For food destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eats with offense.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Man is the work of God by creation, and again by his renewal in regeneration, and food is God’s work as well. But man was not made for food; food was made for man, which is very different! Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
Only let him partake temperately, not dependent on them, nor gaping after fine fare. For a voice will whisper to him, saying, "Destroy not the work of God for the sake of food."
It is the mark of a silly mind to be amazed and stupefied at what is presented at vulgar banquets after having enjoyed the rich fare which is in the Word of God.
Destroy not the work of God for meat. That is, do not hinder your brother's salvation, for whom, whoever he be, Christ died, who may be so offended at the liberty which you take, as to quit the Christian religion; or you may make him sin against God, by eating by your example against his weak conscience. (Witham)
Here “the work of God” means the salvation of a brother. For these people were so far away from building others up that they were prepared to destroy what God had made, and not for any great matter but for something very trivial. It is not the eating which is unclean but the intention behind it. If you have not put that right but forced him to eat anyway, you have done it to no purpose and have made everything worse. Thinking that something is unclean is not as bad as tasting it when you think it is unclean. In that case you are committing two errors: first, by increasing his opposition by your quarrelsome attitude, and second, by getting him to taste what to him is unclean. As long as you have not persuaded him, do not try to force him.
1132. After presenting a reason to show that we should not set a stumbling block before our neighbor by eating all foods indiscriminately [n. 1122], the Apostle now shows how certain foods can be clean and unclean. In regard to this he does two things. First, he states which things are clean of their very nature, saying: Everything, indeed, which can pertain to man’s food is clean, namely, of its very nature, because of its very nature it does not have the power to defile a man’s soul, as it says in Mt (15:11): "Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man"; and in I Tim (4:4): "Everything created by God is good." But certain things were declared unclean under the Law not of their nature but by reason of what they signified, as is clear in Lev (11:2ff). But Christ even removed this uncleanness by fulfilling the figures of the Old Law. Hence it was said to Peter: "What God has cleansed, you must not call common," i.e., unclean (Ac 10:15). Secondly [n. 1133], when he says, but it is wrong,...
