Romans 14:13, Let Us Therefore Not Judge One Another

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Romans 14:13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.

Many conflicts among believers in the church would have been averted, with peace ruling in the heart of God’s people, when believers come to the conviction not to judge one another. Be always ready to do self-examination rather than “other-examination”. Why did the Apostle Paul spend a whole chapter on this topic of exhorting believers to refrain from judging one another? It is because this was a pervading issue in the church at Rome. If not adequately addressed, it can threatened to upset the unity of the church.

Martyn Llyod-Jones said well, “Remember that this other Christian with whom you are disagreeing is your brother…he is not a leader of some opposition party, he is not a rival, he is not a contender for something that you have: you are brethren together…And then the exhortation is that you must never say or do anything that will be a hindrance to your brother, and Paul uses two words to bring this out. The first is ‘stumblingblock’, the picture being of a rock or a stone or some obstacle in a man’s way. Unaware that there is a stone in the way, he stumbles over it and falls…I believe that Paul uses the two terms, ‘stumblingblock’ and ‘occasion to fall’ for emphasis, to stress that we must never be guilty of causing our brother to fall…The expression ‘occasion to fall’ is interesting…The word really means a trap or a snare to catch animals. A piece of material was placed in the trap, largely concealing it, and when the animal put its foot on the material, immediately the trap sprang and the animal is caught. The idea that is implicit in this word is thus, ‘an occasion to be trapped and to be ensnared’.”

As mentioned in an earlier exhortation, the believer’s spiritual demeanour is a poverty of spirit and mourning for one’s own sins. If the believer would do so, many a conflict among brethren would have been averted. Amen.