Featured Christian Liberty

That's right. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. If eating meat causes my brother to offend, I will eat no meat as long as the world stands, because God's kingdom is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

 

To what extent does your position on "not eating 'meat'" apply? IOW, are you telling me that not only will you choose "not to eat meat" ANYWHERE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD "as long as the world stands...." but also ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, regardless of whether this offended "brother" knows about it or not?

EX: Is it scriptural to choose to "eat meat" on some other continent where this offended "brother" will probably never know about your "eating meat" or not?

(Please cite very specific [i.e., book(s), chapter(s) & verse(es)] that come right out "in black & white" and very specifically tell the reader that, in effect, this position of yours is absolutely OK to maintain at all times and at all places on this earth, "as long as the world stands" rather than merely stating something to the effect that, "Well, this is my own personal opinion that ....")

 

My entire post was a direct quote of the Scriptures. It extends to the degree of your love for your brother. Are you the worse off for not eating meat offered to idols or abstaining from alcoholic beverages? Has the Kingdom of God suffered at all?

 

How does one objectively determine one's "degree of your love for your brother"?

 

Can we measure love? We do what we can and God will use it to do more. One act of kindness can cause a chain reaction of unforeseen benefits for people we never met. We might not witness these results but they happen all the same.

 

To the degree that one lays down his life for him.

 

So, IOW, are you telling me that, if I do not both literally and physically "lay down my life" for "my brother," that I do not love [i.e., have angry feelings towards] my brother, and, by default actually, therefore HATE [and to the literal and physical extent that I must, by default, literally and physically, of inherent necessity, both literally and physically KILL] my brother, as per the absolute, literal and immutable teachings of Jesus Christ as set forth in Matthew 5:21-22?

If not, then what, precisely [and citing very specific Bible verse(s) in the process] trying to tell me? And why [here again citing very specific Bible verses to defend what you are telling me]?

 

John 15 :
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

There is no greater love than Christ love. Jesus life is the only life given that can save our life eternally. We are to point them to Him by our life.

Matthew 5:
13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Jesus is the only light we have been given.

John 14:6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

 

I'd like to share a story.

A few months ago I began working with an "undecided" man. From outward appearances, the Holy Spirit was working on him, but he wasn't ready to yield.

Late one afternoon after a hard day's work in near 100 degree temps, he asked a question. Will you have a problem with me if I drink a beer after we finish work? (He knew I don't drink.)

My reply went something like this: After this day's work I don't have any qualms about you drinking a cold beer. If you get drunk, that's a different story.

Next day, he told me he drank two of them. Again, I told him I didn't have a problem with it, especially under the circumstances. (He'd been running a jack hammer the prior day.)

To make a long story short, he came to Christ a few weeks ago. Since then, he's talked about what to do with his stash of beer, as he doesn't drink it anymore. I'm reasonably sure those two beers were the last ones he drank.

I'm also sure that if I'd "lectured" him, that HOT afternoon, on the evils of alcohol and condemmed him the following day for yielding to temptation I would have been a stumbling block in his path. As it turned out, he was left with the liberty to choose for himself. And, he did.

Praise God. :godisgood:

 

Here's what Paul said:

But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.
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Let me paraphrase:

If your brother is offended by your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not use your food to kill him for whom Christ died.
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Love is a pretty tall order, ain't it.

 

Spot on post....kudos....

 

The REAL POINT of my first post was to ask this question (since apparently some failed to grasp it the first time [My fault I guess for not making it {to borrow a phrase from the late RM Nixon} "perfectly clear"!!]):

OK, so you won't eat ANY food because "your brother is offended by it and thus, your 'love for him' forces you to do so."

FINE. What I was asking was simply to what extent does one take his/her decision not to eat ANY food??

Case in point, soon after I was saved (some 46+ yrs ago by now), a "brother in the Lord" that I happened to come across while stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB (located adjecent to Tucson, AZ) was offended by my eating a hamburger at the base's chow hall because he firmly held to the idea that eating ANY kind of "red meat" was some how anti-Scriptural for ALL Christians.

OK, so I stopped eating hamburgers.

When the overseas orders levy came down, this "brother in the Lord" received orders to be stationed in Japan, and I received orders to be stationed in what was then called "West" Germany.

Guess what was on the menu on a Saturday night over there in "West" Germany before Monday's pay checks would arrive?

Yep, HAMBURGER!!

I was sure hungry that Saturday night and REALLY licked my chops as a fellow (whom I didn't know) sat down next to me with a double cheeseburger on his plate!!

BUT, a "promise is a promise," so as not to break my promise to this "brother in the Lord" who was now stationed in Japan and me over in "West" Germany, so all I ate was the stale bread that was left on the serving line and a glass of H20.

SO, AGAIN, could I, in GOOD FAITH, have eaten one of those double cheeseburgers or not??

Please provide very specific NT book(s), chapter(s) and verse(s) to support whatever position you have when answering what I consider to be a very legitimate question.

NOW, is that clear enough for you folks out there in BB land?

 

Matthew 15: KJB
11 Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?

18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:

20 These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.

IMO, only you can answer that question. Would you have been a "false witness" based on your conversations with this fellow soldier, since you mentioned promises? It didn't matter if he was sitting across the table from you or half the world away from you.

 

[facetious remark]To claim that you have loved your brother enough, you should have abstained seven times.[/facetious remark] Love doesn't ask the questions you're asking.

You say this brother was "offended" by your food. You're saying he had a weak conscience and a weak faith, that he looked up to you and that your eating was going to make him doubt himself and partake in something that in his heart of hearts he felt was demonic?

That's not what it sounds like to me. It sounds like you don't know what genuine matters of conscience are, that you have a legalistic notion of love, and you missed out on a great cheeseburger dinner because of it.

 

PS---I might add that this "brother in the Lord" was NOT a Baptist (at least, as far as I recall [After 46 years, one tends to not remember "some things" as clearly as one would always wish.]); in fact, I DO REMEMBER that he said something to the effect that, "There's a lot of 'things' that Baptist preachers claim to be true are, in reality a 'bunch of baloney!'").

I didn't dispute that fact because I'd only been saved a couple months, and, not having grown up in a "Bible-believing environment" for any of my almost 20 years of life (I had "grown up" in a ultra-liberal "Protestant" church in which the Word of God was never preached---in fact, the pastor of the [so-called] "church" in which I'd been reared was a graduate of Harvard Univ. [Cambridge, MA] Divinity School [which even then was not ....shall we say... exactly a "bastion of fundamentalism"], and, besides, this "brother in the Lord" had been saved for some 10-12 years, so I fIgured, "Well, if anything, HE ought to know what the Bible says about (at least in this case) about the 'sin' of eating 'red' meat." (It was only a couple years later that I found out what God's Word has to say on that particular issue.)

Anyway, can somebody out there in BB land give me some very specific NT references that will help guide me in some objective way (after all, we're "not to base things on 'feelings,' but on 'thus saith the Lord'"), to determine to what extent I should have "abstained," in this particular situation, from eating no "red" meat so as not to "offend" or "become a stumbling block" to that much older "brother in the Lord"?