hurting someone by what we do. We must learn to avoid even the appearance of evil.

I knew a man had to go to parties and social events for work where alcohol was being served. He would not drink Sprite because he didn't want anyone to assume that he was drinking alcohol instead of Sprite. He would not drink Diet Coke or Coke because he didn't want anybody to think that he was drinking a rum and Coke. You all probably know about the red solo cup where they become a symbol of raucous parties, redneck parties to be honest. Well, I don't buy red solo cups for use at home or use in my ministry either because I don't want anyone to think of that kind of issue. We need to remember as we live our life that we affect one another.

Next, we also need to remember that we may have different convictions.

Verses 14 and 15 say, "I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat do not destroy the one for whom Christ died."

The church at Rome, like a number of churches in the New Testament era, had two different groups of people in it. They had Gentile background believers and Jewish background believers. Jewish law was very specific and these Jewish background believers had been taught this law. They were taught that some foods were good to eat, and some were not good to eat. Some were okay to eat, and some were not. There were some ways to prepare food to eat it that was okay and some ways to prepare food that to eat it was not okay. For example, you could not boil the meat of a baby animal in its mother's milk. That was something that God prohibited, so even today, Jewish people separate meat from dairy products if they are staying kosher.

Most Jewish Christians, because of their heritage, were still following these rules when Paul wrote and there were a lot of Gentile believers in the church at Rome that did not follow those rules because they had never been taught them.

Paul had received a revelation from God, just like Peter had by the way. Both of these were die hard Jews when they were growing up and in their early years of serving Christ, they were die hard Jewish background people. But both of them had learned that all things are lawful in Christ, but not all things are efficacious. In Rome there were some believers that did not agree with that and so they stayed kosher, and they avoided meat in the marketplace that could have been sacrificed to idols. Both of these things were not necessary in Christ, but they had convictions that they were, and it was causing conflict in the church at Rome.

We, also, have issues that cause us to have conflict today too amongst Christians. The use of alcohol, participation in military service, different kinds of business practices, the role of women in ministry, the whole idea of environmental changes or the global warming or whether we can affect that or not. All of these things are issues amongst Christians today. Conflict certainly is an issue as is racism and how we address those issues. These are all things that we can have different convictions about.

So, what do we do when we have these different convictions? Well Paul tells us that we must encourage one another.

In addition, we should encourage one another.

Beginning in verse 16 what we read is, "So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats."

We must encourage one another. To do this we must get our priorities straight. You know the old saying of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as it is sinking. That's a foolish thing and truth be told, arguing peripherals while the world is dying without God is also a useless thing.  So, what should our priorities be?

We must have a good reputation because people talk, and they misunderstand. I once was teaching a group of youth, and the discussion turned to someone's eternal fate after suicide. I explained to them that I believe the Scriptures teach that once you are saved and in Christ, all of your sins, past, present and future are forgiven. Thus, even though I believe that committing suicide is a sin, if you are in Christ, you can be forgiven of that sin and be joined with Christ in heaven. However, some parents got angry with me because they misunderstood my discussion. They thought I was saying it was okay to commit suicide and I do not believe that is the case. But I do believe that all our sins, past, present and future are forgiven in Christ once we receive Him as our Savior. I still stand by my conviction, and I tried to explain to them what I was saying. I don't know that it worked in all cases.

But we need to concentrate on our relationship to Christ, not rules and regulations. We need to serve Christ, not ourselves. We need to be peacemakers, and we need to edify one another.

Sometimes that means we must do like those soldiers did in those movies about World War II where they were attacking some fortified position and there was barbed wire, and a soldier would throw himself down on the barbed wire so other people could run over the top of them to get into the enemy position. I don't want to be that soldier, but sometimes you have to take one for the team to keep peace. So how do we do that? We need to judge ourselves. We need to love each other, and we need to guard ourselves. We must learn to not offend others, and we must learn instead to encourage one another. And sometimes we need to deny ourselves something we know is good so that someone else may not stumble. At the same time that one who has a conviction needs to also understand that they may not be absolutely correct, and they must give you the benefit of the doubt as a person of good will.

Finally, we also must respect one another.

Verse 21 says this, "It is good not to eat meat or drink or wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin."

We must be sensitive to another, and we must not be a bull in a china shop. We must listen more than we talk. We must hear feelings not just facts. We must learn to have mutual respect for one another over worship styles, over methods of ministry, over personal habits, over spiritual peripherals. All of these things are important to us, but they also are not central always to the gospel.

We must be careful to avoid anything that detracts from our witness to Christ so that we do not offend other, and we need in the church, in our families, in our schools, in our communities to respect one another and assume that each one in Christ is a person of good will and of faith and we need to act out of faith. Because we affect one another, and we have different convictions we must encourage and respect each other. We must learn to be steppingstones to a closer walk with God and not stumbling blocks as we live out our faith.

Thanks so much for visiting with me today. I'll be back soon with another word from the Bible we can share together.

Every blessing, 

Dr. Otis Corbitt