From me to you Part 12: live your faith your way

CONTEXT: Paul was writing this letter to the believers in Rome, a mix of Jewish and Gentile believers. He’d heard about the disagreements amongst believers on how to do faith. The Jewish Christians still held on to many of their Jewish traditions, believing that this was still what God required. The Gentile Christians did not adopt these Jewish ways of doing faith when they became Christians. They saw these practices as irrelevant and unnecessary.

Paul is calling for peace. For Paul, it’s about allowing each person to live according to their conscience, to have the freedom to explore and express their faith their way. That’s not saying that ‘anything goes’. He’s not talking about behaviours that are clearly wrong – that exploit others, that cause harm, that are not in line with Jesus’ teaching. This is about individual expressions and practices of faith. Paul’s urging the Christians in Rome to allow each other to live and express their own faith in their own way.

EXCERPT: Romans 14:1-15:13

FROM ME TO YOU:

You and I probably don’t agree on everything. I get that. We are each unique individuals with an individual perspective and therefore the way we express our faith will be individual too. 

I’m not here to tell you what to eat and what to wear and when to get up and how to live in relationship with God. You do your faith your way and I’ll do my faith my way. Let’s not judge each other.

That doesn’t mean that we have the freedom to do whatever we want. If you were to see me doing something harmful to myself or others, I’d want you to tell me. And I would tell you if I saw you acting in a way that was clearly not in line with Jesus’ teaching. We need to be accountable to each other. We’re each ultimately accountable to God, of course, but sometimes we also need a nudge in love from a friend to open our eyes to the bad choices we’re making.

But there’s lots of other stuff that I feel strongly about that I will not impose on you. These things are outworkings of my faith and matter to me, but I get that you have other stuff that you care passionately about. The important thing is that we learn to live in peace with each other, not picking arguments over every little thing. Let’s find what unites us, not what separates us. Let’s show love to one another by respecting each other’s ways of expressing faith even if we don’t really get it. ‘Let’s make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification.’ That means what builds us up and encourages to move forward in our faith.

Let’s accept each other. That’s the key.

Let’s celebrate our differences.

May we all experience God’s love and joy and peace as we each do our faith our way.

Yours,

Hx