Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Parallel translations
- KJV Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
- BSB So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.
- NKJV Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
- NASB Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all things for the glory of God.
- NLT So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Whatever believers do, even eating and drinking, should be done for God's glory. God's glory is the governing aim of all of life.
Overview
Paul summarizes his entire discussion with a sweeping principle: every act, however ordinary, is to glorify God. This lifts mundane matters of food into the realm of worship and provides the ultimate criterion for using Christian liberty. Living for God's glory unites the believer's whole life under his lordship and reflects the chief end for which we are redeemed in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Col 3:17Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him.
- Col 3:23And whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord, and not for men,
- 1 Pet 4:11If anyone speaks, let it be as it were the very words of God. If anyone serves, let it be as of the strength which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
- Deut 12:7There you shall eat before Yahweh your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households, in which Yahweh your God has blessed you.
- Deut 12:18but you shall eat them before Yahweh your God in the place which Yahweh your God shall choose, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates. You shall rejoice before Yahweh your God in all that you put your hand to.
- Zech 7:5–6“Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me?
- Deut 12:12You shall rejoice before Yahweh your God, you, and your sons, your daughters, your male servants, your female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you.
- Luke 11:41But give for gifts to the needy those things which are within, and behold, all things will be clean to you.
- Neh 8:16–18So the people went out, and brought them, and made themselves temporary shelters, everyone on the roof of his house, in their courts, in the courts of God’s house, in the wide place of the water gate, and in the wide place of Ephraim’s gate.
- 1 Cor 7:34There is also a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world — how she may please her husband.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Christ crucified is the wisdom and power of God; he is our Passover sacrificed for us, the firstfruits of resurrection, the foundation on which everything is built.
How 1 Corinthians 10:31 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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