Day 19 - March 11

Some of you may be wondering, “Why does Paul care so much about food?” And that is a fair question. In our reading for today, it seems like Paul is fixated on the issue of what to eat and when. If we look back to the Old Testament, the reason for this fixation becomes clear. Leviticus 11 outlines many dietary laws and these are the restrictions on food that were being observed by the Jews when Paul was teaching. The issue was that the church was growing and the new followers did not abide by these practices. Paul is attempting to create space for all, which is not an easy task.

Douglas Moo, a New Testament Scholar, says this, “What Paul wants the ‘strong’ to realize is that people differ in their ability to internalize truth. The fact that Christ’s coming brought an end to the absolute validity of the Mosaic law (cf. 6:14, 15; 7:4), and thus explicitly to the ritual provisions of that law, was standard early Christian teaching. And, at the intellectual level, the ‘weak’ Christians may themselves have understood this truth. But Paul wants the ‘strong’ in faith to recognize that people cannot always ‘existentially’ grasp such truth ― particularly when it runs so counter to a long and strongly held tradition basic to their own identity as God’s people.” Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans. New International Commentary of the New Testament