23. Granted — all things are lawful to those who are free and emancipated. But it does not follow that there is no danger, no destructive power lurking round things which in an absolute sense are harmless.
24. Seek what serves the common good, seek what builds and edifies, seek not your own.
25. You are of course at liberty to purchase whatever you please where meat is sold, and ask no questions about it.
26-27. Similarly, you can dine with friends not of the faith, and eat whatever they set before you. That is our freedom. “Is not the earth the Lord's and the fulness thereof?” (Ps. xxiv. 1).
28. But if your host inform you, “this meat was sacrificed to such and such a god,” then keep the rule of absolute abstention from idolatry.
29. You may consider yourself free, and think that you partake of all things by the grace of God,
30. and are able to give thanks therefore with a good conscience, but if you are really free, why should this action affect the conscience of another, and be misinterpreted? It is better not to eat of it where other people's consciences are at stake.
31-32. Seek not your own point of view, lean not to that, although you know yourself to be as free as Christ has made you in all such matters of eating and drinking, or whatever other things you may be doing, but seek the glory of the one God, seek to commend yourself to all men, whether your company be Jewish, Greek or those who are of the faith. O think not of yourselves, but of them!