Corpus-Paul

["Justin Dombrowski" <jedombrowski AT msn.com>]

> Tim wrote:
>
> > In other words, just because Abraham
> > was not weak in faith, that means
> > that "weak in faith" necessarily means
> > failure to believe in the resurrection?
> > It seems to me that is a rather
> > large assumption.
>
> Yet this is exactly what Paul's language implies. Why
> was Abraham "strong"? For believing in God's ability
> to give life to Sarah's dead womb (4:19-21).
> Christians are likewise strong for believing in
> Christ's resurrection (4:23-25). How could this be any
> clearer?

JD:  I'm with Tim here:  this is a real stretch, especially since in Rom 14 
those in question have "weak" faith, not "no faith."  The people under 
discussion in Rom 14 are different than Rom 9-11.

> > It seems much more natural to
> > recognize that Paul defines "weak"
> > in ch. 14 itself - the weakness is
> > characterized by believing one may
> > only eat vegetables, for example
> > (14.2).
>
> And yet this is exactly what Paul's language does
> **not** imply. If eating vegatables and abstaining
> from meat were "weak", why would Paul advise doing so,
> without reservation, in honor of God? The weak do
> these things, because they're Judeans, but their
> "Jewishness" itself isn't the weakness.

JD:  Paul doesn't "advise" people to continue the dietary habits because 
it's a good thing.  Rather, (a) he's addressing the strong, and (b) he 
advises them to permit to "weak" to continue to a point for their sake. 
It's a pastoral move--that's the "honoring God" part.

It seems much more likely that these are believing Jews a la Galatians under 
discussion here, not unbelieving ones.