Romans 15:14Plain English VersionMy Christian friends, I’m sure that you already know about the things that I wrote in this letter. Before I started to write this letter, I remembered that you are good people and that you know a lot, and you even teach each other about the things I wrote about. But I got brave and started to write to you anyway, to get you to think a bit more about some of those things. God is good to me, See the chapter |
I will answer your next question now, about those statues that some people make, and they think those statues are gods. They give food to those statues, and they reckon the statues give that food power. Then those people eat that food, or they sell it to other people. And you Christians asked me, “Can we eat that food that they gave to those statues?” That’s what you asked me. Well, before I answer your question, I want you to remember this. All of us know something, but if we think we know more than other people, we start thinking wrong, like we reckon we are really smart. No, we can’t try to be smart. Instead, we have to love people. If we love other people, it helps them to get strong.
It’s like this. Some of you Christians know it’s all right to eat food in that place where people show respect to those statues. But if you go and eat that food, another Christian might see you there. If that other Christian doesn’t know what to think about that food, they might think that you are showing respect to that statue when you eat that food, so that Christian will think it’s all right to show respect to that statue. And then that Christian will show respect to that statue, and that is wrong.
But some Christians don’t understand all that. They showed respect to those statues for a long time before they became Christians, and then they believed in Jesus, but they still think those statues have power. They can’t work out what is true and what is not true. They know that it is wrong to respect those statues, so they don’t eat any of the food that people give to those statues. They think that if they do eat that food, then they are doing something wrong, and it makes them feel bad, like they are not clean.
You see, I love you mob very much, so it is all right for me to think about you like that. You are my friends and God is good to you, just like he is good to me. So you help me every time God lets me tell people the good news about Jesus. Right now I’m tied up in jail, and sometimes they take me to court, and I tell them the message about Jesus, and I show them that it is true. And you help me do that.
And always think about the message that came from Jesus Christ, so that you follow it all the time. Talk to each other about Jesus’s message, and help each other to follow it properly. Think about it the right way. If anyone starts to get it wrong, straighten each other out. Remember that God is really good to you, and always be ready to thank him by singing to him with hymns and songs that the Holy Spirit gives you.
So we always pray for you. God picked you to be his own people, and he wants his mob to be good people, so we ask God to keep making you better people. You believe in Jesus, and you want to do good things, so we pray that God will work powerfully in you, and we pray that he will give you the power to do all those good things that you want to do.