Tolerance or Compromise

Originally Posted by pelathais

The problem that I see in this application is that in the first example your email correspondent is looking at a situation with a timeline that moves toward a resolution. In other words, there is one who is following church standards and one who is not. The problem is how do these two people get along and cooperate until they are both in agreement?

However, in Romans 14, Paul is addressing a situation where the two sides will never agree; at least not in this life. Here he gives guidance on how to get along - and that guidance is to compromise! He tells the brother who would eat meat to lay down his convictions for a while and in the spirit of unity to not exercise his beliefs.

"Help the 'weaker' brother out in this situation..." is what Paul seems to be saying.

I'm not certain how this applies to the situation of discipling new believers. To apply Romans 14, here it seems that the "new converts" are stronger in faith than the ones who are purportedly doing the discipling.

So what we have is a situation where the "new people" in the church are really the ones modeling the "preferred" behavior (stronger faith). If that's the case, what's the point in having "church standards?" It seems that the church described here actually weakens the faith of believers.

that or you could be looking at ti backwards...

multiple times in his writings Paul seems to insinuate that needing rules to follow God is a sign of weakness in faith...

I think Paul would call the modern Apostolic Church a weak church because we rely on all of our rules... Paul would say that we need to exercise our freedom in God more...

Like I said before... the problem with what is in post one is that in post one it is assuming that the believer with standards is the strong one, when Paul is saying the exact opposite, that the believer without standards (rules/law) is actually stronger...