1 Corinthians 8

Big idea: Second question: food sacrificed to idols. Corinth's 'knowers' argued from sound theology (an idol is nothing; God is one) to a wrong conclusion (so eat anywhere, even in temples). Paul relocates the criterion: knowledge puffs up, love builds up. Food is indifferent — but a weak brother's conscience is not, and wounding it is sin against Christ. Paul's own resolve: I will never eat meat again rather than trip a brother.

Opens the three-chapter idol-food argument: the principle (ch. 8), Paul's own waived rights as its embodiment (ch. 9), Israel's warning and the final rulings (ch. 10). 'Love builds up' also seeds chs. 12–14.

8:1–6 — Knowledge and the one God

Everyone 'has knowledge' — and knowledge inflates, while love constructs; the real knower is the one God knows because he loves. The knowers' creed is granted: no idol is anything; there is no God but one — and against the many so-called gods and lords stands the community's confession: one God the Father, source and goal of all, and one Lord Jesus Christ, agent of all, through whom we live.

¹ Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. ² But if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know. ³ But anyone who loves God is known by him. ⁴ Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one. ⁵ For though there are things that are called “gods”, whether in the heavens or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”— ⁶ yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.

8:7–13 — The weak brother

But the knowledge isn't universal: some, formed by an idol-saturated past, still eat such food as genuinely idolatrous, and their weak conscience is defiled. Since food commends no one to God either way, the knower's liberty must watch its edges: seen dining in an idol's temple, he emboldens the weak to violate conscience — and the weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed. Sinning against brothers' consciences is sinning against Christ. Paul's resolution: no meat forever, rather than cause a brother to stumble.

⁷ However, that knowledge isn’t in all men. But some, with consciousness of an idol until now, eat as of a thing sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. ⁸ But food will not commend us to God. For neither, if we don’t eat are we the worse, nor if we eat are we the better. ⁹ But be careful that by no means does this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak. ¹⁰ For if a man sees you who have knowledge sitting in an idol’s temple, won’t his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols? ¹¹ And through your knowledge, he who is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died. ¹² Thus, sinning against the brothers, and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. ¹³ Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat forever more, that I don’t cause my brother to stumble.

Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).

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