Suppose that a Seventh Day Adventist came to take the Lord’s table, and he sat next to you. Would you be at peace sitting next to a “Sabbath keeper”? Would you have the same feeling if another brother was sitting next to you? Probably all of us would feel uneasy. But our feeling and attitude is against Paul’s teaching in Romans 14. In Romans 14, Paul tells us we have to receive the saints. Even if their faith is weak, we have to receive them because God has received them (vv. 1-3). Our receiving of the saints must be based upon God’s receiving. Whomever God receives, we have to receive. Also, we have to receive them in a willing way, and we have to love them with the same love with which we love others. We should not have different levels of love.

Let us suppose that we are meeting with ten saints and that two of them are Seventh Day Adventists, three of them are Pentecostal, and the others are somewhat general. We may feel good about the ones who are general but uneasy about the others. This shows that something sectarian exists within us. We should have mercy and receive grace and learn the lesson to embrace all the differences among the saints. Otherwise, sooner or later, we will have troubles, and we will miss the very unique and genuine oneness.

There may be talks among us that some are for this and others are for that. This is just like the Corinthians, who were saying, “I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ” (1 Cor. 1:12). Even the one who said that he was of Christ was divisive. He said this in the way of excluding other believers. In order to keep the proper oneness, we have to bury all these kinds of slogans. Some among us may have said, “He is for the new way,” or “He is for the old way.” These slogans the new way and the old way should be buried. We should not pick up these slogans. Let us bury and drop all these vain slogans. We have to embrace the differences, but we must try our best to avoid the differences.

All of us have certain peculiarities that make us different. But once we believe in Jesus and come into the church life, we come in as peculiar members. We may think that we are general and not peculiar, but actually we all have our own peculiarity. We must be delivered from our peculiar traits for the sake of the church life. If we do not know our peculiarity, that may be excusable. But as long as we are aware of it, we should receive grace to deal with our peculiarity. This saves us from trouble in the church life and helps the building up of the proper oneness in the church life.

Romans 14 is a very crucial chapter for the church life. We must remember that Romans 12 and Romans 14 go together. When we experience the truth in these two chapters, we can have the church life in the proper way. If we only had Romans 12 without Romans 14, the church life would be annulled. If we only had Romans 14 without Romans 12, the church life would be a formal church without reality. The reality is in Romans 12, but the practice is in Romans 14. We must practice Romans 14, and then we can have the reality in Romans 12. According to this point, Romans 14 is very, very crucial.

When I was a young believer and I met other Christians, I would ask them whether they had been sprinkled or immersed in their baptism. If they answered that they had been sprinkled, it was difficult for me to embrace them. If a Christian had been immersed, I was happy to embrace him because he and I were the same. We may be the same as other believers in a matter such as baptism, but if we stay together with them for a long period of time, other differences will arise. We have to be aware of things like this so that we can avoid division in any form. I have been learning this lesson of keeping oneness in love for many years, and I am still learning.

During the ten-day trainings that we have in the United States, many of the saints open up their homes to receive other saints who are attending the training. Many of the hosts and guests must admit that ten days together is the limit of their endurance. During the first four days of the training, everything may be wonderful. But by the ninth day of the training, the “wonderful” might be gone. The longer we stay together, the more the problems rise up.

When we first began the church life in our locality, everything was wonderful and it seemed easy to keep the oneness. But after remaining in this locality for a number of years, things can rise up within and among us to damage the oneness. What shall we do? We should not try to move out of our locality. Instead we must move our peculiarity out. If our peculiarity is not moved out of us, our problems will be repeated when we move to another locality. If we insist on keeping our peculiarity, we may be able to function in the church life for eight years. But if we want to be a member in the church life for fifty years, we need to remove many things out of our being. Then we can enter into the experience of both Romans 12 and Romans 14.
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