14
“Don’t Tear Down the Work of God over a Few Mere Bites of Food!”
1 Make sure that you welcome into your company, moreover, the person who is weak in faith, though not for the purpose of arguing over differences of opinion.
2 One person is confident that he is free to eat all foods. The weak person, however, feels free to eat nothing but vegetables.
3 The person who feels free to eat all foods must not regard the person who doesn’t with contempt. The person who doesn’t feel free to eat all foods, in turn, must not hold the person who does condemned, seeing that God has himself extended the person welcome.
4 Who are ˢyou to condemn a slave who doesn’t even belong to you? It is up to his own master to decide whether or not he is going astray. And he will be kept on the right path, because the Lord is able to keep him from going astray.
5 One person considers one day more sacred than other days, while another person considers all days the same. Each one must be fully convinced in his own mind.
6 If someone observes the day that he considers sacred, it is with a heart to serve and honor the Lord that he does so. Likewise, if someone decides to eat, it is with a heart to honor the Lord that he does so, since he gives thanks to God; and if someone decides not to eat, it is with a heart to serve and honor the Lord that he doesn’t, and he also gives thanks to God.
7 None of us for himself lives, you see, and none of us for himself dies. If we live, it is to serve and bring honor to the Lord that we live; and if we die, it is to serve and bring honor to the Lord that we die.
8 Whether we live or whether we die, therefore, the Lord is the one to whom we belong.
9 It was for this purpose, you see, that the Messiah died and came back to life: To be Master of indeed both the dead and the living.
10 But as for ˢyou, why are you condemning your brother or sister? Or ˢyou, why are you are looking with contempt on your brother?
11 All of us, you see, will appear before the judgment seat of God. For it is written:
“ ‘As surely as I live,’ vows the Lord,
‘before me will bow every knee;
every tongue will openly acknowledge that I alone am God.’ ”+
12 So then, each and every one of us will give an account of himself before God.
13 In light of these things, we must stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make this your judgment: To never place a stumbling block of temptation in front of your brother or sister, or a trap that might snare them in sin.
14 I am certain and fully convinced in union with the Lord Jesus that no food is ritually unclean in and of itself. Still, if someone else believes that a certain food is unclean and wrong to eat, for that person, eating it would require him to act against his conscience.
15 If, you see, because of your insistence on eating, your brother or sister is suffering harm, then you are no longer acting in love. Don’t allow the food you feel free to eat to become something that ushers someone to his disaster, a person for whom the Messiah died!
16 Make sure, therefore, that you don’t allow the gospel you’ve received to fall into disrepute.
17 The Kingdom of God is a matter not of food and drink, you see, but of righteousness and peace and joy through the Holy Spirit.
18 Indeed, if someone serves the Messiah in this way, he is acceptable to God and deemed worthy of respect in the eyes of men.
19 So then, it is the things that encourage peace that we should continually pursue, and the things that build one another up.
20 Don’t tear down the work of God over a few mere bites of food! Although all foods are clean, it is wrong for someone to eat if doing so means someone else’s downfall.
21 The right course is to refrain from eating meat, or drinking wine, or doing anything else that will cause your brother or sister to stumble in sin.
22 As for ˢyou and your own conviction on the matter, keep it to yourself as someone accountable to God. Blessed is the man who finds no fault with himself over his handling of something he judges to be acceptable.
23 The person who is wavering with doubts, though, if he eats, comes under God’s discipline and rebuke, because his action is in violation of the conviction of his conscience. Any action that goes against the conviction of one’s conscience, in other words, is sin.