Expediency
Expediency is the Pauline name for what cuts back a real liberty in service of love. The maxim "all things are lawful" is admitted twice — at 1 Cor 6:12 and again at 1 Cor 10:23 — and twice it is bounded: "but not all things are expedient." The expedient is what is useful and what builds up; the inexpedient is what makes the lawful into a stumbling block, defiles a weak conscience, or hands one's freedom over to be dominated. The treatment runs across Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 6, 8, 9, and 10, and turns in every case on the same axis — the brother for whose sake Christ died, and the glory of God.
The Maxim and Its Two Bounds
The first statement of expediency is set inside an admitted permission. "All things are lawful for me; but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful for me; but I will not be brought under the power of any" (1 Cor 6:12). Liberty is not denied — it is affirmed in full scope — and then disciplined twice over: by usefulness and by the refusal to be enslaved to any lawful thing.
The same maxim returns, sharpened, in the discussion of food sacrificed to idols. "All things are lawful; but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful; but not all things edify" (1 Cor 10:23). Here the second bound is not anti-domination but pro-edification: the lawful that does not build up is set aside.
What Builds Up the Other
The reach of expediency is the brother. "Let no man seek his own, but of another" (1 Cor 10:24). The same posture closes the chapter — "even as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the [profit] of the many, that they may be saved" (1 Cor 10:33). The expedient is what serves the gain of others; the inexpedient is what serves only oneself.
In Romans the rule of upbuilding is named directly. "So then let us follow after things which make for peace, and things by which we may edify one another" (Rom 14:19). The contrary motion is to "destroy with your meat him for whom Christ died" (Rom 14:15) and to "overthrow the work of God for meat's sake" (Rom 14:20).
The Weak Conscience
The conscience of the weaker brother is the fulcrum. Paul concedes that food itself is indifferent — "food will not commend us to God: neither, if we don't eat, are we the worse; nor, if we eat, are we the better" (1 Cor 8:8) — and that "all things indeed are clean" (Rom 14:20). But the weak do not yet hold this knowledge: "some, being used until now to the idol, eat as [of] a thing sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled" (1 Cor 8:7).
The danger of the strong is therefore stated plainly: "take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours⁺ become a stumbling block to the weak" (1 Cor 8:9). The harm is concrete — the weaker man, seeing the one who has knowledge "sitting at meat in an idol's temple," is "emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols" against his own conscience, "and through your knowledge he who is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died" (1 Cor 8:10-11). To wound the weak conscience in this way is "to sin against Christ" (1 Cor 8:12).
The conclusion is Pauline self-binding: "if meat causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh forevermore, that I do not cause my brother to stumble" (1 Cor 8:13). The lawful is not denied; its exercise is renounced where it endangers another.
The Practical Rule on Food
The expedient is then worked out in concrete cases. In the food market, the buyer is to "eat, asking no question for the sake of conscience" (1 Cor 10:25), "for the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness of it" (1 Cor 10:26). At an unbeliever's table, "whatever is set before you⁺, eat, asking no question for the sake of conscience" (1 Cor 10:27). But if someone announces, "This has been offered in sacrifice. Do not eat, for the sake of him who showed it and of conscience: conscience, I say, not your own, but the other's" (1 Cor 10:28-29). The protection runs outward — the strong man's freedom is bounded by what the other man's conscience can bear.
Romans gives the same rule under a different image. "I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is common of itself: except that to him who accounts anything to be common, to him it is common" (Rom 14:14). "It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor [to do anything] by which your brother stumbles" (Rom 14:21). And the inward holding of liberty — "the faith which you have, you have to yourself before God" (Rom 14:22) — is the counterpart to its outward restraint.
All Things to All Men
Expediency is not only restraint; it is also a positive mobility. "Though I was free from all [men], I became a slave to all, that I might gain the more" (1 Cor 9:19). The pattern is then enumerated — "to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law… to those who are without the law, as without the law… to the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak" — and totalized: "I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some. And I do all things for the sake of the good news, that I may be a copartner of it" (1 Cor 9:20-23). The free-from-all man chooses the slave-posture for the sake of others.
The Glory of God and the Kingdom
The whole movement is gathered into two horizons. The first is the glory of God: "Whether therefore you⁺ eat, or drink, or whatever you⁺ do, do all to the glory of God. Give no occasion of stumbling, either to Jews, or to Greeks, or to the church of God" (1 Cor 10:31-32). The second is the kingdom: "the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this [way] is serving as a slave to Christ is well-pleasing to God, and approved of men" (Rom 14:17-18). The expedient is what holds together — under God's glory, in the kingdom's righteousness and peace, with the weaker brother carried rather than overthrown.