Chapter 14 then answers the follow-up question, but what about those who are genuine Christians but — due to force of habit, the pull of unbinding tradition, personal confusion, or some other weakness — worry about the subsection of Old-Covenant less-than-first commandments that are neither part of New-Covenant faith in Jesus Christ (which none of them are) nor part of loving one's neighbor (which some of them are)? How are stronger and more correct Christians, most usually Gentiles, supposed to treat these their brothers who value unnecessary observances? In his text just prior, which we know as the "latter verses of Chapter 13," Paul has just told us that loving one's neighbor is fulfillment of the law for Christians without their having to fulfill what Jews think of as the law. He has just told us immediately prior in Romans 13:14 to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." Thus with Christ being all-sufficient, we see why in Romans 14:1-2 that Paul calls the man "weak" who worries about the old Law's dietary restriction with its vulgar bodily association. Such a man in doing so is acting more closely to the wide range of Jewish folly in this aspect of his daily life, and not acting out of the pure Christian truth that he should be dead to the law and instead alive to Christ by virtue of Christ's all-conquering death and resurrection (Rm. 7:1-6).
Yet since this man is "in the faith" but just "weak in the faith," Paul tells us to indeed receive, accept, and welcome him. Per the example of law-inspired vegetarianism for Jesus, we admittedly should not hate or judge the vegetarian in the sense of disruptively criticizing how he weakly expresses his devotion to Jesus (14:3-4), if that is indeed what he is trying to do. This in no way means that we should not understand, as does Paul, that it is a weak expression per verses 14:1 and 14:2. He after all has saving faith in Jesus Christ and that is what determines if one has salvation by the New Covenant, but this man does not understand just how complete is that New Covenant. He is acting in a way that does not reflect the full glory and power of our Jesus who is Victor in Totality over the old Law, over Judaism, and over death, and who is one with God Himself. We see more of Paul's reasoning in the second example that follows in verses 5 and 6, that "One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks." Therefore if one is an eater of herbs or an observer of days, then he should do so to honor the Lord, and it is confirmed thereafter that the Lord is Jesus Christ as inseparable from the Father and the Holy Spirit — as particularly evident in verses 9, 11, 14, 17, and 18.
After having reestablished the main tenets of proper Christian Theology in our earlier chapters of his Epistle, we thus find in Chapter 14 that Paul complexly considers such acts as abstaining from meat to be unnecessary in God's mind in that theological truth and principle, but necessary for the confused "weak" individual who performs them if he is performing them for the right reason which is to fear and honor Jesus Christ despite said individual's confused and weak condition. This is concluded in verse 14 where Paul states both divine knowledge that no meat is unclean and also a customized responsibility to abstain for the weak person who lacks that knowledge, in his words written as "I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean." He repeats in verse 20, "For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence," and in 23, "he that doubteth is damned if he eat." Therefore to the strong man who is a Christian, Paul is saying for him to perform the purely Christian acts, which are to love God by way of the First Commandment and to love his neighbor according to the Second, and not to harm his daily walk by the usually very adulterous inclusion of Judaism-esque legalism per Romans 7. However to the weak man who is still a Christian because he has salvation-defining faith in Jesus Christ, Paul is saying that if there is some principally-worthless Judaistic action that he is performing out of an irrational fear that to not do so would offend Jesus Christ, then he better do it because God knows the heart and mind. If the weak man betrayed his conscience in this matter, he would be at fault while his conscience is in that state, although the optimal condition would be if he became a strong Christian who rather understood that the blood of Jesus Christ and the saving power of His New Covenant is not contingent on diet. Adherence to the legality-overflowing false religion of Judaism is generally the number one assertion in the world that one does not believe in Christianity, since our grace to salvation and simple love to happiness doctrine is the polar opposite of the typical Jew's approach to life. However if any accepts that Christian grace, then any act performed with a genuine intent to honor our common Savior, rather than to disgrace or diminish Him, has merit on the basis of intent. This in no way legitimizes the act in itself, or excuses those who are not Christians or are not performing such acts with Christian intent. Paul apparently thinks that if one were to eat dirt out of the persuasion that it would honor Jesus Christ, that the dirt to him would be as if holy sod. Of course, the majority of those who eat dirt are insane, and the majority of those who perform Jewish rituals do not have any faith in Christ at all. Paul certainly would not want any new imitators of either, but rather imitators of Christ and believers in the completeness of His New Covenant.
Yet as for dealing with the weak, Romans 14 Verse 13 should not be overlooked, which is, "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." Here he is obviously not telling a Christian to observe the Judaistic practices that he has said they should be dead to, but only telling them not to take a soul which has crossed over to Christianity and push it back to Judaism with arguments over morals smaller than the dividing line which is faith in Jesus Christ. However if one of these weak men asked Paul, would he deny that avoiding meat is worthless? One tends to think — based on his writings (yes even 1 Cor. 9), his life, his stand at the Council of Jerusalem, and his stand against Peter's backsliding — that Paul would respectfully and unflinchingly state the truth as he did in the earlier Romans Epistle before consistently but mercifully handling the exceptions in Romans 14. By God's foresight this dejudaizing Epistle has been made eternally available to anyone who doubts the truth, and does very much cast judgment repeatedly, including the judgments: that works do not contribute to salvation, that the Jewish Law is intertwined with sin, that we Christians are dead to the Jewish Law, and that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. That is Christianity as defined by Scripture although it must be admitted, as Paul does in Romans 14, that some who misprioritize the Law are simply confused. Yet they were, in our heretical times especially, most likely confused by those Judaizers who are not confused but are knowingly trying to invalidate or lessen the all-importance of Jesus Christ and His New Covenant, which does "replace" any other importances or covenants. "Replace" should only be used because there is not a single stronger and more exact English verb which means "God bringing to earthly fruition what has been his primary plan since time immemorial." Yet if someone truly accepts Christ via the New Covenant, we should not act in a way that effectively makes them lose faith in Jesus Christ entirely and therefore not be a Christian. By doing that we ourselves would be guilty of what in modern language might be termed "reverse legalism," which would be using an assertion of the truth about the Law's insignificance to make it effectively significant enough to take away another's faith in Christ which has the utmost significance. This is what Paul means by verse 22, "Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth." In our usual interactions with the non-exception world however, we should write volumes and shout worldwide about the anti-legalist and anti-Judaism nature of Christianity as Paul did better than anyone.
