If there is someone who is weak in the Faith,
receive him kindly and do no argue about his personal views. One man’s faith
may permit him to eat anything, while a man of weaker faith feels himself
limited to vegetables. Let not the one who eats anything despise the
vegetarian, and let not the abstainer criticize him who eats freely, for Elohim
has received him. Who are you to condemn someone else’s servant? It is before
his own master that he stands or falls. Why should he not succeed? For Elohei
is able to make him stand.
One man thinks that one day is greater than
another, while another esteems every day alike. Let each decide the matter in
his own mind. He who observes the day should observe it in Adonai’s honor. IT
is just so with regard to eating. Either one eats in Adonai’s honor and thanks
Elohim for the food; or one abstains from eating certain foods, also in Adonai’s
honor, and he too gives thanks to Elohim.
None of us lives to himself, and none dies to
himself. For when we live, we live to Adonai Yeshua – and when we die, we die
to Adonai Yeshua. That is, both when we live and when we die, we are His: that
is why Mashiach died and rose again on the 3rd day, that He might be
Lord over both the dead and the living.
Why, then, should you condemn your brother?
Or why should you despise your brother? For we shall all have to stand some day
before the judgment seat of Elohei. As to this, Scripture says, “As I live,” says Adonai, “Every knee shall
bend before Me and every tongue shall make confession to Elohim” (Isaiah 45:23). It is to Elohei
that each one of us must give an account of himself.
Let us, therefore, stop criticizing one
another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or a trap in the way
of a brother. I know, and am convinced in Adonai Yeshua, that nothing is
unclean in itself. Nevertheless, it is unclean to the man who thinks it is
unclean. If you grieve your brother because of meat, you do not walk according
to the ruleof love. Do not, by your use of food, bring ruin on one for whom
Mashiach died. Don’t let that which seems good to you become a subject of
reproach. Surely the Kingdom of Elohei is not a matter of what to eat and what
to drink, for it is justification and peace and joy in The Ruach. He who serves
Mashiach in these things finds favor with Elohim and is approved also by men.
We should, therefore, do the things that make
for peace and for strengthening one another. Don’t destroy the work of Elohei
for the sake of meat. Even though all things are clean, still it is wrong for a
man to make others fall because of what he eats. The right thing to do is not
to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor to do anything that makes your brother
stumble or that offends and weakens him. As to your faith, hold fast to it, as
before Elohim. Happy is the man who need not find fault with himself for what
he approves. But if he has misgivings, as in eating, he is condemned if he
eats, because it was not an act of faith. For everything that does not rest on
faith is sin.
