Letters to the Churches

So about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one.

For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many so-called gods and lords),

yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we exist. And there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we exist.

But not everyone has this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that they eat such food as if it were sacrificed to an idol. And since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.

But food does not bring us closer to God: We are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

Be careful, however, that your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.

For if someone with a weak conscience sees you who are well informed eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged to eat food sacrificed to idols?

So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.

By sinning against your brothers in this way and wounding their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.

Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to stumble.

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you yourselves not my workmanship in the Lord?

Even if I am not an apostle to others, surely I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

This is my defense to those who scrutinize me:

Have we no right to food and to drink?

Have we no right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?

Or are Barnabas and I the only apostles who must work for a living?

Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Who tends a flock and does not drink of its milk?

Do I say this from a human perspective? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing?

For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned?

Isn’t He actually speaking on our behalf? Indeed, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they should also expect to share in the harvest.

If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much for us to reap a material harvest from you?

If others have this right to your support, shouldn’t we have it all the more? But we did not exercise this right. Instead, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.

Do you not know that those who work in the temple eat of its food, and those who serve at the altar partake of its offerings?

In the same way, the Lord has prescribed that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this to suggest that something be done for me. Indeed, I would rather die than let anyone nullify my boast.