Romans 14:14-16 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I know By the light of reason; and am persuaded Or assured; by the Lord Jesus Probably by a particular revelation from him; that there is nothing No kind of meat; unclean of itself Or unlawful under the gospel. But to him that esteemeth any thing unclean That in his conscience accounts it to be so; it is unclean How indifferent soever it is in itself: and he will contract guilt before God, by allowing himself in it, whether it be to indulge his own taste, or to engage the favour of others, while he hath this inward apprehension of its being unlawful. The reader must observe here, that things clean in themselves, that is, things naturally fit for food, might be made unclean by the positive command of God, as many sorts of food were to the Jews. To such of them as believed that command to be still in force, these kinds of food were really unclean, and could not be eaten without sin. But if thy brother Thy weak fellow- Christian; be grieved And thereby cast down, or prejudiced against the Christian society, of which thou art a member; with thy meat By thine eating that kind of meat, which he judges unlawful to be eaten; or if he be prevailed on by thy example to do that, the lawfulness of which he questions, and thereby his conscience be wounded; now walkest thou not charitably Tenderly and condescendingly to his infirmity, as charity requires. Destroy not him with thy meat Be not thou an occasion of sin, condemnation, and wrath to him through thy meat, thy rash and unkind use of such meat as he thinks prohibited; for whom Christ died Not only submitted to smaller instances of self-denial, but endured all the agonies of crucifixion: do not value thy meat more than Christ valued his life. Here we see that a person, for whom Christ died, may be destroyed; a sure proof that Christ died for all, even for those that perish everlastingly. Let not then your goods Your Christian liberty, a good which belongs to you; be evil spoken of Be blamed for being the occasion of so much mischief to your fellow-creatures and fellow-Christians.