“Who are you to judge another’s household servant? Before his own Lord he stands or falls. And he will stand, because the Lord is able to make him stand.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the biggest critiques against the church and believers more generally is that we are judgmental. We’ve talked about this issue before in other contexts, but the reality is that sometimes we have been deserving of that criticism. But not always. There’s a difference between standing firmly on a particular moral position and actively condemning those who hold and act on the opposite view. Where judgmentalism becomes an even more pressing problem for believers, though, is within the church. When we start judging one another as fellow members of the body of Christ, we sew the seeds of division and disunity which eventually grow to split churches and to create bad church experiences that can drive people away from the church entirely. As with the situation of judgment cast outside of the church, the situation is a bit more complicated than it appears at first glance. What Paul writes here offers some helpful wisdom in our efforts to get things right.

As Romans 14 opens, Paul has shifted gears from how we can operate as living sacrifices to God in the world at large to the matter of internal divisions within the church. As we introduced last week, the major issue the Roman church was dealing with was whether or not it was morally acceptable to eat meat that had previously been part of a pagan, idolatrous sacrifice. Paul used the issue that was common in many first century churches to offer some counsel for how to get along in spite of differences in the churches more generally. It is important to note that we’re not talking about differences in core doctrine here, but in non-salvific issues where some diversity of viewpoint can be tolerated.

Essentially, you had the two different sides of this particular issue dividing themselves into warring factions and casting judgment on one another from their respective position. The ones who rightly understood that their freedom in Christ allowed for them to eat the meat without consequence looked down on those who didn’t as immature in their faith. On the other hand, those who believed eating the meat to be sinful looked at those who were enjoying it as dabbling in idolatry and judged them accordingly. Paul told both sides to cut it out and learn to treat each other with respect as fellow members of the body of Christ.

Here in v. 4, he gives a reason that they didn’t need to be judging one another for their position on this issue. “Who are you to judge another’s household servant?” Now, Paul’s language out of the gate here is troubling for us because the very idea of slavery is so revolting to us. At least, it’s revolting in theory. In practice there are more people held in slavery in the world today than there have ever been in the whole scope of human history. And the single biggest category of slavery today is sex slavery. For anyone to look at the modern world as morally superior to the ancient world either doesn’t know what they are talking about, or else is so morally broken that their opinion isn’t worth countenancing.

In Paul’s day, slavery was common and broadly accepted. That’s not the same thing as saying the church accepted it. Paul’s writings laid the foundation for believers to begin opposing slavery almost immediately in historical terms. His counsel on slavery laid the foundation for all future abolition movements. To argue that the New Testament actively supports slavery is to betray a near total ignorance on the matter. Paul assumes on slavery several times as he does here, but assuming on something that is ubiquitous and offering moral approval to it are two entirely different things.

In any event, a slave belonged to his master. The Greek word being translated here isn’t the normal word for slave or servant. It refers specifically to a servant who served in the household. These more intimate servants often became considered members of a household who were much beloved. This doesn’t change the fact that they were still slaves, but their situation was somewhat different from the more garden variety slaves across the Empire. Either way, a household servant like this was the property of his master. Someone else didn’t have any legal right to tell someone else’s slave what to do. They couldn’t give someone else’s slave commands that he had to keep. They were not in the position to evaluate the work of someone else’s slave. What someone else’s slave did was none of their business.

Earlier in the letter, Paul referred to believers as slaves of God in Christ. He is drawing on that same imagery here. We are each members of the household of God, but our position is not high. We are like household slaves. God is our master, and our lives belong to Him in Christ. Well, if this is the case, then telling someone else’s slave what to do is not our job. We don’t have any business doing such a thing. We can’t give them commands. We can’t evaluate their performance. We can’t assess their value more generally. None of that. All of that is between them and their master alone. Now, when you shift over to talking about the authority of the church over its members things change somewhat, but we’ll have to address that another time in another context. Given what Paul is talking about here, that situation is not in view.

Here’s what Paul is saying: If someone holds a position you don’t share on a particular issue that allows for a diversity of viewpoints to exist within the bounds of orthodoxy, you need to get over that. If the issue does not determine anybody’s salvation, then whether they share your position on it or not doesn’t ultimately matter. The position they hold is between them and God and that’s it. If they are in the wrong in some way in how they hold their position, God will deal with them. That’s not your job. Your job is to love them with the love of Christ and that’s it.

If you start acting like it is your job, you are only going to cause issues. You will cause issues for them because you will treat them differently than you do other believers who happen to share your opinion. That will hurt your relationship with them. It will make it such that they can’t gain from you all the benefits that a relationship with you would bring them. Doing this will hurt you too. In taking this posture of judgment over them, you will be sitting down on God’s throne. As soon as you do that, your relationship with Him has been interrupted, and until you get that worked out, there is much you won’t be able to do any longer. Your being judgmental here will also hurt the church by introducing a point of disunity and division into the body that will make the whole thing weaker and less equipped and able to face the threats coming from the world.

By taking up this posture of judgmentalism, you are accomplishing nothing good and causing much harm. We need to be able to bear with people who hold different views than we do on secondary and tertiary matters of the faith with graciousness, patience, gentleness, and kindness. We need to major on love and minor on selfishness. We need to remember that God shapes people differently for different reasons to be able to accomplish all that He desires to see accomplished in and through His church. Perhaps He allowed that person to walk the path that would give them that particular set of beliefs and preferences because it is going to allow them to connect with someone who is lost who you could never reach because of the positions you have developed on those same issues in order to share the Gospel with them so they can be led to salvation. Your casting judgment on them or even forcing them out of the church could prevent that from happening.

Whether or not they have everything right about this disputed matter is between them and God. “Before his own Lord he stands or falls.” The same goes for you. You can stand firmly in your own positions (as long as you do so with humility and graciousness) regardless of the judgment another member of the body may be aiming in your direction because God is ultimately your judge, not them. This fact doesn’t give you license to hold any viewpoint on any issue as there are some matters that are settled and only one position is correct. But on these non-essential matters, you are on solid ground.

There’s also this: God is gracious with His servants. He is incredibly tolerant and patient and forgiving. “And he will stand, because the Lord is able to make him stand.” He allows for us to stumble forward toward His kingdom without jumping all over us as long as we are sincerely trying to move in His direction. We can’t afford to be any less gracious toward fellow members of the body of Christ on these kinds of matters than our God Himself is.

So then, before you cast judgment on another believer in your church family, consider carefully the nature of the issue and whether you have any actual authority or position to rule on it in a certain way. The odds are pretty high that you don’t. And if you don’t, you shouldn’t, because then you will find yourself as the one deserving of judgment. But in this case it won’t be the judgment of a fellow member of the body over some disputed matter. It will be the judgment of God Himself for sitting yourself down on His throne. It’s a good thing He’s such a patient and gracious God! Let’s join Him in that.