Letters to the Churches

Therefore, my dear friends, run from idolatry!

I speak to you as sensible people; judge for yourselves what I am saying.

The “cup of blessing” over which we make the b’rakhah — isn’t it a sharing in the bloody sacrificial death of the Messiah? The bread we break, isn’t it a sharing in the body of the Messiah?

Because there is one loaf of bread, we who are many constitute one body, since we all partake of the one loaf of bread.

Look at physical Isra’el: don’t those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?

So, what am I saying? That food sacrificed to idols has any significance in itself? or that an idol has significance in itself?

No, what I am saying is that the things which pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice not to God but to demons; and I don’t want you to become sharers of the demons!

You can’t drink both a cup of the Lord and a cup of demons, you can’t partake in both a meal of the Lord and a meal of demons.

Or are we trying to make the Lord jealous? We aren’t stronger than he is, are we?

“Everything is permitted,” you say? Maybe, but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permitted?” Maybe, but not everything is edifying.

No one should be looking out for his own interests, but for those of his fellow.

Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience,

for the earth and everything in it belong to the Lord.

If some unbeliever invites you to a meal, and you want to go, eat whatever is put in front of you without raising questions of conscience.

But if someone says to you, “This meat was offered as a sacrifice,” then don’t eat it, out of consideration for the person who pointed it out and also for conscience’s sake —

however, I don’t mean your conscience but that of the other person. You say, “Why should my freedom be determined by someone else’s conscience?

If I participate with thankfulness, why am I criticized over something for which I myself bless God?”

Well, whatever you do, whether it’s eating or drinking or anything else, do it all so as to bring glory to God.

Do not be an obstacle to anyone — not to Jews, not to Gentiles, and not to God’s Messianic Community.

Just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not looking out for my own interests but for those of the many, so that they may be saved;

try to imitate me, even as I myself try to imitate the Messiah.

Now I praise you because you have remembered everything I told you and observe the traditions just the way I passed them on to you.

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is the Messiah, and the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of the Messiah is God.

Every man who prays or prophesies wearing something down over his head brings shame to his head,

but every woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame to her head — there is no difference between her and a woman who has had her head shaved.