Chapter # 14 Paragraph # 2 Study # 3
April 25, 2021
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: Having a clear conscience before God has two specific requirements: not violating what is viewed as a command from God; and not mistreating others in the name of "obedience" to God.
Introduction: In our last study we considered the roots of Paul's instruction to the church in Rome: his true "knowledge" of the actual issues involved; and the root of that "knowledge" in the "persuasion" of the Lord Jesus. We saw that the underlying foundation to his instruction was The Lord's intention to create a flawless kingdom of perfect relational harmony by true "Love" and genuine "Faith". Given that long-term goal, it behooves the people of God to begin now to practice what will be the absolute foundation then. This means that believers are to use their powers of discernment (judgment) in the service of their treatment of others and not those others' treatment of them.
The particular issues involved in this text/context are those which give "substance" to the "legitimacy" of our treatment of others because of their failed "theology" and "practice". Those "issues" are the condescension of those with "true understanding of The Faith" toward others, and the judgmentalism of those whose grasp of The Faith is flawed toward those who are seen to be self-indulgent and, thus, "ungodly".
Paul's basic argument is that this "judgment" needs to begin "at home" (i.e., it is more important to "judge" one's own treatment of others than it is to "judge" their treatment of oneself), especially for "believers" and "brethren".
This evening we are going to go back over something that needs greater clarity: Paul's use of "common" instead of the more potent term "unclean" and the confusion that has been caused by the translators' failure to understand Paul's meaning.
- I. The "Problem".
- A. The terms "common" and "unclean" are used together, in a negative sense, by Peter in Acts 10:14, 15, and 28 as well as in his reiteration of what had happened as he explained himself in Acts 11:8-9.
- B. The term "common" is used in a strongly positive sense by Luke in Acts 2:44 and 4:32 and by Paul in Titus 1:4 (my true child in a common faith) as well as by Jude in verse 3 (to write you about our "common salvation").
- C. And the term "common" is decidedly negative as used by John in Revelation 21:27 to declare that "nothing common ... shall ever come into it [The New Jerusalem].
- D. Thus, a "common faith" leads to participation in a "common salvation" that makes us decisively "uncommon" and, thus, qualified to live in the New Jerusalem.
- II. Paul's Use of "Common" in Romans 14.
- A. He categorically denies "commonality" to "anything" as a "persuaded knowledge" from The Lord Jesus.
- 1. However, the "anything" is strictly "qualified" as specifically "things eaten by people".
- 2. Then, the "nothing people eat can be legitimately considered 'common'" is deliberately removed from the "physical creation" reality of food for the body and moved into the "relational creation" reality of "judging others because of what they eat".
- B. He is in strict harmony with the other biblical uses of "common" as both a "negative reality" and a strong "positive reality".
- 1. To understand him, we must see what "common" has "in common" with "unclean".
- 2. To do that we must consider the use of the term by others.
- a. In Acts 2:44 and 4:32 Luke used the word "common" in the strong positive setting of people making their possessions "common" to all.
- 1) This usage gives us a strong hint as to the essential meaning of "common".
- 2) There are two things involved.
- a) First, there is the removal of the "thing" that made the possessions "uncommon" in the first place: particular ownership as in "having final authority over a thing" (this is the sense of Peter's confrontation of Ananias in Acts 5:4).
- b) Second, there is the fact that the 'removal' leads to a loss of 'status' regarding the thing now called "common".
- 3) Thus, the first thing about something being "common" is that its "lack of status" means that it has been removed, or never placed, in a position of 'status'.
- a) It is in this sense that we have the phrases "common faith" and "common salvation", both of which seem to be addressing the fact that the "special status of Israel before God" has been removed so that what a person has "believed" and has entered into as "salvation" is now "common" in that it is no longer particularly "Jewish", but open to all nations, tongues, and tribes.
- b) In these cases, the issues of "common" and "uncommon" fit Paul's "of itself" claim in 14:14 because those issues are controlled by God and not by the essential nature of "thing" itself.
- b. But in Acts 10:14,15, 28 and 11:8-9, Peter used the word "common" together with "unclean" in a strongly negative sense.
- 1) At least one lexicographer made the mistake of thinking of the two words as pure synonyms and, thus, missed Peter's point altogether.
- 2) Peter, though, had a specific distinction to make with his use of "common" and "unclean".
- a) Peter had indulged himself for the majority of his life before conversion in the error of the Jews as it relates to Deuteronomy 9:6.
- i. This "error" was in turning God's favor into the result of personal godliness instead of its more obvious reality: God's favor was the result of God's selective love in spite of a powerful lack of personal godliness on the part of Israel.
- ii. This "error" was the root cause of the "disdain" of 14:3 as well as the "judgmentalism" in that same verse (both sides were of the opinion that they had a greater godliness than their opposites and, thus, a more favored position with God).
- b) In this indulgence, he failed to see that "foods" were "common" because they did not have the greater potential for physical health that God's prescribed foods had (they did not have the "status" of being significantly "heath producing", and they had been made "unclean" by God in order to enhance Israel's health and benefit).
- c) When Peter was "corrected" by God through his vision of "common" and "unclean" foods, it was for the purpose of using the "food" issue of the body as an example of the "food" issue of the relational universe (a stark example being Jesus' insisting that if a person did not eat "His flesh" and drink "His blood" that person could not have any "relationship" with Him).
- d) What Peter then realized was that he was to no longer consider non-Jews as "common" or "unclean" in the same way he had always considered some food source.
- i. This "opened the door" to Jew/Gentile relationships on the basis of both a "common faith" and a "common salvation".
- ii. From this point forward, believers were to not indulge in treating each other as either "common" or "unclean" [the condescending were treating their Jewish brethren as "common" because they didn't have as good a grasp of The Faith, and the judgmental were treating their Gentile brethren as "unclean" because they were holding onto the "superiority of morality" of those who deny themselves in loyalty to God].
- 3) What this boils down to is that "common" simply means "not the best" in comparison to "the best" and "unclean" means "positively destructive" of relationships.
- a) This means "common" focuses upon whether a thing is "the best" as opposed to something merely adequate (as in "having a good grasp of The Faith") and thinking of something as "unclean" is viewing that thing as actually destructive, not merely lacking in adequacy (as in "being diseased in The Faith" and thinking what a person eats or does not eat is a proof of "morality").
- b) This explains the distinction between the two groups.
- i. Those proud of their grasp of The Faith consider their diseased brethren as common.
- ii. Those proud of their self-restraint in physical issues of life consider their "unrestrained" brethren as positively dangerous because they are destructive.
- c) But in Paul's treatment of this issue, he focuses upon "common" which is "less than the best" but has been turned into "unclean" because "eating forbidden foods" is a direct act of disobedience.
- d) Thus, if anyone considers "common" to actually be "unclean", he/she must act in harmony with this "conviction" because the condition of the conscience is of far greater import than the condition of one's accuracy in The Faith.
