Bible Verses About Expediency

I know — that is, I have been persuaded by the Lord Yeshua the Messiah — that nothing is unclean in itself. But if a person considers something unclean, then for him it is unclean;

and if your brother is being upset by the food you eat, your life is no longer one of love. Do not, by your eating habits, destroy someone for whom the Messiah died!

Do not let what you know to be good, be spoken of as bad;

for the Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, shalom and joy in the Ruach HaKodesh.

Anyone who serves the Messiah in this fashion both pleases God and wins the approval of other people.

So then, let us pursue the things that make for shalom and mutual upbuilding.

Don’t tear down God’s work for the sake of food. True enough, all things are clean; but it is wrong for anybody by his eating to cause someone to fall away.

What is good is not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.

The belief you hold about such things, keep between yourself and God. Happy the person who is free of self-condemnation when he approves of something!

Now food will not improve our relationship with God — we will be neither poorer if we abstain nor richer if we eat.

However watch out that your mastery of the situation does not become a stumbling block to the weak.

You have this “knowledge”; but suppose someone with a weak conscience sees you sitting, eating a meal in the temple of an idol. Won’t he be built up wrongly to eat this food which has been sacrificed to idols?

Thus by your “knowledge” this weak person is destroyed, this brother for whom the Messiah died;

and so, when you sin against the brothers by wounding their conscience when it is weak, you are sinning against the Messiah!

To sum up, if food will be a snare for my brother, I will never eat meat again, lest I cause my brother to sin.

For although I am a free man, not bound to do anyone’s bidding, I have made myself a slave to all in order to win as many people as possible.

That is, with Jews, what I did was put myself in the position of a Jew, in order to win Jews. With people in subjection to a legalistic perversion of the Torah, I put myself in the position of someone under such legalism, in order to win those under this legalism, even though I myself am not in subjection to a legalistic perversion of the Torah.

With those who live outside the framework of Torah, I put myself in the position of someone outside the Torah in order to win those outside the Torah — although I myself am not outside the framework of God’s Torah but within the framework of Torah as upheld by the Messiah.

With the “weak” I became “weak,” in order to win the “weak.” With all kinds of people I have become all kinds of things, so that in all kinds of circumstances I might save at least some of them.

But I do it all because of the rewards promised by the Good News, so that I may share in them along with the others who come to trust.

“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.