Food and Faith?

In Romans 14:23, We read a very interesting and important truth: "But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin."

Doubts about eating is sinful because it doesn't come faith?  Is this implying that some foods are doubtful?  Didn't the Lord give the apostle a vision in Acts 10:9ff, showing him all kinds of four-footed animals, birds and reptiles, telling him to not call them unclean?  Did he not set aside the Jewish dietary laws as he opened the way for Gentiles? 

As a matter of fact, yes. So, what is the deal with eating certain kinds of meat in Romans 14?  It wasn't certain kinds of meat, it was certain meat - meat that had been ceremoniously served up to idols and later sold in the market for consumption. Many believed that meat to be defiled and therefore sinful to consume. 

Paul's personal belief was that idols were nothing and meat sacrificed to them was not defiled.  However, if another man believed it defiled, for him it was and he could not eat it according to his faith and therefore, it was sin to him. 

That fact is why he warned so heavily against judging our brothers and sisters in Christ - there are individual components to faith that allows one person a freedom not allowed to another.  Just because something is a no or a must for you doesn't mean it is necessarily true for everyone else. 

This doesn't mean that right and wrong is alway and only determined by personal beliefs or feelings, but it does mean we have to leave room for the individual component in others. It also means, we cannot simply follow the crowd, so to speak, in our individual lives. Jus' Sayn.