If your brother is distressed by what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother, for whom Christ died.
Parallel translations
- WEB Yet if because of food your brother is grieved, you walk no longer in love. Don’t destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.
- KJV But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.
- NKJV Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died.
- NASB For if because of food your brother or sister is hurt, you are no longer walking in accordance with love. Do not destroy with your choice of food that person for whom Christ died.
- NLT And if another believer is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died.
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
If your eating grieves a brother, you are no longer walking in love; do not destroy by your food someone for whom Christ died. The cross sets the value of the brother above the exercise of liberty.
Overview
Paul confronts the strong with the weight of love. To wound a brother's conscience for the sake of food is to abandon the law of love. The decisive measure is the cross: Christ died for this person, so to harm him spiritually for so trivial a thing as diet is grotesque. Christ's self-giving love becomes the pattern and limit of how we use our freedom.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- 1 Cor 8:11–12So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.
- Gal 5:13For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love.
- Phil 2:2–4then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being united in spirit and purpose.
- 1 Cor 13:4–5Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
- Rom 14:20Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to let his eating be a stumbling block.
- Eph 5:2and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God.
- 1 Cor 8:1Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
- Rom 15:2Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.
- Ezek 13:22Because you have disheartened the righteous with your lies, even though I have caused them no grief, and because you have encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil ways to save their lives,
- Rom 13:10Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
- 1 Cor 13:1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.
- 1 Jn 2:2He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
- 2 Pet 2:1Now there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Paul unfolds the gospel in full: Christ our righteousness received by faith, the second Adam in whom many are made righteous, in whose death and resurrection we are buried and raised.
How Romans 14:15 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.