It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything to cause your brother to stumble.It is good to not eat meat, drink wine, nor do anything by which your brother stumbles, is offended, or is made weak.It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything whereby thy brother stumbleth.
3 sermons cite this verse
… You don't want to do anything that's a stumbling block to another brother. But Romans 14, verse 21 says this, it is good not to eat meat or to drink wine or to do anything by which your brother stumbles. You have the scenario, somebody is saved out of paganism where he was in debauched life constantly, he comes to Christ. You don't want to say to him, oh, by the way, now that you're in Christ, you're free to drink He's going to see that as an unholy freedom. And if you tell Him that He's free to do that, you're going to lead Him into a terrible stumbling. Influence and example is the issue here. Parents, your kids are watching. You drink in moderation, and the kids go to college and get drunk and binge drink. Fifty percent of the people in America drink, twenty-five percent of them are binge-drinking kids. You say it's okay, that you maybe have the maturity to deal with it without ever becoming inebriated. …
dear ones, you have just heard a recitation not of the opinions of an ancient Jewish scholar, but nothing less than the Word of God Himself, which is given to us to reveal to us His character and what He requires of us, and He has by His eternal right as God the right to bind our consciences to obedience to His Word. Let it be so with us. Please be seated. Let us pray. Again, our Father, as we examine this section of the epistle by which the Apostle expounds on what it means concretely to love our neighbor, then the love that is to be manifest between both weak and strong in your body, the church, We pray that we may understand these things and be convicted of the truth of them. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. It's a short passage that I've just read, which Paul continues his instruction that we examined last week about how the stronger brother is to respond to the weaker brethren in the church on matters that are adiophorous, that is, that are matters that in and of themselves do not have ethical bearing. We are not to be longsuffering with gross and heinous evil or disobedience to those laws that God pronounces, but in those areas where God has left us free, we are to be patient one with another with respect to private and individual scruples. Now, Paul continues this instruction in verse 14 where he says, first of all, I know and I am convinced by the Lord …
6. Seeing we are to pray we may not be led into temptation, certainly we ought not to run ourselves into it.—This is one request that Christ directs us to make to God in that form of prayer, which he taught his disciples—“Lead us not into temptation. ” And how inconsistent shall we be with ourselves, if we pray to God, that we should not be led into temptation; and at the same time, we are not careful to avoid temptation; but bring ourselves into it, by doing those things that lead and expose to sin. What self-contradiction is it, for a man to pray to God that he may be kept from that, which he takes no care to avoid! By praying that we may be kept from temptation, we profess to God that being in temptation is a thing to be avoided; but by running into it we show that we choose the contrary, viz. not to avoid it. 7. The apostle directs us to avoid those things that are in themselves lawful, but tend to lead others into sin; surely then we should avoid what tends to lead ourselves into sin.—The apostle directs, 1 Cor. viii. 9. “Take heed lest—this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak.” Rom. xiv. 13. “That no man put a stumbling-block, or an occasion to fall, in his brother’s way.” Ver. 15. “But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat.” Ver. 20, 21. “For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.”—Now if this rule of the apostle be agreeable to the word of Christ, as we must suppose, or expunge what he says out of the canon of the Scripture; then a like rule obliges more strongly in those things that tend to lead ourselves into sin. …