Paul is speaking to the believer who is confident he may eat all things. "Faith" here does not mean saving faith in Christ in general. Barnes says it concerns only the subject under discussion: food, drink, and the like. Gill describes it as a full persuasion about the lawful use of things indifferent. Paul's question grants that this believer may well be right. But he then tells him what to do with that conviction: hold it before God rather than press it on a weaker brother. Barnes paraphrases, "Do not obtrude your faith or opinion on others."

Paul answers his own question at once: "have it to thyself before God." He adds a blessing: "Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth" (Romans 14:22). Then he turns to the other side: "he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). He continues into the next chapter: "We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak" (Romans 15:1).

Barnes explains that some Jewish converts in Rome still believed the Levitical food laws were binding, while Gentile believers felt free to eat all things (Romans 14:2). Paul himself agrees with the stronger view: "there is nothing unclean of itself" (Romans 14:14). Yet he warns that eating with a doubting conscience is wrong for the one who doubts (Romans 14:23). Barnes notes that "damned" there means the person incurs guilt and blame, not necessarily eternal punishment.

Paul's question honors the strong believer's faith and then puts it in its proper place. A true conviction does not need an audience. It lives "before God." Matthew Henry puts it this way: "Enjoy the comfort of it, but do not trouble others by a wrong use of it."

The passage holds two goods side by side. One is the happiness of the believer whose conscience does not accuse him in what he allows (Romans 14:22). The other is the good of a community where no one's freedom becomes a brother's stumbling block (Romans 14:21, "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine"). Henry warns, "Lawful things may be done unlawfully, by giving offence to brethren." Paul's aim is not to shrink anyone's faith but to keep the freedom of some from wounding the conscience of others, for "the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Romans 14:17).