A Brother Is Not a Dietary Problem

“Receive” is proslambano, to take someone to oneself as a guest, the verb Luke uses of the islanders of Malta who kindled a fire and “received us every one” (Acts 28:2). The chapter’s argument runs out to 15:7, “receive ye one another, as Christ also received us”. The Greek has the article: weak in “the faith”, in the confidence that frees one to eat.

“Herbs” is lachana, garden vegetables. Daniel and his friends asked for pulse rather than the king’s food (Daniel 1:12), and Josephus (Life 3) tells of priests held in Rome who lived on figs and nuts to avoid defilement. Such cases show why a believer might keep to vegetables; Romans itself gives no reason.

“Despise” is exoutheneo, to count as nothing, the verb Luke 18:9 uses of those who “trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others”. Here it is the confident eater who is tempted to look down. The verb “hath received” repeats verse 1: the church is to do what God has already done.

“Servant” is oiketes, a household slave, one of the domestic staff. In a Roman house a guest who disciplined someone else’s slave overstepped badly; only the master had that right. The standing and falling then turn from verdict to support: God “is able to make him stand”.

“Esteemeth” is krino, the same verb translated “judge” in verses 3, 4 and 10, so one man judges one day above another. “Fully persuaded” is plerophoreo, to be carried to fullness, the word used of Abraham in 4:21, “being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.”

The middle clause, “he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it”, is missing from the oldest manuscripts. “Giveth thanks” is eucharisteo, from which “Eucharist” comes. At a Jewish table a blessing was said over bread, and Paul assumes that eater and abstainer both say grace.

Often quoted as a saying about everyone’s influence on everyone else, the line means something narrower in context. “To himself” is a dative of ownership: nobody’s life or death is his own property. The next verse supplies the owner.

“Unto the Lord” comes three times and “the Lord’s” closes the verse, a possessive like an owner’s mark. Paul says the same in 1 Corinthians 6:19–20: “ye are not your own... ye are bought with a price.” Living and dying, the two poles of existence, fall under one title of possession.

The King James follows later copies with three verbs, “died, and rose, and revived”. The oldest manuscripts read two: he “died and lived”. The order “dead and living” follows the order of the verbs, death first, so that Christ’s lordship covers the dead as well as those still living.

“Set at nought” is exoutheneo again, the “despise” of verse 3; the King James varies the English. The judgment seat, bema, was a raised stone platform; Paul had stood before Gallio’s in Corinth (Acts 18:12), where he wrote this letter. Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and other early copies have “of God” where the King James has “of Christ”.

Isaiah 45:23 opens “I have sworn by myself”; Paul substitutes the oath formula “As I live”, a phrase God uses often in the prophets (Isaiah 49:18). Philippians 2:10–11 applies the same line of Isaiah to Jesus, “every knee should bow”.

“Give account” is an accounting phrase, to render a reckoning, the phrase of the steward in Luke 16:2, “give an account of thy stewardship”. The account is “of himself”, not of his brother: each person answers for his own ledger.

Two nouns for two hazards. The “stumblingblock” is proskomma, the stone one strikes a foot against, as in 9:32; the “occasion to fall” is skandalon, originally the trigger stick of a trap. Leviticus 19:14 already forbade putting a stumblingblock before the blind.

“Unclean” is koinos, literally common, the technical word for food not ritually fit. Peter protests in Acts 10:14, “I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.” Paul says he is persuaded “in the Lord Jesus”, as though his conviction had a source, not only an argument.

“Grieved” is lypeo, to cause pain, more than to irritate. “Charitably” is kata agapen, according to love; “charity” comes through the Latin caritas. Paul makes the same point in 1 Corinthians 8:11: “through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?”

“Evil spoken of” is blasphemeo, the verb behind “blaspheme”. “Your good” may be the freedom of the strong, or the gospel as a whole, and either could earn a bad name if a dinner turned into a scandal. The verse is short and ends with a colon; the reason follows.

“Meat and drink” are brosis and posis, the acts of eating and drinking, not the food and wine. The kingdom of God is rare in Paul’s letters, and 1 Corinthians 4:20 has the same “not... but” shape: “the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.”

“Serveth” is douleuo, to serve as a slave, keeping up the household picture of verse 4. “Approved” is dokimos, tested and found genuine, the adjective of the testing verb in 12:2. Proverbs 3:4, quoted loosely in 12:17, also joins favour with God and with people.

“Follow after” is dioko once more, the pursuit word of 9:30 and 12:13. “Edify” is oikodome, literally house building, from oikos, a house. The image carries into the next verse, where the opposite of building is spelled out.

“Destroy” is now katalyo, to pull down a building, the word of the charge that Jesus would “destroy this temple” (Mark 14:58). The brother is God’s construction, “the work of God”. “With offence” can mean eating that trips another, or eating that trips one’s own conscience.

“Flesh” is krea, meat, which the New Testament uses only here and in 1 Corinthians 8:13, “I will eat no flesh while the world standeth.” Meat and wine were the two things Daniel refused from the king’s table (Daniel 1:8). The three verbs of harm run from a single stumble to lasting weakness.

“Happy” is makarios, the “Blessed” of the Beatitudes. “Alloweth” is dokimazo, to approve after testing. The picture is of someone who has weighed a practice, approved it, and does it without a private voice of self-condemnation afterwards.

“Doubteth” is diakrino, to be divided in one’s judgment, the verb of 4:20, where Abraham “staggered not”. Here a staggering eater is in view. Many later manuscripts place the closing doxology of 16:25–27 right after this verse, a sign that the letter circulated in shorter forms.