<p>14:20 <i>Do not overthrow the work of God for the mere sake of food- </i>Paul has shown in :15 that we can destroy a brother by insisting on our particular point, no matter how correct we may be see note there. The &quot;work of God&quot; refers to His work to save that individual whom we can cause to stumble. Our own stubbornness and belligerence regarding our own correctness of understanding can actually be working against God's work. And because He allows us freewill, He permits us the power to both stumble and build up our brother. Much depends on us. &quot;The work of God&quot; is specifically faith in the Lord Jesus (Jn. 6:29). We can destroy another's faith in Jesus because of an argument about food. This is how fragile and delicate is the faith of others. And yet we can too easily ride roughshod over the faith of others by our insistence on our correct interpretations. Paul earlier in Romans has argued that God saves without works of men (4:2,6; 9:11). Salvation is His work... and yet we can disallow His work for others by making them stumble. We must take seriously our potential to do this. In no way can we therefore go along with any policy or position which leads to the stumbling of others. And this may have radical implications for us in our social life within the believing community, just as it did for the likes of Paul and Peter in the first century church. Our relationship with the Lord God is personal. Each of us is &quot;the work of God&rdquo;, and we should therefore respect each other's spiritual individuality, even if it is based on misunderstandings such as misinterpretation of Old Testament passages about food.</p><p><i>All things indeed are clean- </i>Again Paul clearly comes down on one side of the food argument- no food is unclean of itself. And yet his view is that the weak should be admitted to the church but there is to be no disputing about their wrong understandings (:1).</p><p><i>However it is evil for that man who makes another stumble by what he eats</i>- Paul here redefines clean and unclean food in a new covenant context. Eating unclean food is made equal to doing something which makes your legalistic brother stumble. This is what defiles and places us outside God's realm of holiness.</p>