Romans 14:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

By the name "good" the Apostle here means either faith, or hope for future blessings, or perfect piety. You not only fail to help your brother, says the Apostle, but you cause the very teaching, God's grace, and the gift to be blasphemed. Whenever you argue, persist obstinately, grieve, tear the Church apart, reproach your brother, and treat him with hostility, then those outside blaspheme. Thus nothing is corrected, and the complete opposite occurs. Your good consists in love, brotherhood, unity, concord, and a peaceful and meek life.

That is, you have perfection in faith, for he called it "good." Therefore do not misuse your perfection, and do not give occasion for it to be blasphemed. If you, being perfect, destroy the imperfect man, you have given occasion to blaspheme the good that you possess. But you understand that our teaching too is good, and that it does not wish to be exposed to blasphemy from unbelievers when they see divisions and scandals concerning food.

Let the greatness of those who enjoy good repute not despise the weak. And let not your good, that is, your faith worthy of admiration, be blasphemed by anyone. For progress in a life pleasing to God is not attained through food. The one worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven as a worshiper of God is not the man who eats indifferently what is set before him. Rather, it is the man who condescends to the weakness of infirm brethren and abstains. For if he reproved Peter for living as a Jew because of those who came to Antioch from James, it was not because Peter condescended to the weakness of those who were of the circumcision and abstained from food.

He says, let the very good that you do not be blasphemed. In Greek, "Let not your good be blasphemed," as also in other witnesses.

This means that the teaching of the Lord, since it is good and saving, must not be blasphemed through frivolity. Yet it is blasphemed when people doubt God's creation.

Again he joins accusation with praise, for he calls faith good. I praise the faith of that man, says the Apostle, but I do not wish it to become a cause of harm and blasphemy.

Some, boasting of their freedom and making use of the absence of Church regulations concerning fasting, ate everything. They even ate what others considered forbidden and unclean, and by this they repelled them from themselves and even from the Church. The Apostle instructs such people not to grieve their brethren (v. 15), not to give occasion for their faith to be blasphemed (v. 16), not to destroy the work of God, that is, the unity of the Church (v. 20), not to eat to the scandal of others (ibid.), and not to scandalize the brethren (v. 21). In all this there is a direct rebuke of the Stundists. It is all the more severe because the fasts they reject and openly violate are now not a remnant of Judaism, but an age-old institution of the Church of God.

Third, in order to remove griefs and scandal for weak brethren, love requires that in matters morally indifferent one should rather adapt oneself to their views than proudly insist on one's own (Rom 14:13-21). "Let us no longer judge one another. Rather judge this, that no one put a stumbling block or cause of offense in his brother's way. If your brother is grieved because of food, you are no longer walking in love. For the kingdom of God is not food and drink," that is, it is acquired independently of what a man eats or drinks, "but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine, nor to do anything by which your brother stumbles, or is offended, or is made weak."

Entering into the question of the worth of various foods, the Apostle Paul says, on the basis of the Lord's teaching, that in essence nothing is unclean. "Not what enters the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth," says Jesus Christ (Mt 15:11). Yet everything can be unclean, that is, sinful, if the eating is done with sinful thoughts. Thus, because of differences in food, there must be no division and no cessation of the feeling of love toward one's neighbor, for whom Jesus Christ suffered. If food becomes a matter of quarrel and discord, then those who do not know the essence of Christianity may form a low opinion of Christianity itself. In this way it will not be exalted, but humbled.

Whose is "yours"? It belongs to those who did not bind themselves by any prejudices concerning foods. What is "the good"? This very freedom from prejudices, and the power of faith that raised them to such freedom. "He joins accusation with praise. I praise, the Apostle says, the faith of that man who is free from prejudices, but I do not wish it to become a cause of harm and blasphemy" (blessed Theodoret). "Let it not be blasphemed." He has in view not others, but this very man who feels himself free from prejudices. Do not allow yourself to use this freedom in such a way that it degrades freedom and subjects it to condemnation. For if by your freedom you offend one man and scandalize another, are you not justly subject to blame for your lack of understanding?