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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Romans 14:13 - 14:13
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Let us not therefore judge one another any more: q.d. Seeing all must be judged by Christ, let us no more judge one another, but mend this fault for time to come.
But judge this rather: hitherto his counsel was more general, respecting both the strong and the weak. Here he begins, in a more particular manner, to apply himself to the more strong and knowing Christians; counselling them to take heed, lest, by the abuse of their Christian liberty, they should be an offence to them that were weak and more ignorant. He entereth upon this with an elegant transition, making use of the same word in a different sense; for he doth not speak contraries, when he says, judge not, but judge; for the word in the former part of the verse signifies, to condemn and censure; but here, in the following part, to deliberate or consider: q.d. Instead of judging others, let us look upon this as a rule for ourselves, and our own deportment, that we put no stumblingblock, &c.
That no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way: q.d. Take heed of offending your brethren in any kind; do not, by an unseasonable use of your liberty, either drive them from their Christian profession, or provoke them to imitate you, and so to sin against their consciences. You have a parallel text, 1Co_8:9. There he speaks only of a stumblingblock; here he adds an occasion of falling, or, as it is in the original, a scandal. Though these two words do differ in their etymologies, yet they have one and the same signification. The latter word, as Stephanus observes, is peculiar to Holy Scripture, and seldom, if ever, used in any common author: it signifieth, properly, the bridge in a trap, which, by its falling down, catcheth a creature in a snare, and so occasions its ruin; and from thence it is used to denote any thing which is an occasion to others of stumbling or falling; any thing whereby we so offend another, as that he is hindered from good, drawn into or confirmed in evil. Scandal, or offence, is either passive or active. Passive scandal is, when that which is good is, by reason of man’s corruption, an occasion of fillling to him. So Christ himself, and his doctrine, was a scandal to the Jews: see 1Co_1:23 1Pe_2:8. Active scandal is, when any thing is done or said which gives occasion of offence to others, when it is an occasion of grief, or of sin to them, Rom_14:15,21. This occasion may be administered, either by evil counsel, Mat_16:23 Rev_2:14; or by evil example, Isa_9:16 Mat_15:14; or by the abuse of Christian liberty in things indifferent, 1Co_8:9.