14:15a

The Greek of 14:15a begins with a word that is often translated as “for.” This word introduces an explanation of 14:13b–c. But with 14:14 occurring in between, some English versions omit this word, as the Berean Standard Bible does.

brother: Here this word refers to another believer, either man or woman. Here are other ways to translate this word:

another believer (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
others (Good News Translation)

is distressed: This word refers to being sad and distressed about something. It does not refer here to being sad because someone has died.

14:15b

you are no longer acting in love: Here the Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as acting is literally “walking/living.” It is a figure of speech that refers to all that a person does, thinks, and says. Here are some ways to translate this clause:

• Use the figure of speech, if it has the correct meaning. For example:

you are no longer walking according to ⌊the behavior of⌋ loving ⌊others⌋

• Translate the meaning without the figure of speech, as the Berean Standard Bible does. For example:

your conduct is no longer in accord with love (New American Bible, Revised Edition)
-or-
you are no longer living your life according to love
-or-
you are no longer loving others as you live ⌊on this earth⌋

you are no longer acting: The words no longer indicate that earlier the person was walking in love but now is not doing that. The present tense indicates that this is how the person lives at this time. Here are other ways to translate this phrase:

you have stopped acting
-or-
you stopped living your life
-or-
you have stopped loving others as you live ⌊on this earth⌋

in love: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as in is literally “according to.” The phrase refers to loving others. See the examples above.

14:15c

Do not by your eating destroy your brother, for whom Christ died: In the Greek of 14:15c, the phrase by your eating is in the front of the clause to emphasize it (see the English Standard Version). If possible, emphasize this phrase in a natural way in your language.

by your eating: This refers to food that some believers think it is not right for believers to eat. In particular, some Jewish believers in Jesus still followed the Jewish rules about food. So there were many foods in Rome that they believed it was not right to eat. But Roman believers did not follow the Jewish rules about food and ate those foods. Paul just said it was okay to eat such foods, but we must think of the Jewish believers because it would be a sin for them to eat those foods. Paul probably wrote about the weekly meal the believers ate together at their worship time. So all believers would see all the various kinds of food that everyone brought.

Some of this information may be needed to make the meaning clear in your translation. For example:

By what you eat ⌊in front of other believers⌋

destroy: Here this refers to ruining a believer’s faith so that he falls at the final judgment of God. Here are other ways to translate this word:

cause the ruin of (Revised Standard Version)
-or-
be the ruin of (Revised English Bible)
-or-
destroy the faith of

your brother, for whom Christ died: This indicates that Jesus died to save this believer. In some languages the purpose of dying would make the meaning more clear. For example:

your brother, for whom Christ died ⌊so that he could save him⌋

© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.