Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

The divine purpose, and limited role, of ruling authorities

13 Every person must be subject to the ruling authorities. There is no authority, you see, except from God, and those that exist have been put in place by God. ² As a result, anyone who rebels against authority is resisting what God has set up, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. ³ For rulers hold no terrors for people who do good, but only for people who do evil.

If you want to have no fear of the ruling power, do what is good, and it will praise you. ⁴ It is God’s servant, you see, for you and your good. But if you do evil, be afraid; the sword it carries is no empty gesture. It is God’s servant, you see: an agent of justice to bring his anger on evildoers. ⁵ That is why it is necessary to submit, not only to avoid punishment but because of conscience.

⁶ That, too, is why you pay taxes. The officials in question are God’s ministers, attending to this very thing. ⁷ So pay each of them what is owed: tribute to those who collect it, revenue to those who collect it. Respect those who should be respected. Honor the people one ought to honor.

Love, the law and the coming day

⁸ Don’t owe anything to anyone, except the debt of mutual love. If you love your neighbor, you see, you have fulfilled the law. ⁹ Commandments like “don’t commit adultery, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t covet”—and any other commandment—are summed up in this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no wrong to its neighbor; so love is the fulfillment of the law.

¹¹ This is all the more important because you know what time it is. The hour has come for you to wake up from sleep. Our salvation, you see, is nearer now than it was when first we came to faith. ¹² The night is nearly over, the day is almost here. So let’s put off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. ¹³ Let’s behave appropriately, as in the daytime: not in wild parties and drunkenness, not in orgies and shameless immorality, not in bad temper and jealousy. ¹⁴ Instead, put on the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, and don’t make any allowance for the flesh and its lusts.

The weak and the strong

14 Welcome someone who is weak in faith, but not in order to have disputes on difficult points. ² One person believes it is all right to eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. ³ The one who eats should not despise the one who doesn’t, and the one who doesn’t should not condemn the one who does—because God has welcomed them.

⁴ Who do you think you are to judge someone else’s servants? They stand or fall before their own master. And stand they will, because the master can make them stand.

⁵ One person reckons one day more important than another. Someone else regards all days as equally important. Each person must make up their own mind. ⁶ The one who celebrates the day does so in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, does so in honor of the Lord, and gives thanks to God; the one who does not eat abstains in honor of the Lord, and gives thanks to God.

The final judgment is the only one that counts

⁷ We none of us live to ourselves; we none of us die to ourselves. ⁸ If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, then, whether we live or whether we die, we belong to the Lord. ⁹ That is why the Messiah died and came back to life, so that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

¹⁰ You, then: why do you condemn your fellow Christian? Or you: why do you despise a fellow Christian? We must all appear before the judgment seat of God, ¹¹ as the Bible says:

¹² So then, we must each give an account of ourselves to God.

The way of love and peace

¹³ Do not, then, pass judgment on one another any longer. If you want to exercise your judgment, do so on this question: how to avoid placing obstacles or stumbling blocks in front of a fellow family member.

¹⁴ I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself, except that some things do become unclean for the person who regards them as such. ¹⁵ For if your brother or sister is being harmed by what you eat, you are no longer behaving in accordance with love. Don’t let your food destroy someone for whom the Messiah died!

¹⁶ So don’t let something that is good for you make other people blaspheme. ¹⁷ God’s kingdom, you see, isn’t about food and drink, but about justice, peace, and joy in the holy spirit. ¹⁸ Anyone who serves the Messiah like this pleases God and deserves respect from other people. ¹⁹ So, then, let’s find and follow the way of peace, and discover how to build each other up. ²⁰ Don’t pull down God’s work on account of food. Everything is pure, but it becomes evil for anyone who causes offense when they eat. ²¹ It is good not to eat meat, or drink wine, or anything else which makes your fellow Christian stumble.

²² Hold firmly to the faith which you have as a matter between yourself and God. When you’ve thought something through, and can go ahead without passing judgment on yourself, God’s blessing on you! ²³ But anyone who doubts is condemned even in the act of eating, because it doesn’t spring from faith. Whatever is not of faith is sin.