Think about your church for a moment. Do you believe your Christian peers have become too strict with their personal choices?

Or conversely, are they too free? Well, this tension among church members isn't new.

In first century Rome, Christians clashed over

things like eating meat. Some imposed rigid restrictions. Others flaunted their freedom. Sound familiar?

Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Spindal teaches from Romans 14. In this passage, Paul laid out a roadmap for navigating minefields.

By following these guidelines, Paul contends that people with vastly different convictions

can coexist, not despite grace, but because of it.

Well, we've been away from the letter to the Romans for about four Sundays, so we've

returned to it today in the 14th chapter, 14th chapter of Romans.

If you're not familiar with your Bible, into the New Testament, there are four books that are

similar called the Gospels. And then Luke, who wrote one of the Gospels, later wrote a record of the

Acts of the Apostles as he recorded the early events of the church.

Then began the letters.

Paul's letter to the Romans appears first in our Bible, though that wasn't his first letter

to write.

His first one was first Thessalonians, as best we can tell, and his last was,

obviously, 2 Timothy, which he wrote from the Mambartine

dungeon in Rome shortly before he was beheaded. But while he was in Corinth, he wrote the letter

to the Romans as he reflected on their lives and the struggles they were going through in hopes of helping them establish their faith and then resolve some conflicts.

It is clearly the magnum opus. It is the most significant letter Paul writes and has been used as a guide for New Testament theology

since it has been written, a letter to the Romans.

But we're now in the practical section of the letter, which begins in chapter 12 and takes us to the end of the letter, chapter 16.

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