The Bible Study Podcast, episode 67. This is the 16th episode on the book of Romans. I'm

titling Christianity 101.

Welcome to the Bible study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. Well, the chapter 14, we start winding down the book of Romans. There's only three chapters left, counting this one. And Paul deals in chapter 14 with the fact that not all Christians agree with one another. This is something that was true in Paul's day, is true today, and probably will be true

until Jesus comes again. And so the issue here is, so what do we do about that?

Paul starts this way. Accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on

disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith

is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not,

and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does. For God has accepted

him, who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master, he stands or falls,

and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. So the first thing that Paul says here

in Romans 14 is that there are disputable matters. There are some things that are important and

central to our faith, and then there are other things,

many things, I believe, that are disputable, that Christians can disagree on and just leave

it at that. I think a good first pass on what things are central to the faith are those things

covered by the historic creeds. The Nicene or the Apostles' Creed intended to give us

some idea of what it was that was central to Christianity. And those basically boil down to

that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Father is the Creator, that Jesus came, died, was resurrected and ascended

to heaven, and that the Holy Spirit is still at work today. That is what the early church felt

was the central issues, the central matters of Christianity. You'll notice it doesn't deal with

drinking alcohol, it doesn't deal with eating meat

as Paul deals with here in Romans 14. It doesn't even deal with what day to worship on. It doesn't

deal with baptism. It doesn't deal with communion. It doesn't deal with how many different sacraments.

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