(7)For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.  (8) For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.  (9) For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

Romans was written by the Apostle Paul to the Christian community in Rome about 57 A.D.    In A.D. 49, the Emperior Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome because of disturbances at the “instigation of Chrestus” (Christ).   The Christian Gentiles remained as a relatively peaceful community until the death of Claudius in A.D. 54 when the Jews returned to Rome.  Tensions developed between the Christian Jews and the Christian Gentiles and in Chapter 14 of Romans, Paul addresses these differences out of concern for the full fellowship of the Church in Rome.

Chapter 14, verse 7 refers to the Christian’s use of food, his conduct and observance or nonobservance of days.   The Christian’s life belongs to his Lord.  The same holds true of his dying – he dies when the Lord wills and as the Lord wills.  Paul’s purpose is to disabuse believers of the destructive notions that one set of believers thought themselves to be more spiritual than others who were thought to be more of this physical world. 

A Christian lives his life for the Lord and the Lord is the judge of that life.  So, in life we live to please the Lord and dying we go to  be with the Lord.  Both in life and death we belong to the Lord.  This principle gives us an unerring guide for our conduct.  The Apostle Paul is saying there are questions that each Christian needs to settle and decide for himself.  Paul is not addressing matters about which there can be no controversy.  We are not our own and the duty of devotion and obedience are not founded on creation but on redemption.  We are Christ’s because he bought us with a price.