Romans Chapter 14

Cautiously Accepting Weak Brothers

            ¹ Accept people that are weak in faith, and don’t pass judgment on the way they think. ² One person believes he can eat anything, but a weak person just eats vegetables. ³ The one that eats must not look down on the one that doesn’t; the one that doesn’t eat must not criticize the one that does. ⁴ What right do you have to criticize somebody else’s household servant? He stands or falls to his own Lord. And, he will stand because the Lord can make him stand. ⁵ One person considers one day more important than another; another person considers every day alike. Each one should be fully confident in his own mind. ⁶ The one that observes a day observes it to the Lord; the one that eats, eats to the Lord because he thanks God. The one that doesn’t eat, doesn’t eat to the Lord, and thanks God. ⁷ None of us live to ourselves or die to ourselves. ⁸ If we live, we live to the Lord; if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we’re the Lord’s.  ⁹ That’s why Christ died and came to life so he could serve as Lord of the living and the dead. ¹⁰ And why criticize^sg your fellow Christians or look down on them? We’ll all stand at God’s judgment seat. ¹¹ The scripture says,

                        “‘As sure as I live,’ the LORD says,

‘every knee will bend to me;

                                    every tongue will acknowledge me’” [Is 49:18 + 45:23].

¹² So each one of us will give account of himself to God.                                              

Rom 14:1-12

¹³ Don’t criticize one another anymore. Determine^pl not to make your brother or sister stumble. ¹⁴ I’m convinced that no thing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean to someone that considers it unclean. ¹⁵ If you’re grieving your fellow Christian by what you’re eating, don’t destroy with food the one Christ died for. ¹⁶ Don’t let people slander your goodness. ¹⁷ God’s kingdom doesn’t have to do with what you eat or drink; it has to do with goodness, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit. ¹⁸ A person that serves Christ that way is acceptable to God and respectable to people. ¹⁹ So let’s follow what makes for peace and what helps one another. ²⁰ Don’t tear down God’s work by what you eat. Everything’s pure, but it’s not pure for people that feel like they’re offending God when they eat it. ²¹ It’s good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes someone stumble. ²² Exercise your faith in front of God according to your own convictions on such matters. People are fortunate that don’t condemn themselves by what they approve of. ²³ If they have doubts about what they’re eating, they stand condemned because they’re not doing it out of a good conscience. Anything that doesn’t arise from a good conscience is sin.

Rom 14:13-23