Romans 14:19-21 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Let us therefore In consistency with these certain and momentous truths; follow after the things which make for peace Which tend to procure, preserve, and promote peace among the faithful; and things wherewith one may edify another, may build him up in faith and holiness. Observe, reader, peace and edification are closely connected: practical divinity tends equally to peace and edification. Controversial divinity less directly tends to edification, although sometimes we, as they of old, Nehemiah 4:17, cannot build without it. For meat For so small a matter as the eating a little meat; or, for the use of any indifferent thing, destroy not the work of God That work which he builds in the soul by faith, and in the church by concord: do nothing toward destroying it. All things indeed are pure All meats are, in themselves, lawful; but it, the eating what a person thinks to be prohibited, is evil, sinful, and hurtful, to that man who eateth with offence So as to offend another thereby, or contrary to the dictates of his own conscience, and insnaring to the consciences of others, And in this view I may affirm, It is good, pleasing to God, and profitable for edification, and therefore every Christian's duty, neither to eat flesh, &c. Not only to abstain from what is forbidden in the law of Moses, but from every other thing which gives offence; whereby thy brother stumbleth By imitating thee against his conscience, contrary to righteousness; or is offended at what thou dost to the loss of his peace; or is made weak, hesitating between imitation and abhorrence, to the loss of that joy in the Lord, which was his strength. Macknight interprets the clause rather differently, thus: “The first of these words, προσκοπτει, stumbleth, (which signifies to dash one's foot against something without falling, or being much hurt,) expresses the case of a person who, being tempted to commit sin, yields a little to the temptation, but recovers himself: the second, σκανδαλιζεται, from σκαζω, to halt, (meaning to fall and be lamed by stumbling,) expresses the case of one who, through temptation, actually commits sin contrary to his knowledge and conviction: the third, ασθενει, (which signifies to be weakened in consequence of such a fall,) expresses the condition of a person who, by sinning, hath his piety so weakened, that he is in danger of apostatizing.”