Is Jesus your motive for what you believe?

Romans 14.5-9

Hopefully I’ve made it clear, in my articles for TXAB, that our religion oughta be Jesus; that if our practices, rituals, and beliefs don’t lead to a closer relationship with Christ Jesus, they gotta go. If they don’t encourage us in that direction, if we’re doing ’em because it’s our custom, or it’s what every other Christian claims they’re doing (although they might not really, ’cause they’re hypocrites), then our practices are dead religion. Again, they gotta go! But if they do help us follow Jesus, they’re living religion. Do ’em as long as they help. Drop them when they no longer help.

Not every Christian shares this mindset, which is why they don’t drop these practices once they stop working for them. They think the practices are their religion. Not Jesus. Not that Jesus isn’t there in their religion… somewhere. And they’ll insist Jesus is central to the religion. But the fact their religion includes, and requires, all these other things, means these things can take precedence over Jesus—and often do. And never should.

Paul of Tarsus makes this clear in today’s passage, using the examples of Christians who refuse to eat meat sacrificed to idols, and Christians who observe special days. To make it obvious what kind of day he’s writing about, I inserted the word holy where appropriate. “Holiday” for short, but no, he doesn’t mean vacation days—they’re for worship.

Romans 14.5-9 KWL

5Someone reckons a day as holy,

apart from the other days,

and another one reckons every day the same.

Each of you: Be fully convinced

in your own mind.

6One who observes a holy day

observes it for Master Jesus,

and one who eats everything

eats it for Master Jesus.

For they¹ give thanks to God.

And one who’s not eating everything,

doesn’t eat it for Master Jesus,

and also gives thanks to God.

7For none of you² live for yourself,¹

and no one dies by themselves.¹

8For when we live, we live for the Master,

and when we die, we die for the Master.

Whether we live and whether we die,

we exist for Master Jesus.

9This is why Christ Jesus dies and lives:

So he might rule over the dead and the living.

In the context of Christians who are weak in faith, Ro 14.1-4 it’s the weak in faith who need to practice veganism, who need special holy days as a reminder to follow Jesus. Once they’re more spiritually mature, they’re no longer gonna need these training wheels. Meanwhile, do as Paul advises: If you’re vegan, don’t denounce the omnivore; if you’re an omnivore, don’t mock the vegans. Love one another, dangit.

Because they’re doing it for Jesus.

Paul advised the Romans—and advises us—to be fully convinced in our own minds of our religious practices. Don’t do them, despite your doubts, just to follow the crowd. Nor dismiss them, despite how nervous it makes you to dismiss them, just to follow the crowd. If your conscience tells you to do them, or not, do as your conscience prods you. Otherwise you’re violating your conscience, which doesn’t merely feel like it’s sin; Paul straight-up calls it sin. Ro 14.23 It’s sin to you. So it’s sin.

There are certain Christians who don’t observe holy days. Ash Wednesday is next week, but these Christians don’t do Lent, so to them, Ash Wednesday is just another day. In the 1700s, Puritans didn’t do Christmas, which is how George Washington could take advantage of the Hessians who did, and attacked ’em on Christmas morning after they’d been partying the night before. And in Paul’s day, as we know from the Didache, Christian custom was to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays—but not everyone did this. Either ’cause they fasted Monday and Thursday along with the Pharisees, which is why the Didache rebuked them; or ’cause fasting has always been optional, and they didn’t see its value. Or didn’t see its value in fasting so often—really, twice a week?

But God’s kingdom is not about veganism. Not about fasting. Not about holy communion, even though many a Christian sees holy communion as the only real way to abide in Christ Jesus. Not about hearing a sermon every Sunday morning; not about singing worship music every week; not about reading your bible all the way through every single year. Not even about praying, even though we absolutely must pray. God’s kingdom is about the king. It’s about Jesus. If he’s not the only one we’re doing it for, we’re doing it wrong. All of it.

Hence Paul’s bit about not living for ourselves, not dying for ourselves; we’re doing both these things for Jesus, the ruler of both the dead and the living. Ro 14.9 It’s not our rituals, not our practices, none of the things we consider religious duty. Jesus is our religious duty. It’s all about Him.

This being the case, if what I do to follow Jesus doesn’t work for you, that’s okay: Do what works for you. If what you do doesn’t work for me, I’m not obligated to do it too, and unless it’s heresy or sin, I don’t need to critique it. Even if I think it’s really, really stupid. You know all those internet memes of Snoopy praying?—which were definitely generated by AI drawing apps, because Charles Schulz never drew Snoopy like that. Nor had Schulz ever drawn Snoopy praying. The Peanuts characters may have been Christian because Schulz was Christian, and put his beliefs in their mouths… but Snoopy’s a dog and is therefore going to hell. (KIDDING. Maybe.) Anyway, those memes are something I consider mighty corny, and probably copyright infringement, but if they remind you to pray, they’re not that bad a thing.

Same with everything else. If it helps you follow Jesus better, great! So what if it doesn’t work for me; I’m not the standard, nor arbiter, for what should and shouldn’t be in the Christian religion. I am not the baseline. Neither is your church, your pastor, nor some other kook on the internet. If the Holy Spirit tells you to cut it out, always listen to him; if your conscience tells you something’s gone wrong, always listen to it. Do it for Jesus, and Jesus is fine with it.

But not every Christian trusts their conscience.

Part of what prompted me to write about Romans 14 was someone who wrote me about it; who wanted to understand whether something was okay for Christians to practice or not, and was trying to use Romans 14 to determine this. And this person didn’t feel they understood the scripture aright. Which I get; some scriptures confuse people. This one included.

It’s way, way easier, I pointed out, to simply ask some knowledgeable Christian, “Is this okay for Christians to do?” If you think this is a trustworthy elder, they’ll likely give good advice, and they’re way easier to understand than Paul. Or our own consciences.

But sometimes these people we go to are not trustworthy elders. They’ve been Christian longer, but it doesn’t always mean they’re mature. Churches put ’em on the leadership team, but that’s because they’re good preachers or musicians… and really good at pretending they’re devout, but they’re as spiritually immature as teenagers who only behave themselves Sunday mornings. Their advice won’t be the wisest advice.

I’m particularly reminded of the history of Christians and rock ’n roll. When Chuck Berry and Little Richard invented it in the 1950s, a number of racist Christians were immediately against it. Even after white artists like Pat Boone, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis started playing rock too; they knew where rock came from, and couldn’t abide it. If you asked them if rock ’n roll was okay, they’d say of course not: Satan itself invented it.

If you asked them why, sometimes they’d admit their racism… but sometimes they wanted to hide it from others—and even themselves. So they’d invent other explanations. Sometimes their reasons were valid, like when the lyrics get naughty. (“Good golly Miss Molly, she sure likes to ball” is obviously nasty.) Lotta innuendo throughout the history of rock. Too often, no innuendo at all.

Other reasons were foolish. Like Bill Gothard’s stupid claim the backbeat is the inverse of the heartbeat, so that means it is by nature devilish. Or that evil-spirit-worshiping native tribes played similar music (and let’s nevermind the subtle racism in this observation), so this proves this music is devilish. Fact is, if you don’t like rock ’n roll music, for certain intellectually dishonest people, any excuse will do, and made-up “biblical” reasons are ideal if you wanna coerce as many people as you can to behave the way you wish. Just as true for people who denounce jazz, country ’n western, rhythm ’n blues, rap, hip hop, metal, or any other invention of black musicians—which these all are. That leaves classical, hymns, bluegrass, and white gospel, genres these rock-denouncers claim are totally okay, and don’t say it’s because they were (arguably) invented by whites. Hmmm.

Fact is, the bible is silent on the topic of musical genres. Rock certainly wasn’t invented yet! So we Christians have to make up our own minds. It’s called wisdom. We’re to seek the Holy Spirit’s counsel. We’re to ask whether it helps us follow Jesus better, or it’s getting in the way. We’re to honestly, fearlessly search our own motives—do the things we enjoy encourage fruit of the Spirit or works of the flesh? If it’s harmless or beneficial, keep it; if it’s harmful or destructive, don’t.

If it’s benign, it’s actually okay to suspend judgment till you see evidence it’s one or the other. Stopping the behavior because you’re “erring on the side of caution” is a trick the devil likes to use to get us to stop using our discernment. Don’t think; just obey other people, regardless of whether they too have been practicing discernment, or likewise turned off their brains. But it’s easiest for Satan if none of us examine our consciences, if none of us use our brains. Banning rock music is just as helpful to the devil as if we embraced the worst forms of it.

I say listen to Paul’s advice. Use your best judgment, follow your conscience, and do everything for Jesus with thanksgiving and devotion. And don’t pass judgment on fellow Christians who come to different conclusions—of course, so long that they don’t embrace heresy and sin. It’s okay to like, and create, rock ’n roll. Just never forget Jesus takes priority.