How often has the above chap­ter been used as proof text that the law (par­tic­u­larly the food laws) is abro­gated? Does it really teach that keep­ing the laws of God isn’t nec­es­sary? Well, if these laws are abro­gated, then one can be faith­ful, while dis­obey­ing the food laws. But does this pas­sage really teach that these laws are abro­gated? We must con­duct a care­ful inves­ti­ga­tion to find out.
When deal­ing with a pas­sage one should iden­tify the audi­ence and the cir­cum­stances in which it was writ­ten. With this in mind let me point out a few things here:

Rom 14:1 As for the man who is weak in faith, wel­come him, but not for dis­putes over opinions.

So who is the per­son in ques­tion? The answer will greatly help us to under­stand the pas­sage. Look at the terms weak in faith and wel­come him.
These terms cry out that a new con­vert is in ques­tion. Com­men­taries often apply the first term to Chris­tians who doubt God or who strug­gle with sin, but such a notion is not really a bib­li­cal idea. A sin­ning Chris­t­ian is not “weak in faith”, but a sin­ner who needs repen­tance. Such a per­son has no faith, for faith is related to faith­ful­ness, not to head knowl­edge. On the other hand a doubt­ful Chris­t­ian is a new con­vert who is not yet prop­erly taught the Scrip­tures. A mature believer can­not be referred to as “weak in faith”. One exam­ple is Abra­ham, who walked with God and believed him against reason.

Rom 4:19 He did not weaken in faith when he con­sid­ered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hun­dred years old, or when he con­sid­ered the bar­ren­ness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No dis­trust made him waver con­cern­ing the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully con­vinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

The sec­ond term I called your atten­tion to is “wel­come him”. This means these new con­verts were com­ing into the con­gre­ga­tion. Ergo, they were not part of the con­gre­ga­tion — another proof that a new con­vert is in question.

Now let us read on:

Rom 14:2 One believes he may eat any­thing, while the weak man eats only veg­eta­bles. 3 Let not him who eats despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains pass judg­ment on him who eats; for God has wel­comed him.

So far there is noth­ing here about the law, for the law doesn’t com­mand or for­bid eat­ing veg­eta­bles. There­fore, the argu­ment is about per­sonal con­vic­tion, not about the con­tent of the law. We notice that “God has wel­comed” this per­son, that is, he is indeed a new con­vert.

Now let us skip ahead to v. 5:

Rom 14:5 One man esteems one day as bet­ter than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully con­vinced in his own mind. 6 He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

Now this must really be talk­ing about the law! Not nec­es­sar­ily at all. The Pagan world had its own spe­cial days. It is the new con­vert who wants to con­sume only veg­eta­bles and wants to keep cer­tain spe­cial days. Why? Because he doesn’t know any bet­ter and needs edu­ca­tion to learn the ways of God.

Per­haps a good exam­ple would be a new con­vert argu­ing that Chris­tians should cel­e­brate the Mel­bourne Cup. Well, it is a Pagan thing, in itself it is noth­ing unless you are will­ing to risk the fam­ily savings.

Rom 14:13 Then let us no more pass judg­ment on one another, but rather decide never to put a stum­bling block or hin­drance in the way of a brother. 14 I know and am per­suaded in the Lord Jesus that noth­ing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for any one who thinks it unclean.

Does Paul talk about the food laws? Sounds like it, isn’t it? Well, let me refer back to the begin­ning of the chap­ter. What is the quest there? The new con­vert thinks that only veg­eta­bles shall be eaten, so it is him that con­sid­ers meat unclean. Paul doesn’t talk about the dietary laws here. In the law cer­tain ani­mals were declared unclean, not nec­es­sar­ily because they were not fit for human con­sump­tion. Unclean means unclean for no other rea­son but because the law says it, not that it is poi­so­nous or pol­luted. For exam­ple Jews don’t under­stand why they can­not eat pork. There is noth­ing wrong with pork, but it is declared unclean in the law.

There­fore, the pas­sage is about how to deal with new con­verts who come into the con­gre­ga­tion with cer­tain ideas, and not whether the law is abro­gated or not.