Tuesday, December 23, 2008

E.3 Consequences - judgment reprise

14 [E.3 Judgment again]

1: As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome such, but not for disputes over opinions.
2: One believes that a person may eat anything, while the weak eats only vegetables.
3: Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains,
and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats; for God has welcomed each.
4: Who are you to pass judgment on the servants of another?
It is before their own master that each one stands or falls.
And they will be upheld, for the Master is able to make each one stand.
5: One person esteems one day as better than another, while another human esteems all days alike.
Let each individual mind be fully convinced.
6: One who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord.
One also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since that one gives thanks to God;
while one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
7: None of us lives to self, and none of us dies to self.
8: If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord;
so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
9: For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
10: Why do you pass judgment on your brother?
Or you, why do you despise your brother?
For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God;
11: for it is written,
"As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God."
12: So each of us shall give account of himself to God.
13: Then let us no more pass judgment on one another,
but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.
14: I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself;
but it is unclean for any one who thinks it unclean.
15: If your brother is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.
Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died.
16: So do not let your good be spoken of as evil.
17: For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit;
18: he who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by humanity.
19: Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.
20: Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.
Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for any one to make others fall by what someone eats;
21: it is right not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother stumble.
22: The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God;
happy is the one who has no reason to judge self for what one approves.
23: But the one who has doubts is condemned, if he eats, because one does not act from faith;
for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

This series on Romans begins here

No comments: