During this season of Lent, the Church of England’s forty-day reflections have brought many readers to a passage in Paul’s letter to the Romans that deserves careful attention:
“We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbour for his good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please Himself… For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” (Romans 15:1–4)
These verses are often quoted in contemporary church debates, particularly when Christians are urged to show greater acceptance of practices that previous generations regarded as incompatible with biblical teaching. Those who hold to the historic understanding of Scripture are sometimes told that resistance to such changes reveals a lack of love.
But does Romans 15 actually support that conclusion? When we look closely at the passage itself, and at how Christians have understood it through the centuries, a rather different picture emerges.
The first thing to notice is the context in which Paul writes these words. Romans chapters 14 and 15 form a single discussion about disputes within the early church concerning food and the observance of particular days. Some believers, especially those from a Jewish background, continued to observe dietary restrictions and special days inherited from the law of Moses. Others understood that in Christ those ceremonial regulations were no longer binding.
Paul describes those who grasp this freedom as “the strong,” yet he does not encourage them to insist upon their liberty. Instead he instructs them to restrain themselves for the sake of those whose consciences are still troubled. Christian freedom, he explains, must always be governed by love.
Yet this entire discussion concerns matters that Scripture itself treats as morally neutral. The eating of meat, the keeping of certain days, and similar practices do not belong to the permanent moral law of God. They are what the early church would later describe as adiaphora—things indifferent.
For that reason Paul’s instruction is not a licence to redefine moral boundaries. Rather it is a call to patience and humility in matters where believers may legitimately differ.
This understanding did not arise in modern debates; it was the consistent interpretation of the early church.
John Chrysostom, one of the great teachers of the fourth century, explained that Paul was addressing disputes about food laws and Jewish customs, not questions of moral conduct. The apostle’s concern, Chrysostom wrote, was that believers who understood their freedom should not wound the conscience of others by exercising it carelessly.
Augustine drew the same distinction. He spoke of two kinds of commands within Scripture: the eternal moral law, which reflects God’s unchanging character, and the ceremonial regulations of the Mosaic covenant, which were temporary and fulfilled in Christ. Romans 14 and 15, Augustine taught, concern only the latter. Christian liberty frees believers from ceremonial burdens; it does not free them from righteousness.
When we move forward a thousand years to the English Reformation, we find the same principle firmly embedded in Anglican teaching.
Thomas Cranmer and the other Reformers regularly appealed to Romans 14 when discussing church ceremonies and traditions. Questions about vestments, liturgical forms, and certain observances were regarded as matters in which Christians might differ without dividing the Church. These were “things indifferent,” practices that Scripture neither commands nor forbids.
But the Reformers were equally clear that the Church possesses no authority to alter the moral teaching of Scripture itself.
The Thirty-Nine Articles express this with striking clarity. Article VI declares that Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation and that nothing may be required of believers that cannot be proven from it. Article XX adds that although the Church has authority in matters of order and governance, it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything contrary to God’s written Word.
The Reformers therefore used Romans 14 to protect the Church from quarrels about ceremonies, not to weaken the authority of Scripture.
Across fifteen centuries of Christian teaching, the same pattern appears again and again. Romans 14 and 15 are read as guidance for handling disputable matters, while the moral vision of Scripture itself remains unchanged.
This is why the present debates in many churches are not really arguments about Romans 15. They are arguments about something deeper: whether the Church stands under the authority of Scripture, or whether Scripture may be reshaped according to the spirit of the age.
Yet in discussing such matters we must guard our own hearts carefully.
It is all too easy for those who defend biblical teaching to fall into a spirit of self-righteousness. Scripture leaves no room for that. Every Christian, however faithful, remains a sinner redeemed only by grace. We stand where we stand because Christ has been merciful to us.
Yet there is another danger that must also be recognised.
In recent years, whenever Christians express concern that the Church may be drifting from the moral vision of Scripture, the response is often immediate: “You are being self-righteous.” That warning should never be dismissed lightly. Every believer must guard against pride, for we all stand before God only because of His mercy in Christ.
But the possibility of pride does not remove the responsibility to recognise when the Church begins to move away from what God has plainly revealed.
Humility does not mean uncertainty about the teaching of Scripture. Nor does love require us to pretend that moral boundaries are unclear when the Word of God has spoken with remarkable consistency. The same apostle who urges patience with one another also reminds us that “whatever was written before was written for our instruction.” The Scriptures remain the teacher of the Church.
For that reason the Christian calling is not to soften the Word of God, but to submit ourselves to it together. Where Scripture leaves room for liberty, believers should exercise charity and restraint. Where Scripture speaks plainly about the moral shape of life, the Church must receive that teaching with reverence, even when it challenges the instincts of the age in which we live.
At times that faithfulness may even be accompanied by a sense of grief, or by a form of righteous anger—not the anger that springs from wounded pride, but the sorrowful zeal that arises when the truth about God and His ways is obscured. Such zeal is not opposed to love; it is born from love—love for God, and love for those who may be led astray when His word is set aside.
The Christian task, therefore, is neither harsh condemnation nor silent accommodation. It is something far more demanding: humility about our own need of grace, patience toward those with whom we disagree, and a steady, reverent loyalty to the Scriptures that were given for our instruction and our hope.
For the Church does not belong to the spirit of the age. It belongs to the Lord who gave His Word, and whose truth remains the sure foundation upon which His people stand.