In fact and appearance

“Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak. Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.” (Romans 14:20-22)

In the verses above Paul tells us that the law does not apply anymore because we are saved by Grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

However, we also should not do anything that would cause another to stumble. As an example, I had a Baptist preacher tell me one time that he could go sit down and drink a beer and still be just as saved. But the problem could exist that if someone would see the preacher drinking one beer they might assume that makes it “ok” for them to go and guzzle a twelve pack.

I have been considering these verses today and I must admit that I tend to apply them to more than just actions that are blatant such as smoking a cigarette or drinking a beer and so forth.

Stick with me for a minute here and I will get to the point.

In my professional career I work as a certified public accountant. CPA’s have certain rules of ethics we have to abide by or the licensing board can reprimand you. One of these rules deals with staying fair and objective when performing a financial statement audit. Industry lingo says you must be “independent” of the organization you are performing an audit for. Basically, independence requires that you have no direct financial stake in the company you are auditing, you don’t audit the company where your spouse works if they could influence the financial data in any way and obvious things along those lines. You do not want a situation where a CPA is stating a company’s financial records are in order if they have a large financial investment in the company. Risk of personal financial loss does tend to cloud one’s objectivity.

The ethics rules also have a stipulation that an auditor must be independent in “fact and appearance”.

What this means is the obvious that you must be independent to issue an audit report. However, in addition you must not have any circumstances that would make it even appear that you may have impaired judgment or independence. Basically, any circumstances or relationships that might make someone question your honesty in auditing the company are a no-no.

I wonder how often we consider this in relation to Paul’s admonishment that we should not cause another to stumble?

What if we were not actually doing anything wrong but our actions could make it appear as though we might be? If you have ever been around an office you probably know how one poor choice can start a rumor and those types of rumors have the ability to really grow legs and take off running.

For example, what if you have never acted in an inappropriate manner with a co-worker of the opposite sex. However, if you seem a little “too friendly” with one particular co-worker and buy them gifts, taking them to lunch all the time and so forth it is possible others could well mistakenly assume there is more than “just friends” to your relationship.

Now if someone is suspicious of this relationship it may be possible that you could destroy your witness. I would suggest you are guilty of being clueless but giving off the wrong impression even at times can destroy your witness and make some believe you are an infidel and a hypocrite.

What about the dad that no longer goes out to wild parties but likes to get together with old friends and tell “war stories” so to speak. Are you not sending a message to the kids that those were the “good old days” and basically condoning that type of behavior when in reality you have long since repented of acting that way?

I personally feel that we should always watch our actions exactly like Paul admonished us so we don’t cause one to stumble. However, I believe we should watch not only our actions but also watch closely for anything that might even appear to some to be improper or to condone something improper.