Yet another example of "forget the chapter division for a moment". Paul's teaching here is an example of what it means to clothe ourselves with Christ, and not to gratify the desires of the flesh or human nature. By nature we all like to prove ourselves right, to demonstrate our superiority. We sometimes seek to do this in spiritual matters, managing to fool ourselves that we are being more spiritual than others, when what we are actually doing is feeding our pride.
The situation here was that meat offered on sale in markets had often been offered to idols. So one group said "this food is tainted so we should not eat it", the other group said "idols are nothing, just bits of wood or metal, so we can eat the food". What both groups tended to forget was to think of others instead of exalting themselves. Paul here does not say one set of actions is better than the other. Each person must decide before God what is right for them, and then accept that the other person has done that as well and respect the decision.
Now we immediately need dome caveats here, for in our culture one of the prevailing thought is that each person must decide for him or herself what is right, and all decisions are equally valid. There are some matters where this is true, others where it is not true. For instance, it is not up to you or me to decide whether or not sex outside marriage is OK or not. It is fine for you and me to decide whether to drink alcohol in moderation, it is not fine for you or me to get drunk.
So where the Bible is clear we need to be clear, we need also to recognise secondary issues when we see them. We need grace and wisdom to do this, for when we "see" something we immediately tend to see it as obvious and vital. For instance,there are sometimes heated debates over whether the earth is several thousand or several billion years old. In this area we would do well to respect the views of others.
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