Personalized Sin

Romans 14:19-23

¹⁹So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

²⁰Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats.

²¹It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.

²²The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.

²³But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

Every now and then the Bible takes an odd little turn that causes me to scratch my head. This is one of those times. Paul makes a case for "personalized sin". There are some things that may not be sinful for you but are for me. At first blush that seems really weird. I mean, we teach that sin is sin, right? In God's eyes there are no little sins or big sins. All of it is unrighteousness that demands a need for a Savior. But here we find that God deeply cares for the individual. He is aware of the fact that we all have different ways of thinking and different sensibilities. If you believe something is a sin, then for you it is. That idea seems to push against the flow of the stream if you don't take a moment and realize it is a case of God caring deeply about us as unique individuals.

Most sins are just that - sins in the eyes of God. But there are some things that the individual might stumble over and for them that thing is a sin. If somewhere along the line you learned or decided that eating Popsicles is a sin, then you eat them, you have sinned. You believe it to be wrong but you do it anyway. Of course eating Popsicles isn't a sin. But if your conscience is stricken when you do so, you have sinned. Perhaps someone will come alone and instruct you as to God's true feelings about Popsicles and maybe you will be relieved of that belief. Until that happens, you need to live a Popsicle free life.

That illustration may seem somewhat trivial and that was purposeful. I don't want to bruise a brother or sister by using something that they might actually hold to be sinful. Once again, God is calling us to a higher level. We are to consider our brothers and sisters ahead of ourselves. We are bound to always put another person's sensibilities ahead of our own. Just imagine what life would look like if we were all intent upon serving those around us rather than demanding our own rights all the time. It would revolutionize our culture. I guess we can simply start in our own corner of the world and see how we can improve upon that.