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.
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.
- BSB 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.
- 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.
- 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 8:11–12And through your knowledge, he who is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died.
- Gal 5:13For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.
- Phil 2:2–4make my joy full, by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind;
- 1 Cor 13:4–5Love is patient and is kind; love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud,
- Rom 14:20Don’t overthrow God’s work for food’s sake. All things indeed are clean, however it is evil for that man who creates a stumbling block by eating.
- Eph 5:2Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance.
- 1 Cor 8:1Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
- Rom 15:2Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, to be building him up.
- Ezek 13:22Because with lies you have grieved the heart of the righteous, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, and be saved alive.
- Rom 13:10Love doesn’t harm a neighbor. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.
- 1 Cor 13:1If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.
- 1 Jn 2:2And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.
- 2 Pet 2:1But false prophets also arose among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction.
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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.