Paul takes the verb "judge" and turns it on itself in one sentence. 13"let us not pass judgment on one another any longer." He asks them to decide never to put a stumbling block in a brother's way. It is the same word redirected. Stop judging each other, and start exercising judgment about your own conduct. Paul points the energy the Roman church had spent on each other toward something more useful.
Paul names two kinds of obstacle. One is a stone in the road, the kind a foot catches on though no one meant harm. The other is the trigger of a trap. Carelessness and cruelty end in the same place for the brother who trips.
14"nothing is unclean in itself." Paul sides theologically with the strong, and being right does not settle what to do next. 15"if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love." Correct belief held without love has already stopped being what Paul means by walking rightly.
15"do not destroy the one for whom Christ died." That is the weight Paul places on the argument, destruction measured against the price Christ already paid for that same brother. A meal that costs someone their spiritual footing has become too expensive, whatever it cost at the market.
Paul names where the center of gravity belongs, in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. A church that has made food and drink the main event has confused the meal for the kingdom. Righteousness, peace, and joy sit at the center. Diet sits, at most, near the edges.
19"let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding." Paul turns the argument toward something active, building up. 20"Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God." What was framed a few verses earlier as harm to one brother is now harm to the whole structure God is building, torn down over something as small as a meal.
Paul is willing to give up meat and wine entirely, 21"anything that causes your brother to stumble," because love outranks the right to enjoy them. 22"The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God." A private conviction held with a clean conscience does not need to be paraded before a brother it might wound.
The passage ends with a principle that reaches far past any argument about food. 23"whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." Conscience matters even when it is mistaken. Acting against your own conscience, even in something harmless, is acting without faith, and Paul will not call that innocent. Stumbling blocks, food laws, and private conviction all come down to the same test. Does this proceed from faith, and does it build up the brother for whom Christ died?
Think of one liberty you defend. Ask what it costs the person standing beside you, and decide whether you would rather be right or be a builder.
Prayer
Father, we have too often defended what we were free to do without asking what it might cost someone beside us. Teach us to pursue peace and to build one another up. Where our own conscience is unsettled, keep us from acting against it, and where our freedom might trip a brother, give us love to set it down. In Jesus' name, amen.