I’m currently studying the book of Romans by copying the book by hand word for word. Today I am in chapter 14 and I’m dealing with the issues that Paul brings up here.

Beginning in vs 1, he begins to call out the different levels of faith believers’ have. He starts with pointing out that some eat meat, others are vegetarians. He then goes on to point out Holy days, which some observe and others do not.

Gentile Christians interpret Paul here to be referring to the commandments in the Torah. However, by looking at Acts 21, beginning in verse 14, we see that Paul was still a Torah observant throughout the rest of his life. This is noteworthy considering his conversion.

So, based on this fact, I have to conclude that Paul was not necessarily talking about Jews and Jewish practices, but more about converted Gentiles and their former pagan worship practices. We forget that Rome was a hotbed of pantheism, many different religions with all types of pagan practices.

All people got saved, they would leave these practices behind. Since people get saved at different times and mature at different “speeds”, there would (and can) be differences of opinion about what would be acceptable practices.

Paul deals with this by teaching that we should have grace with each other and not judge each other based on personal practices.