THE BOOK OF ROMANS
Lesson 32, Chapter 14
Romans chapter 14 requires some explanation before we read this most challenging chapter.
We’ve spent significant time over the years talking about context as regards studying God’s
Word; and never has context in its broadest sense been more important than in interpreting
Romans 14. To sum it up, context doesn’t just mean the immediate or surrounding sentences
of the passage we’re interested in. It isn’t limited to the contiguous paragraph or even
chapter; it can involve the context of the entire book and at times, especially as concerns Paul,
the overall meaning and context of the several Bible books he authored when taken as an
entire body of work. However as it relates to our Hebraic heritage approach to studying the
New Testament, the Scriptural context must also include the Jewish identity and mindset of the
author and often the characters he is writing about, as taken within the Jewish culture where
Judaism dominated during the 1
st
century A.D. That is no easy task and while I think we have
covered this broad contextual cultural background thoroughly in the Book of Acts before we
began our study of the Book of Romans, I will borrow from some of my teaching of Acts to
reiterate some critical points that makes all the difference in extracting proper meaning from
these important and inspired words.
One final point and we’ll read Romans 14. One of the best things that ever happened to
enhance Bible study was the addition of verse and chapter markings in the Holy Scriptures
around 1000 years ago. It gave us a way to more easily communicate what it is we are
examining, and it divided up the Bible into more bite-sized chunks for easier mental digestion
of its words. At the same time, especially the chapter markings and divisions are one of the
worst things that ever happened for Bible study because readers can get the sub-conscious
sense of a change in direction, tone, and context each time we end one chapter and begin the
next. Or worse, we assume that we can take a chapter as a stand-alone literary unit that is
encapsulated and set apart from all that surrounds it. That is, we kind of feel as though a
chapter doesn’t have to be very connected to all that came before or will come after it. And as
you’ll soon see, the downside of adding chapter markings to the Bible has contributed greatly
to the creation of some misguided and wrong-minded commentaries and interpretations of
Romans 14. Open your Bibles to Romans chapter 14.
READ ROMANS CHAPTER 14 all
C.E.B. Cranfield says this to preface his commentary on Romans 14:
“What exactly the problem is with which Paul is concerned in this section is not at all
easy to decide, and various explanations have been suggested”.
Cranfield then goes on to name and briefly explain what he sees as the 4 most prevalent
viewpoints of what Paul is trying to address in Romans 14, and they are all startlingly different.
So to be clear: there is no consensus within Christian scholars of what problem Paul is
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attempting to deal with. This disarray about understanding Romans 14 is because Paul’s
problem has as much to do with the Traditions and worldview of Judaism as it does with
Christianity; and Lord knows that gentile Christian Bible scholars have tended to avoid
knowledge of Judaism and Jewish society in considering what to say especially about New
Testament writings. What the issue of Romans 14 mostly centers around is what Paul means
by those whose faith is weak versus those whose faith is strong. Paul actually uses the word
“weak’, but the word “strong” doesn’t appear; it is merely implied since strong is the
expected opposite of weak (at least according to the Western gentile Christian mindset).
Interestingly the Apostle to the Gentiles is telling the Roman Believers that they need to accept
and embrace those who are “weak” in the faith, with “the faith” meaning a faith in Jesus the
Jew as Lord and Savior. But what does he mean by weak? What is a weak faith? Again, what
Paul means by this term is why we have so much disagreement about what it is that Paul sees
as a problem. The way that various Bible commentators have decided upon what Paul means
naturally happens according to their particular predetermined doctrines and beliefs that the
commentators already hold about Paul, Jews, and Christianity in general. Thus many
assumptions are made and the assumptions are through the eyes of gentile Christians who are
steeped primarily in the Western version of institutional Christianity.
From a top level what Paul is dealing with in Romans 14 is inter-personal relationships within
the mixed congregation of Jewish and gentile Believers located in the City of Rome. No doubt
the instructions are meant to address something Paul must have heard about the goings on
among Believers there; but at the same time his admonitions are general enough to apply to
Believers everywhere provided we can get a good handle on what it is he’s actually telling us.
Here is where context plays its enormous role as we ask ourselves this basic question: what is
Paul’s rationale behind the instructions he is giving on how to handle those who are weak in
the faith, and thus have different views on certain issues of theology and behavior when
compared to the more mature or stronger in the faith? Clearly the rationale is to love your
neighbor as yourself; this principle has been front and center in Paul’s teaching and thought
since chapter 12. Here’s the thing: recognizing that “love your neighbor” is the foundation of
Paul’s thought process is far easier to spot when we disregard those pesky chapter markings.
Taking out the chapter markings changes our perspective and allows for an easy,
uninterrupted flow of that central tenant of the Godly lifestyle to love your neighbor as yourself.
Giving attention to the chapter markings causes us to sub-consciously segregate the “love
your neighbor” teaching of Paul as is if it applies only to a specific section of Paul’s letter in
chapter 12 from which we have moved on. But there’s more.
Also back in Romans chapter 12, we read this:
Romans 12:1-5 CJB

CJB
Romans 12:1 I exhort you, therefore, brothers, in view of God's mercies, to offer
yourselves as a sacrifice, living and set apart for God. This will please him; it is the
logical "Temple worship" for you.
2
In other words, do not let yourselves be conformed
to the standards of the 'olam hazeh (this present age). Instead, keep letting yourselves
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be transformed by the renewing of your minds; so that you will know what God wants
and will agree that what he wants is good, satisfying and able to succeed.

3
For I am telling every single one of you, through the grace that has been given to me,
not to have exaggerated ideas about your own importance. Instead, develop a sober
estimate of yourself based on the standard which God has given to each of you, namely,
trust.

4
For just as there are many parts that compose one body, but the parts don't all have
the same function;
5
so there are many of us, and in union with the Messiah we
comprise one body, with each of us belonging to the others.
Paul then goes on to give a list of spiritual gifts of which each Believer can expect to be given
at least one. So here to start Romans 14 Paul is continuing with the theme that the Body of
Believers is going to be quite diverse except that instead of talking about how different
Believers will each receive different gifts and each is a necessary part to help form the entire
Body of Believers, now it is that those who are judged as having a weaker faith are also to be
included and accepted as-is, without prejudice, into the Believing congregation. Still in line with
that same thought, back in Romans 12:3, Paul also speaks of how each Believer needs to
soberly measure him or her self against the standard God has imposed upon all Believers; and
that standard is trust.
CJB
Romans 12:3 For I am telling every single one of you, through
the grace that has been given to me, not to have exaggerated ideas about your own
importance. Instead, develop a sober estimate of yourself based on the standard which
God has given to each of you, namely, trust. Thus some Believers will have a great trust,
and some a small trust; most will probably fall somewhere in between the two extremes. So in
Romans 14:1 Paul uses the term “weak” to denote where certain Believers fall in God’s
standard of faith and trust; they are those who are currently in a condition of having only a very
small and fragile faith and trust.
So two things must be made very clear before we proceed: first, everyone Paul is talking about
is Believers. And second, at this point there is no distinction being made between gentile and
Jewish Believers; thus “weak” doesn’t point directly at Jews or directly at gentiles. I can’t
emphasize how important this is because many Christian commentaries here make the
unwarranted leap that the weak in faith must be the Messianic Jews of the Rome congregation,
and so they base all their interpretation and conclusions that follows on that assumption. That
is, Christian gentiles are elevated in faith and trust above Messianic Jews.
Paul’s instruction is to not get into pointless arguments with those Believers who are weak in
faith; those who are at the low end of the trust scale. Why? Because they can be turned off and
rather easily driven away, even if what they are being told is technically theologically correct.
To do this to a person who is weak in faith would not be loving your neighbor. As an illustration:
infants are valuable family members, but they cannot eat steak just yet because neither do
they have teeth to chew it nor stomachs developed enough to digest it. Similarly, those weak in
the faith are valuable members of the Body of Christ; however they are not spiritually
developed enough, yet, to deal with the more difficult or nuanced aspects of the faith so they
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have to be handled quite deftly and tenderly so as not to discourage or overwhelm them.
So for a majority of Christians who think that at this point in Romans 14 Paul has created a
dividing line of faith (Jews are weak and gentile Believers are strong), then when they read
verse 2 they automatically think that what is being said is that those strong in faith can eat any
humanly edible thing, while Jews who are weak eat only vegetables so as to keep Kosher.
Remember who is speaking: Paul the Jew who has said “Heaven Forbid” numerous times in
Romans in response to the straw man’s question of whether the Law of Moses was abolished
or had perhaps become irrelevant for gentiles or even all Believers. We must again, then, go
forward in proper context. The Jewish Rabbi Paul is speaking of eating in the same terms that
he automatically thinks: Kosher. Paul doesn’t think like a gentile because he is a Jew! That is,
for a Jew food is NOT just any edible thing; food is defined as only what God has set apart as
food for those who worship Him. Therefore many edible things (like Pork or camels) are not
food to Paul and to eat “anything” doesn’t mean it in the sense of any edible thing found on
planet Earth, without restriction, no matter how weird or disgusting. He means it in the sense of
any permissible food as God has listed in the Torah. So for him (from his Jewish viewpoint) the
more-or-less opposite of eating “anything” that is Torah permitted is eating only vegetables.
First of all Judaism did not and does not promote vegetarianism as the proper religious diet.
However it is true that the real kosher issues occur mainly as it regards meat. That is, there is
not a biblical listing of plant life that must be avoided as food; but there is a biblical listing of
animal life that must be avoided as food. So for certain a Jew is highly unlikely to ever become
ritually defiled by eating vegetables obtained almost anywhere under most any circumstance.
However meat is a much more sensitive issue and it is liable to being either of a prohibited kind
of animal flesh or of having been of a permissible kind but mishandled and thus rendered
unclean (and the real fear among Diaspora Jews is that if they purchased it from a gentile they
wouldn’t know before they ate it if the meat had somehow become rendered unclean).
Second: remember Paul is addressing this to Jews and gentiles who live in Rome. Thus for
Jews especially they had to be careful about the meat they bought and ate. Rome was the
multi-cultural capital of the Empire and so it was rife with pagan idols and altars. Roman Jews
could buy a perfectly permissible kind of meat (beef for instance), but had it possibly been
sacrificed to a heathen god? Had it been properly bled? Had the cow itself been properly
killed? Had a ritually unclean person perhaps come into contact with the meat? How could they
possibly be certain of any of this? If any of these issues came into play then the meat became
ritually unclean; but there would in most cases be no outward sign of it for a Jew to be able to
tell. Some Jewish Believers apparently had become so consumed with being 100% certain
about what they ate that they ate nothing that could possibly have been defiled; they decided
to play it safe and eat only vegetables. However other Believers took only reasonable
precautions and continued to eat the full diet allotted to Believers according to the Torah, while
also understanding as we should that Yeshua is the Living Water and should they accidentally
eat something unclean they could depend upon Yeshua to ritually cleanse them. So I think it is
fair in this instance to see the weak as those Believing Jews and gentiles who rigidly followed
the Torah to the letter, but even more they also applied the strict Jewish laws and customs of
Halakhah regarding food that went well above the biblical Torah requirements. And therefore
they took no chances, eating only vegetables as a display of their piety.
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So what is Paul’s ruling about this situation? He says in verse 3 that the one who eats
everything that God places on the menu as food for worshippers should not look down upon
the one who is so greatly concerned with not letting anything prohibited or unclean accidentally
touch his or her lips…..and vice versa. And in another segment of this principle that gets
regularly misconstrued, we read: and the abstainer must not pass judgment on the one
who eats anything, because God has accepted him- . Too often this is interpreted as
meaning that God now accepts humans eating any edible thing that can be obtained. But that
is not what it says or what the point is. Rather it is that the one who eats all the foods and the
one who eats only vegetables have both been accepted by God (both are saved Believers),
and so especially as Believers one should not pass judgment on the other based upon laxness
or rigidness of diet from one another’s perspective. And why is that? Because for one Believer
to pass judgment on another Believer violates the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself”.
Verse 5 takes up another contentious issue, and the issue is “days”. Please follow me
carefully on this. The CJB begins this verse this way:
CJB
Romans 14:5 One person
considers some days more holy than others… The word “holy” does NOT appear in the
Greek text and most English Bible versions don’t have it either. The RSV is more typical of
English versions and is more true to the Greek.
RSV
Romans 14:5 One man esteems one day
as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully
convinced in his own mind. There is nothing in those words that denote some days as holy
and others that aren’t. This is not about “holy” but rather about personally important days. But
the typical Christian take on this verse is that Paul has declared all the biblical holy days as
abolished; that of course takes direct aim at Sabbath and the 7 Biblical Feasts. Nothing of the
kind is said or implied. Paul isn’t referring to biblical holy days or Sabbaths or he would have
plainly said so. Rather in the Roman world different days of the week were assigned as more
or less important or even dedicated to different gods and goddesses. Even the days of the
week were named for gods and goddesses. Apparently there was concern among some
Believers in Rome that meeting, or buying, or working, or doing whatever activity on one
particular day of the week was better than another day due to some custom and tradition that
had arisen. Omens of good luck and bad luck were even assigned to some days, and this sort
of superstition went deep into Roman culture and of course affected the local Jewish
population.
In order to believe that Paul was abrogating biblical holy days and saying that, for instance,
Passover or Sabbath was no more important than any other day of the year or week would
require us to take everything else we’ve read of Paul as hypocritical or false or simply error.
And it certainly wouldn’t follow the pattern of Jesus Christ who we find at the Temple in
Jerusalem for the biblical feasts, teaching in synagogues on Sabbath, and telling others in the
Sermon on the Mount that they were most certainly to continue following the Law of Moses if
they wanted to be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, this is a prime example
of why we do NOT take Romans chapter 14 as a separate, self contained theological unit in
the Bible; but rather it is only a part of a whole and is fully connected to all of Romans…even
born out of everything Paul has said to this point in Romans…. and it extends to all the others of
Paul’s epistles as well as to the Book of Acts, which spoke a great deal about Paul. Further,
Romans 14 carries no more or less theological importance or doctrinal weight and authority as
any other chapter in the New Testament. So we certainly can’t take Paul’s words of Romans
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14 as essentially overriding Yeshua or even overriding other things he’s said on the same
subject in other passages that he’d written. But the good news is that we don’t have any
contradiction; the issue for us is to turn off those doctrinal filters in our minds and avoid reading
into Romans 14 things that Paul never said nor meant.
As for the last few words of verse 5 that says that the important thing about “days” is for each
person to be convinced in his own mind, let’s understand what this does NOT mean; it
doesn’t mean that a free-for-all concerning God’s appointed times has just been announced.
First this isn’t about biblical holy days, and second the concept is that the issue of “days”
should not be contentious among Believers. If one Believer wants to hold Mondays aside as a
day that portends the best day to go buy food or even maybe to pray, but another Believer
thinks that Mondays ought to be avoided for some superstitious or cultural reason, so what?
Let each be convinced in his own mind and leave it there. It’s not worth a fight between
Believers since “days” has nothing to do with the Laws of God, and all such arguments do is
sow needless discord. And such differences of opinion and preference certainly ought not to
split the congregation.
Let’s look at verses 6 and 7. Paul says that a person who observes a special day honors the
Lord, and a person who eats any permitted food honors the Lord, and so does the person who
only eats vegetables also honor the Lord. In the context of these passages all of these different
people are Believers and which ever preference they choose they honor the Lord. Does that
mean that simply “choosing” is what honors God? No. What Paul is getting at is that Believers
pray and thank God every day. Whether it is a “special” day in the eyes of some Believers, or
just any day; whether a person partakes of all the permissible foods or greatly restricts himself
only to vegetables, a blessing over the day and the food is ALWAYS said as part of Jewish
tradition in Jewish culture. So for the Believer God is part of every equation, and He is always
glorified in prayer no matter which of these situations and preferences are chosen. And as
concerns inter-personal relationships, for Believers the Lord is a partner in every relationship
among Believers because we all share the same Holy Spirit of God. Whether in death or in life,
Believers share a relationship with God and with one another in Spirit. And since life does not
end at the grave it is indeed a theological truth that, especially as Believers, we belong to God
both during this present life and in our life after death. Relationships don’t end upon our death.
Paul’s conclusion is that we are so bonded together as Believers…whether we are of strong
faith or of weak faith….and regardless of our personal preferences regarding eating or special
days….that we have no business in judging one another about any of these things. In fact, we
have no business in criticizing or looking down on one another at all. After all, we are all going
to be judged at some point anyway by God Himself. And then Paul quotes Isaiah 45:23.
Remember that because in Paul’s day there were no verse numbers and chapter divisions,
then the protocol was that a short section of Scripture would be quoted rather than the entire
passage from which it came. So the intent is that the reader or listener would call to mind not
only those few words but also the words that preceded and succeeded them. I won’t read all
of Isaiah 45 but I will read from verse 21b to the end.
READ ISAIAH 45:21b – end
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Notice two things: first is that this passage is all about justice and God being the judge of
everyone; no one will escape judgment and He is the One who is Judge. But second, just so
we don’t think that God has elevated gentiles above Jews, or that one group has been left out,
or that Paul is talking about interpersonal relationships regarding gentile Christians but not
Jewish Believers, note the final few words of Isaiah 45: “but all the descendants of Israel
will find justice and glory in Adonai”. Here is yet another point of connection between
gentile Believers and Jewish Believers that makes us equal in God’s eyes: all followers of
Yeshua become part of spiritual Israel. It is we who will find justice and glory in God, so there
is no need for us to judge one another in this life. Every Believer, says Paul in verse 12, will
have to give an account of ourselves to God and at that time He will hand out justice and
judgment as He deems fit. The good news is that as Believers we will not be condemned
because Yeshua was condemned in our stead.
Verse 13 is a midrash on Leviticus 19:14. That makes sense because Paul has used “love
your neighbor” from Leviticus 19 as his theme and rationale for his instructions to the Roman
Believers since Romans chapter 12. In Leviticus 19:14 we read:
14
"'Do not speak a curse
against a deaf person or place an obstacle in the way of a blind person; rather, fear your
God; I am ADONAI.
At first it might be hard to see why Paul would use this particular verse as his basis for what he
has to say in Romans 14:13 until we realize that in Judaism of his day the term “blind” was
used metaphorically for a person who didn’t know or follow the Torah. So “blind” typically
meant the educationally unlearned; in Jewish society all education was religious education.
This, then, relates to the opening verse of Romans 14 when Paul speaks about the weak in
faith. So we get a bit of an insight into Rav Sha’ul’s meaning of “weak” by seeing that from his
Jewish worldview the root cause for being “weak in faith” is a lack of knowledge of Torah. So
who is it that wields the stumbling block thrown in front of the weak? It can only be the strong in
faith. Paul does not want the strong in faith to put a stumbling block in the path of the weak in
faith so in this case the strong in faith refer to those Believers who are more learned in God’s
Torah, and are thus more stringently Torah observant. Therefore Believers who have studied
and practiced Torah (which would be mostly Jews) are not to be prideful, arrogant, or hurtful to
those Believers who are “blind” (that is they don’t know Torah likely because they are mostly
gentiles). I realize that you have probably never heard a Bible commentator speak about this
passage in this way before; but that is because we are exposing Paul’s intrinsic Jewishness
and remembering that this man is a self-proclaimed Pharisee of Pharisees and extremely
learned in Torah having attended one of the most prestigious religious schools in Jerusalem.
Paul is not writing as though he is in the shoes of a 21
st
century Western, English speaking
Christian so we must put away our Evangelical Christian filters. Rather to dig down and extract
his intended meaning, we must put ourselves into his sandals; the shoes of this 1
st
century
Greek and Hebrew speaking, learned Jewish Rabbi. And when we do, revelation pops out!
But now we hit one of the most challenging yet significant verses in this chapter: verse 14. We
won’t be able to complete discussing it in this lesson. Here Paul says that Yeshua Himself has
persuaded Paul of something and, says the CJB (and the majority of other translations), it is
that nothing of itself is unclean. But if a person considers something unclean, then to him it is
unclean. Here is where we need to go back to our Acts chapter 10 lesson about Peter’s vision
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of the animals coming down from Heaven in a 4 cornered sheet of cloth. Like in Acts chapter
10, it is the typical Christian assumption that Paul says kosher eating has been abolished
along with the concept of clean and unclean. Let’s park here awhile because there are a few
stereotypes and assumptions that need to be dealt with so that we can properly interpret
Paul’s words. We’re going to get technical, but there is no other way to explain the issue
without doing so. Besides, if you like a good mystery you’ll like where we’re going with this.
First I’ll whet your appetite by telling you that the 3 times that English Bibles insert the word
“unclean” in Romans14:14 are all typical but questionable translations. The Greek word
is koinos and in all other usage in the Bible it means common or ordinary; not unclean. The
Greek word for unclean is akathartos but akathartos does not appear in Romans 14:14.
These two words koinos and akathartos are, however, used side by side as separate and
different adjectives in Acts 10:14 as further proof that they cannot possibly be synonyms and it
is further proof that translators have had much trouble trying to figure out how to present the
meaning of this word. The CJB, for instance, translates this verse in Acts as follows:
CJB
Acts
10:14 But Kefa said, "No, sir! Absolutely not! I have never eaten food that was unclean or
treif." In this verse David Stern is translating koinos to unclean (the rather standard Christian
translation) and akathartos to treif. We’ll only find the translation to Treif in the CJB as it is
actually a Yiddish derivative from a Hebrew word that means torn…that is, it speaks of prey that
was torn (attacked and killed) by a wild animal. Any meat animal that has been killed by a wild
animal may not be consumed; therefore in a kind of slang, treif indicates something that can’t
be eaten by followers of the God of Israel because the rules of Judaism don’t allow it
(whatever that reason might be).
But the KJV has translated that same verse this way:
KJV
Acts 10:14 But Peter said, Not so,
Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. This seems to be more
correct and it accords with the actual literal translations of koinos and akathartos. So even
before we try to understand what the word common means in this context of diet, it does not
seem to precisely mean ritually unclean because there is an entirely separate word for unclean
in the Greek language: akathartos. So why are verses containing the word koinos (common)
usually translated in English to unclean? I suspect it is because it works to reinforce long held
Christian stereotypes and doctrines that allow us to manipulate the meaning of the key word
(koinos) in this verse, and therefore change the key meaning of this verse in Romans 14:14
from a discussion of common to unclean. Let me say it again: it is doubtful that the term
“ritually unclean” appears in this verse; rather, Paul used the word common and Christian
translators have nearly universally decided to change it to unclean to better fit with a doctrinal
agenda that claims that Yeshua and Paul together abolished the biblical dietary laws.
So what does the term common mean as it applies to food? The reality is that within the Torah
itself there is no status of edible things called common so we are left with a bit of a head-
scratcher. Rather the Torah describes food in terms of prohibited and permitted food items and
in another and different set of rules that includes food, but it extends to other matters as well,
there are the clean and unclean categories. But, again, the term “common” is not a term used
to describe food in the Torah. Rather we only find it used that way in the New Testament.
Why? I believe it can only be the result of the influence of Halakhah, Jewish Law and
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Tradition, on Judaism and on Jewish society in general. I’ve demonstrated in both the Book of
Acts and in the Book of Romans that terms and meanings used in Jewish Law can be found in
the New Testament because they were just an unconscience way of speaking and thinking
within Jewish culture in that era. Actual Jewish Law, Halakhah, Tradition, did not exist in the
Old Testament era because Judaism did not exist in the Old Testament era. Judaism, and thus
Jewish Law, only sprang up during the 400 year span in between the end of the Old Testament
and beginning of the New and thus we only find its societal influence in the New Testament. As
an aside, most Jewish scholars will tell you that (much to their disappointment) the single
largest and best recorded body of knowledge about Judaism in the 1
st
century A.D. is the New
Testament! But most important for our purposes, clearly common (koinos) can’t mean ritually
unclean mainly because there already was a precise Greek word in wide use that means
unclean and that word is akathartos. To repeat: as we looked at Acts 10 we saw that both of
these words were used in the same verse, as different adjectives that mean different things,
and the King James version is one of the few English Bible versions to acknowledge that it is
self evident that koinos and akathartos can’t both mean ritually unclean.
So, let’s substitute the more literal and usual English word for koinos in Romans 14:14 and
see what we get: “I know….that is I have been persuaded by Lord Yeshua the Messiah….that
nothing is common of itself. But if a person considers something common, then for him it is
common.” Another definition of koinos is ordinary, in the sense of meaning not-special. Or, in
Jewish thought, not set-apart or not holy. I believe what we have in the term koinos is sort of a
relatively new Tradition in Judaism that was created as a middle ground between holy and
unclean as regards food and it came about for practical reasons because 95% of all Jews in
Paul’s era lived NOT in the Holy Land among thousands of their fellow Jews, but in the
Diaspora among millions of gentiles. That is, the vast bulk of Jews in the 1
st
century lived
scattered all over the Asian, European and North African Continents in a pagan world of
gentiles where often just one or a few Jewish families would live in a tiny ghetto among the
majority gentiles. Kosher eating would have been especially problematic for Jews because the
requirements of Judaism added many nuances and rules to the rather simple and
straightforward dietary rules as found mostly in Leviticus chapter 11. Rules of Jewish Law
made it nearly impossible to eat meat if it hadn’t been raised, fed, killed, butchered, handled,
cooked and served exclusively by Jews.
This issue weighs heavily on proper doctrine for Believers so I don’t want to hurry through it
because I know that many of you are unsure about the issue of kosher eating and whether it
applies to you or if it has somehow become irrelevant because of Christ.
Therefore we’ll stop here and pick this up next week to conclude Romans chapter 14.
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