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Sometimes we as Christians like to base our moral beliefs on our opinions or cultural bias rather than God’s word. When each of us stands before God, we won’t have our friends, family, or neighbors there with us. We will be accountable for our own lives and not that of anyone else’s. Verses 10-12 makes it clear, You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: “ ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’ ” So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. In the end, we will all stand before God and our eternity will be based on our own merit and the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
Daily Devotion 
Dino, anyway you can link Stan’s devo up here? He knocks it out of the park on this subject. I would do grave disservice to try and summarize here.
I know in my life this is a consistant lesson I relearn everyday. With all the social media out there we are exposed to more options and situations that have the potential for judgment by anyone. Great reminder! One question; this chapter refers to food a lot but I’m confused about what it symbolizes. Sometimes it sounds like it is actually speaking of food or (food and wine) but multiple times it is I believe referring to something else.
Sorry. Correction. Opinions is what I meant to say. Not options.
The reference to food is based on two conflicts occurring at the same time. During almost the entire time Paul is writing and traveling there was an ongoing conflict between Jewish Christians and Greek/Romans over how ceremonially Jewish the gentiles needed to be to be saved, and those were based in two specific practices, keeping kosher law and circumcision. The Jews wanted everyone to practice kosher and had been so ingrained with keeping those laws for so long they couldn’t just recognize the freedom Christ gave them from keeping those rules.
The other conflict had to do with eating food that had been sacrificed to idols. The common practice was that most any meat you found in the market had initially been sacrificed to an idol. Those who had just recently believed but had come out of that polytheistic faith were dealing with the conflict that represented. But those, especially the Jews, who weren’t polytheistic prior to their belief knew that since the idols weren’t true gods and had no true powers except in the minds of the worshipers, there was nothing to be concerned about with any meat sacrificed to them.
We don’t have a good cultural analogy now, but it would be similar to the evangelical approach to dancing or drinking or playing cards a couple generations ago.
It’s funny how everything other thing makes me think of Bonhoeffer. When Hitler started WW2 Bonhoeffer specifically did not take a stance about whether German Christians should serve in the military (by volunteer or by draft) or be conscientious objectors because he knew that no matter which stance he took, a large number of his brothers would feel compelled to follow his example against their own conscience. He couldn’t bear the thought of the distress that would cause. Likewise he kept his involvement in the German resistance very secret not just because of the danger of letting people know, but for the same reason, because no everyone could freely make the decision to participate with a clear conscience.