Welcome One Another: Wrestling with Romans 14-15
Author: Bobby Valentine | Filed under: Church, Romans, Unity
This blog grows out of a series at at Eastside called “the Story We Believe.” This wrestling is with a text for one sermon and asked what kind of people the people of God are: A People of Shalom. This was not the only text in that part of the series. But Romans 14 could not be avoided. It is about a Welcoming People.
I have known this lesson was coming for months and it had exercised me to the point of stress. When I deal with Paul, I have the testimony of Peter always nearby, “some things Paul says is a mystery, some things are clear as mud.” (2 Pt 3.16, a paraphrase but accurate).
So, I have gone back and tried to do the Alexander Campbell thing and come within “understanding distance.” I’ve read whole books on it. Most recently Scot McKnight’s Reading Romans Backwards in which Romans 14-15 is the point of the whole epistle.
But I have plenty of questions and I want Phoebe to answer them (Phoebe read the letter and most certainly interacted with the audience to explain further what Paul wrote. She is the “face of Paul” as McKnight says). Where is she when I need answers? So, several exegetical questions that give me a headache that I do not have firm answers for:
#1) Who are the “weak” (NRSV)?
Who are the “strong” (NRSV)?
It is rather important to note that Paul uses different terms translated “weak” in 14.1 and 15.1. Are they Jewish believers, maybe Nazarites, Gentiles (proselytes) or even simply ethnic Jews that have not accepted the Messiahship of Jesus? (Mark Nanos has made that case). Some believe the audience is primarily Gentile.
Does it matter that in 15.1, Paul uses power language lost in most translations. That is dynatos and adynatos, the “powerful” and the “powerless.” To say someone is powerless in faith sounds considerably different than to say they are “weak” in the faith. This language seems to suggest SOCIAL STATUS of the respective groups (slaves and non-slaves especially). If this is the case then something similar to Corinthians mistreatment of the poor at the Table could be going which changes everything about Romans 14. (Again we have to combat poisonous stereotypes of Jews as wealthy, the vast majority of Jews in the Roman Empire would be impoverished and and most in Rome would have been slaves). See Beverly Roberts Gaventa, When In Romans: An Invitation to Linger with the Gospel According to Paul.
#2) Does Paul really identify himself with the “powerful?” Several scholars point to the rhetoric here seems to be at least irony if not outright sarcasm. Paul does do this in other contexts as well. Thomas in Paul’s Rhetoric in Its Context: The Argument of Romans makes this point especially. Paul language would be, “If we REALLY are strong …”
In other places Paul clearly glories in weakness rather than in power as in 2 Corinthians 12.9-10: “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Numerous scholars have argued that Paul does not in fact contrast the “weak/powerless” with the “strong/powerful” in 14.1-23 because Paul never once uses the term “strong” until 15.1. That is Paul does not actually take sides in the controversial matters. Rather when he does use the “strong/powerful” he defines it in terms of not living for ourselves (love!). Thus Paul Sampley, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, etc believe Paul intentionally refrains from using “strong/powerful” until 15.1 and we should not read it back into the text. Scot McKnight in Reading Romans takes the opposite view as do many others.
#3) What is the actual issue? Vegetarianism and abstaining from wine are not normal Jewish positions. Kosher is not asceticism by any stretch (and certainly not vegetarianism). Some scholars have historically (routinely) turned this into a kosher matter though. But that is not demanded by the situation. Anti-Jewish prejudice has often guided assumptions on this matter that are historically inaccurate. There were numerous pagan groups that promoted both asceticism and vegetarianism (i.e. Pythagoreans are just one example).
#4) What is clear, is that in 14.14, when Paul says “nothing is unclean in itself,” that this is a PHARISAIC doctrine (plenty do not know this btw) W. D. Davies in Paul and Rabbinic Judaism made this case nearly 70 years ago (Davies suggests that Paul “turned out to be a catechist after the manner of a Rabbi” p.129).
David Rudolph (and other Jewish Pauline scholars) have argued that the issue is not kosher vs nonkosher food at all. In fact, Paul never calls the food “unclean” food as we might expect rather he calls it “common/κοινὸν”). In this scenario the issue may be that at the common meal (agape/Lord’s Supper) the Gentile host has provided the food and has MIXED kosher food with the more Gentile menu items. The “powerless” have no say in either the food nor its arrangement might have scruples regarding the indeterminate status of food being accidentally (or it was not by accident such mixing took place, given the clear anti-Jewish thrust Paul counters in Romans 11 may indicate it was no accident) defiled by contact with “common” food. Paul, in this reading, because of his Pharisaic training knows things the ordinary Jew would not, that is this food is not contaminated. (There are numerous rabbinic statements on the matter, See both W. D. Davies and David J. Rudolph’s A Jew to the Jews).
I confess that I believe Paul remained an observant Jew till the day he died. Paul is clearly not “knocking” either Sabbath or holy days (they are done to the Lord, vv. 4-6). Paul kept days like the Sabbath and Festivals as Acts demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt (and seems to be indicated in his own epistles, what I have not decided is if Paul felt this was obligatory or not). Even in Romans itself he has declared both the law and temple worship are divine GRACE given to Israel (9.4-5). For myself, I am unprepared to chunk Acts as “made up” stuff which I have to do to accept the alternative. Paul’s ethic demands that he be a “good guest.”
So, I am partial to the reading that Paul does not identify the strong/powerful with EITHER POSITION, He defines it it as loving the other. And both “sides” can do that.
However we read the text, the call to obedience contained within it is that we “welcome” (14.1; 15.7) the other for the sake of the Messiah. Under the influence of the NIV, for many years, I simply have had the word “accept” in my head. The words “accept” and “welcome” at least to my mind are different. One can be mere tolerance and the other is genuine fellowship where I take delight in your presence even as we differ.
We are called (commanded!) to “welcome one another” so we can worship God together united in our diversity. We are not to “Lord it over” those who have no means to contribute to Gathering. God chooses the weak and always has (that is Israel’s history!). And that is the goal: Jews and Gentiles reunited under the Jewish King who is the world’s Lord coming before the Creator God in worship (15.7-21). Everyone wants to be “strong/powerful” and we can be when we “welcome one another as the Messiah welcomed you.”
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