Christ as Master: Love Restrains Liberty

Paul's treatment of Christian liberty in Romans 14 rests upon a paradox that many find intolerable: my freedom may be legitimately restricted by my brother's scruples. The 'stronger' believer—he who correctly judges that eating meat offered to idols involves no moral guilt—must nonetheless abstain if his eating becomes a skandalon (stumbling-block) or proskamma (occasion to fall) in another's path. Maclaren isolates the revolutionary principle: this constraint does not make the scrupulous brother my master, nor does it attach undue importance to his narrowness.…