I recently read about a missionary working overseas who was invited into the home of new converts. Before the meal, one of the Christians quietly explained that many former idol worshipers in the village still associated certain foods with pagan ceremonies.
The missionary could have insisted on his liberty. After all, he knew idols were nothing. But for the sake of tender consciences and fragile faith, he gladly refrained.
Later, he wrote:
“Sometimes the greatest expression of Christian freedom is the freedom to surrender it.”
The situation mirrors the issue Paul addressed in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8. Gentile converts from paganism believed it was wrong to eat meat sold in the markets that had been sacrificed to idols.
Jewish Christians, including Paul, realized that such meat was not wrong. However, Paul said that if eating it caused his brother to sin, he would refrain from eating—and urged other Christians to follow his example.
His point was that “love edifies.” Genuine love does not exercise liberty at the expense of a weaker conscience.
The apostle further captures that spirit in Romans 14:14-16.
“I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died.
Therefore, do not let your good be spoken of as evil.”
Paul’s point is simple: Love willingly restrains liberty when exercising it could spiritually harm another believer.
Our culture today values freedom. We love liberty. We demand our rights.
Tim Keller, in his book Making Sense of God, observed that when the national anthem is sung at sporting events, the greatest emphasis often falls on the phrase “the land of the free.” Our culture celebrates liberty as one of its highest values.
Yet our love of liberty must never trump brotherly love.
Commentator William Barclay expressed it this way: “Life must be guided by the principle of love; and when it is, we will think, not so much of our right to do as we like as of our responsibilities to others.”
Barclay further added, “We have no right to distress another man’s conscience in the things which do not really matter. Christian freedom must never be used as an excuse for rough-riding over the genuine feelings of others.”
Of course, this principle applies to those things that “offend,” or cause one to “stumble,” meaning to sin. This isn’t about doing something someone simply doesn’t like. If this were the case, as Wilson Adams wrote, “Christian liberty would be reduced to absurdity.”
In different cultures—and even in different times in our own country—this principle may have a variety of applications. I recall, as a kid growing up in the 1950s, brethren who believed it was wrong to play cards. Some thought that observing Christmas, decorating a tree, and engaging in the festive traditions of the season as a national holiday was wrong.
If those activities truly violate one’s conscience, it would be unloving, even wrong, to invite those brethren to a card party during Christmas and exchange gifts as the lights of the tree twinkled in the background.
The bottom line is that liberty isn’t wrong. But weaponizing our liberty is both unloving and wrong.
As one unknown author wrote, “Christian liberty is not the right to do as we please—it is the freedom to choose what best serves others.”
Don’t be a stumbling block that wounds the conscience of a weak brother. Do all things with love.
—Ken Weliever, The Preacherman
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