It is important we understand the difference between a
stronger brother and a weaker brother. The stronger brother
is quite often the one who understands his Christian
liberties. However, the stronger brother must be willing to
set aside those liberties if they are a stumbling block. To
exercise one’s liberties at the expense of a weaker brother
is certainly not spiritual.
The stronger brother is also the one who recognizes those
things that are contrary to God’s Word. In the case of meats
offered to idols, the stronger brother must be the one who
knows they are forbidden, and who therefore abstains from
eating them. The weaker brother would be the one who
concluded that eating meats offered to idols was a Christian
liberty, in spite of the decree of the Jerusalem Council.
From Paul’s final words on this issue in chapter 10, I think
we must conclude that the more spiritual brother is the one
who abstains from eating meat offered to idols because he
understands its evil associations.
All too often today, the definition of a weaker brother is
one who does not understand his Christian liberties. While
alcoholism and drunkenness are surely wrong, there is
nothing wrong with drinking a glass of wine or a cold bottle
of beer on a hot summer day. This attitude is the same as
those who claimed there is nothing wrong in eating the meat
offered to idols. The one who insists you cannot exercise a
liberty is the one who is weak and poorly informed. The one
who insists that another must refrain from a matter of
liberty because that liberty is offensive has missed the
point of the Scriptures. You may find smoking offensive, but
you are not a weaker brother unless you are so weak that you
will follow the example of the one who lights up. Most of
those who insist that others refrain from alcohol or tobacco
are not those who are truly weak, and who will violate their
consciences by following the example of the one who
partakes.
For those matters that are liberties, the truly spiritual
will be willing to forego them if exercising his liberty is
at the expense of another. The knowledge that informs us of
a liberty must be subject to the love that puts the
interests of our brother before our own.
In a world that separates love from knowledge Paul warns us
about those who teach false doctrine (1 Timothy 1:3; 4:1;
6:3) and encourages us to be nourished with sound doctrine
(1 Timothy 4:6). Jude spoke of our obligation to “contend
earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to
the saints.” Peter warned us of those who distort the
teachings of Paul (2 Peter 3:16). Our Lord warned of those
who would teach the precepts of men as though they were
divinely revealed doctrine (Matthew 15:9).
Having emphasized the importance of sound doctrine, we must
also recognize our limitations in this area. Our doctrine
can only go as far as God’s revelation. We know there are
many things which God has not revealed (Deuteronomy 29:29;
Acts 1:6-7; 1 Corinthians 13:9, 12), and we must be careful
not to “fill in the blanks” which God has purposely left
open. All too often, we spend more time trying to supply the
missing pieces, rather than concentrating upon what God has
revealed. False revelation frequently majors on God’s
silence in Scripture. Students of Bible prophecy often try
to lay out the scheme of the end times when God has
deliberately been vague, sometimes by failing to tell us
things we need to know and at other times telling us future
events in terms too symbolic to understand.
We need to be very careful not to trust our own logic and
reason, as opposed to God’s clear commandments. Some of the
Corinthian church members were able to set aside the decree
of the Jerusalem Council and eat meat offered to idols,
based upon their reasoning by heaping inference upon
inference, starting with divine truth and ending in
disobedience. Paul instructs us to submit our reasoning to
divine commands: “We are destroying speculations and every
lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we
are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”
(2 Corinthians 10:5).
There are two different kinds of reasoning. One we should
avoid like the plague, and the other we should practice and
perfect. The first kind of reasoning is the reasoning of
unbelief leading to disobedience. The second is the
reasoning of faith unto obedience.
Eve practiced the reasoning of unbelief. God instructed Adam
not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
warning him that to do so would result in death. Satan
questioned Eve in such a way as to cast a doubt on God’s
character and on His command. She was to trust God and to
obey Him by giving up an illicit means to knowledge. As she
looked at this one forbidden tree, she came to look upon it
as desirable, and thus she ate of it. Eve trusted in her own
reasoning, and she consequently disobeyed God.
Abraham reasoned unto obedience. Abraham knew that God had
promised this son in his and Sarah’s old age, when they were
“as good as dead,” as far as bearing children was concerned.
Nevertheless, he knew that God was the Creator, the One who
called what did not exist into existence. He contemplated
his own body and that of his wife Sarah, dead as they both
were so far as bearing children, and chose to believe God’s
promise, in spite of what he saw (Romans 4:16-22). Late in
his life, God commanded Abraham to offer up his son Isaac as
a sacrifice. Abraham once again contemplated the situation
in the light of who God was. He knew that when he and Sarah
were as good as dead with regard to bearing children, God
gave them a son anyway. Their son was born as from the dead.
Therefore, when God commanded him to sacrifice his son
Isaac, Abraham knew this son was the means to fulfill God’s
promises. He also knew that God was able to give life to the
dead, and so he reasoned from his walk with God, and from
the Word of God, that God was able to raise even the dead
(Hebrews 11:19). Abraham reasoned by faith unto obedience.
This is the kind of reasoning God wants of us, He does not
want Christians to stop thinking; He wants Christians to
think biblically, to think with a renewed mind, so as to
have sound judgment, and thus to obey God’s commands. We
Christians do not think too much; we think too little, and
when we do think, we often think humanly, unto unbelief and
disobedience. Let us think more with a renewed mind,
according to God’s Word, unto obedience to His commands.
