(Tap footnote to read it. Old Testament quotations are underlined. "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.1"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love". However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior. It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings. (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".) Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé". Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing. It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )
The weaker brother
- Now, welcome the man who is weak in faith, but not to pass judgement on his reasonings.
- Indeed, a man who believes is able to eat all things; but the man who is weak eats only vegetables.
- Let the man who eats not disdain the man who doesn’t eat; and let the man who doesn’t eat not judge the man who does eat, for God welcomed him.
- Who are you to judge the household servant of another? He stands or falls to his own master, but he will stand; for the Lord is able to make him stand.
- For indeed, one esteems a day above another day, but another esteems every day evenly. Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind.
- The man who observes the day, observes it to the Lord. [And the man who doesn’t observe the day, doesn’t observe it to the Lord.] The man who eats, eats to the Lord for he thanks God. And the man who doesn’t eat, doesn’t eat to the Lord and he thanks God.
- For none of us lives for himself and none dies for himself.
- For both if we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, both if we live and if we die, we are the Lord’s.
- For the Anointed died and lived again for this: so He might rule over both the dead and the living.
- But you, why do you judge your brother? Or also, why do you disdain your brother? For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God.
- For it is *written: “As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to Me, and every tongue will confess to God.”1quotation/allusion to Isaiah 45:23
- So then, each of us will give an account concerning himself to God.
- Therefore, we should no longer judge one another, but rather resolve this: not to put a stumbling block or bait that ensnares2“bait that ensnares” is a single word in the Greek. It specifically refers to a “bait stick”, meaning the trigger stick of a trap or snare to which the bait is attached. Think of the part of a mouse trap to which you affix the cheese. On reaching for the bait, the “bait stick” triggers the trap and ensnares the unsuspecting victim. It can also refer to offending someone or to someone stumbling. before your brother.
- I have known and have been convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean because of itself, except to the man who considers something to be unclean; to that man, it’s unclean.
- For if your brother is grieved because of food, you no longer walk according to ^love. Don’t utterly ruin with your food that man for whose sake the Anointed died.
- Therefore, don’t let your good be slandered as evil.
- For the kingdom of God isn’t eating and drinking, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
- For the man who serves the Anointed in these things is pleasing to God and approved by men.
- So then, we should pursue the things of peace, and the things for building up into one another.
- Don’t demolish3“demolish” this Greek word is often translated “destroy” here. It can refer to the tearing down of a buildings, though it has many other nuances of meaning depending on the context. the work of God for the sake of food. All things are indeed clean, but they are evil to the man who eats because of bait that ensnares.4“bait that ensnares” see note on verse 13.
- It’s good neither to eat meat, nor to drink wine, nor anything by which your brother stumbles, or is ensnared, or is weak.
- The faith that you have, have it in yourself in the sight of God. Blessed is the man who doesn’t condemn himself in what he approves.
- But if the man who doubts eats, he has condemned himself because it’s not from faith, and everything that’s not from faith is sin.
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