For one person has faith to eat all things, while another, who is weak, eats only vegetables.
Parallel translations
- WEB One man has faith to eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables.
- KJV For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.
- NKJV For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables.
- NASB One person has faith that he may eat all things, but the one who is weak eats only vegetables.
- NLT For instance, one person believes it’s all right to eat anything. But another believer with a sensitive conscience will eat only vegetables.
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
Some believers feel free to eat anything, while the weaker believer eats only vegetables out of conscience. Paul describes the difference without scorning either side.
Overview
The disagreement likely involved meat possibly tied to idols or to Jewish dietary scruples, leading some to abstain entirely. The 'strong' rightly understand their liberty in Christ; the 'weak' restrict themselves out of an uninstructed but sincere conscience. Paul frames this as a difference in maturity of conviction, not in standing before God. Both belong to the Lord who has received them.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- 1 Tim 4:4For every creation of God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected,
- Prov 15:17Better a dish of vegetables where there is love than a fattened ox with hatred.
- Rom 14:14I am convinced and fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean.
- Gal 2:12For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself, for fear of those in the circumcision group.
- Rom 14:22–23Keep your belief about such matters between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves.
- Gen 9:3Everything that lives and moves will be food for you; just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you all things.
- Titus 1:15To the pure, all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Indeed, both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
- 1 Cor 10:25Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience,
- Heb 13:9Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace and not by foods of no value to those devoted to them.
- Heb 9:10They consist only in food and drink and special washings—external regulations imposed until the time of reform.
- Dan 1:12“Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given only vegetables to eat and water to drink.
- Gen 1:29Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food.
- Dan 1:16So the steward continued to withhold their choice food and the wine they were to drink, and he gave them vegetables instead.
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 14:2 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.