Alright. While Romans 14 is talking to Christians about the correct attitudes they should have towards one another in their differences within the church body, do you believe that attitude should end at the door of the church and not apply to everyone in their own spiritual attitudes of their hearts to the world at large? Think about that for minute.
How is it spiritually wrong to judge your fellow Christian in your heart, but not spiritually wrong to judge others outside the church? Judging is judging. And like unforgiveness, it harms the one doing it primarily, regardless who the object of their unforgiveness, or attitudes of judgements are directed. Not doing those things, means it's unhealthy for yourself and for those you do it to, regardless of whether they are those you call your friends or not.
So, as I read Romans 14, I see it as a spiritual attitude everyone should take. Who are we to judge where someone is at in their relationship with God, or their spiritual path? For the same reasons we might not understand why someone thinks not eating pork is important to their faith, but we should recognize that they are sincere in their belief and are otherwise doing the will of God by "loving their neighbor as themselves", I think it more than wise to not pass judgments on others who themselves have different ideas about God, like that fellow Christian with his beliefs about certain holy days, or those who belong to other religions with their own different ideas about God just as well.
The bottom line is, it is not who has the right beliefs, but who has the true faith in their hearts. Who bears spiritual fruit? If they are bearing fruit, then who is it about to try to get them to change their ideas about God to match your own? Isn't that about the ego instead?
And then since they do have the fruits of the Spirit, then with your argument, you must acknowledge that they do in fact have the Spirit. Then we are in agreement. They cannot produce the fruits of the Spirit without the Spirit. And since they do produce the fruits, they have the Spirit within them.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
I'll repeat that again. Since they are in fact bearing fruit like this in other religions, this is evidence that they do in fact have the Spirit within them. "
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit," said Jesus
. If they are bringing forth good fruit, then they are a good tree. "You shall know them by their fruits". That's the focus. You don't judge a book by its cover. You judge it by the value of the content within its pages.
I always say their is a difference between spirituality and faith, and beliefs. The deeper one goes in faith, the more we see how beliefs divide, yet Love unites. Faith is about the heart. It's about Love.
Again, what do you understand that to mean when I say that creation is an expression or a manifestation of the Divine? The Divine is manifest
through creation. It is revealed and exposed through creation. "Through" is the word used in those verses I quoted, and it is how I understand that to be.
Let me give a simple analogy. You see letters on a page. The letters are lines and shapes that have certain unique forms that you learn to recognize and combine into patterns that convey meaning to you. Right? But those lines or forms only have existence or any reality at all, because they have the paper they are printed on, or the white space on your screen. Without that
formless backdrop, form would not exist let alone have any meaning. You cannot see black letters on a black background, can you?
God, or the Source, or the Ground of Being, is formlessness itself. In Christian parlance, the Logos is that mediating principle, that Thought, that Word, that Idea, that takes that Formless Source, and manifests it into form. All creation arises from or out of that Formless Source, or Godhead, or "The Father",
through that Logos, as the mediator between formlessness and form, into the material world of form. Or you could say letters on a page.
So when I say God is manifest through form, I mean just that. It's not that the letters, or the forms themselves are God as Godhead itself. But they are not separate from God, just as the letters on a page are not separate from the page they are written upon.
They are
inextricably united. The letters have no existence without the emptiness or formlessness of the page. And if one hopes to understand the nature of God, we have to see that God is much more than just letters on a page, or words in a holy book. Reality is both form and formlessness.
I more than easily see this within those passages I quoted for you. God is revealed through everything in Creation itself. All form arises from the Formless, though that mediator between formlenesses and form, that "Son" or the Logos", which is the Divine itself
manifesting, and mediating between "man and God", or formlessness and form.
Now interestingly enough, you find this same Christian understanding of the Divine, of creation within Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism as well. These are mystical realization about the nature of the Divine Reality, or God, upon which various teachings come from, such as the gospel of John.
Of course not all religious teachings lead into the Truth. Just look at the teachings of the Westboro Baptist church and the Phelps family as one glaring example of that! Clearly, no one religion has all the truth. Each has a piece of that Truth. As I say, God transcends religions.
And the Buddhists understand this as their Buddha nature, or Buddha mind. Christians call it Christ Consciousness. Hindus call it the Atman. It's different fingers all pointing to the same Realization.
I think it's an error to focus on someone's so-called "lifestyle". I can easily see that being what Paul was talking about in Romans 14, focusing on the superficial exterior differences as if that is what God actually cares about, which God really doesn't. I've known plenty of "perfect lifestyle" Christians who are as Jesus called others like that, as "whitewashed tombs, all clean and white on the outside but full of dead rotting bones inside."
I personally look to the heart of the person, not their dress, not their styles, not the language, not their religious symbols, not their religious identities. That I believe to be is how God see everyone, as "no respecter of persons". It's what's in the heart that is the Truth or not. "By their fruits you shall know them".
