Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8

Peter has come down from the rooftop, and we have watched him explain his own vision. The animals in the sheet were a picture, and the meaning was people. Now we cross the sea to Rome and Corinth and open the letters of Paul.

Here is the claim in its strongest form. “Paul settled the matter in Romans 14. In plain English he wrote, ‘nothing is unclean in itself.’ He wrote, ‘all things are clean.’ He wrote, ‘the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking.’ And in 1 Corinthians he added, ‘food will not commend us to God.’ Paul, the apostle to the nations, told the nations that food no longer matters.”

All four sentences really are in Paul’s letters, so we will read each one. First, though, we ask what every careful reader asks of a letter: what was the writer answering?

The Question of Verse 2

Paul tells us at the start of the chapter.

Romans 14:1-3 Now receive the one who is weak in faith — not for diakrisis διάκρισις dee-ak'-ree-sis(discernment) of dialogismoi(reasoning, deliberations). One person believes he may eat all things, but the one who is weak eats only vegetables. The one who eats must not despise the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat must not krino κρίνω kree'-no(judge) the one who eats, for God has received him.

That is the dispute. On one side stands a believer who eats “all things,” and on the other a believer who eats lachana λάχανα lakh'-an-on, vegetables, and nothing else. Nobody in this verse is choosing between a pig and a sheep. The choice is between meat and no meat at all.

Why would a believer in Rome refuse all meat? It was not because the Torah forbids meat, for it does not: “This is the beast that you may eat: the ox, the lamb of the sheep, and the kid of the goats” (Deuteronomy 14:4). Romans 14 does not name his reason, but the most likely one is the city he lived in. In a Roman city, meat in the market might have been offered to an idol first, and a believer could not tell by looking at a cut of meat whether it had been on an altar. Unable to be sure, he ate only vegetables.

Picture a neighborhood dinner where you know that some of the dishes were cooked for a ceremony you will have no part in. The dishes all look the same. You could question the host about every pot in front of everyone, or you could quietly eat the salad you brought from home. The weak brother chose the salad. Paul does not mock him. He tells the strong not to despise him, and the weak not to judge the strong.

The Word Paul Chose

Now comes the verse on which the claim about food rests.

Romans 14:14 I know and am persuaded in the Lord Yeshua that nothing is koinos κοινός koy-nos'(common, worldly) in itself, except to the one who considers anything to be koinos(common, worldly) — to that person it is koinos(common, worldly).

These are Peter’s two words again: koinos, common, made common by contact, and akathartos ἀκάθαρτος ak-ath'-ar-tos, what the Torah itself calls unclean. On the rooftop the voice answered only koinos.

Count the words in Paul’s sentence. Koinos appears three times, and akathartos not once.

Nor does akathartos appear anywhere else in the chapter. Read Romans 14 from its first verse to its last, and the Torah’s word for unclean animals is in none of them. The Torah calls the pig unclean: “it is unclean to you” (Leviticus 11:7). It never calls the pig common. Paul is not discussing the pig. He is discussing meat that a weak conscience feared had been made common by an idol, and his answer is that nothing is koinos in itself.

“All Things Are Clean”

The second sentence comes near the end of the chapter.

Romans 14:19-21 So then let us pursue the things of eirene εἰρήνη i-ray'-nay(peace) and the things of building up one another. Do not for the sake of food tear down the work of God; all things are clean, but evil comes to the person who eats while causing stumbling. It is good not to eat meat nor to drink wine nor to do anything by which your brother skandalizo σκανδαλίζω skan-dal-id'-zo(stumbles) or is made to fall or is weakened.

“All things are clean” is panta kathara in Greek, and katharos καθαρός kath-ar-os' means clean. But all of what things? The sentence it sits in gives the answer: “Do not for the sake of food tear down the work of God.” The word for food is broma βρῶμα bro'-mah, the same word Yeshua used in Mark 7:19, and in the mouth of a Jewish apostle, broma is what Scripture calls food. The next verse then names the very things in dispute: “It is good not to eat meat nor to drink wine.” The word for meat is kreas κρέας kreh'-as, flesh.

The “all things” of verse 20, then, are the things in dispute in verses 2 and 21: meat and wine that the weak feared had touched an idol. They are clean. Yet what Paul asks of the strong is not that they eat more boldly, but that they be willing not to eat meat at all, for a brother’s sake.

Not Eating and Drinking

The third sentence comes a few verses earlier, in verse 17.

Romans 14:17 For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but dikaiosyne δικαιοσύνη dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay(righteousness) and eirene(peace) and joy in the hagio(holy) pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit).

The kingdom is not made of brosis kai posis, eating and drinking. It is made of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Paul says this to stop a quarrel, for the strong were tearing down the weak over meat and vegetables, as if the kingdom stood or fell on what was on a plate.

That is true, and it applies to both sides. No one enters the kingdom by eating vegetables, and no one enters it by eating meat. As this whole series has said from the first page, a sinner is made right with God by grace, through faith, and never by a diet. But “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking” does not say that what God called unclean is now clean. It says that righteousness and peace matter more than winning an argument at dinner.

Food Will Not Commend Us

The fourth sentence is in Paul’s first letter to Corinth, a city with the same problem. He names the subject in the first words of the chapter.

1 Corinthians 8:1 Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: we know that we all have gnosis γνῶσις gno'-sis(knowledge); gnosis(knowledge) puffs up, but agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay(love) builds up.

The Greek word behind “things sacrificed to idols” is eidolothyta εἰδωλόθυτα i-do-loth'-oo-ton, things offered to idols. That is the subject of 1 Corinthians 8, 9, and 10. Paul has already said “an idol is nothing in the world” (8:4), and then he turns to the brother whose conscience is still weak.

1 Corinthians 8:7-8 However not all have this gnosis(knowledge); but some, with syneidesis συνείδησις soon-i'-day-sis(conscience) of the idol until now, eat as if it were something sacrificed to an idol, and their syneidesis(conscience), being weak, is defiled. But food will not commend us to God; we are neither worse if we do not eat, nor better if we do eat.

Eating meat that may have passed an idol’s altar does not make you better, and refusing it does not make you worse. What is defiled in verse 7 is not anyone’s stomach but a weak syneidesis, a conscience. Paul then closes the chapter with a promise about the same meat.

1 Corinthians 8:13 Therefore, if food skandalizo(causes-to-stumble) my brother, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not skandalizo(cause-to-stumble) my brother.

The word for meat is kreas again. Paul was willing to give up all meat for the sake of one brother. He was not teaching Corinth to add new animals to the menu.

Four Sentences, One Question

Each sentence is true, and each answers the question Paul was asked. Not one of them is about the line God drew in Leviticus 11, and not one of them moves it.

Paul returns to idol meat two chapters later, however, and there he writes a sentence that sounds like an open door: “Eat anything that is sold in the meat market.”