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1 Corinthians 8
A new question from the Corinthians' letter: may a believer eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols? Paul concedes the informed position — an idol is nothing, there is one God — but immediately checks it: "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." The real subject is the weaker brother whose conscience is still bound to the old worship. Paul subordinates a true argument to a relationship, ending with a vow he would rather give up meat forever than make a brother stumble.
- 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.
- 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.
When being right isn't the point
Verses 4–6 grant the "strong" their theology in full: no idol is real, all things are from one Father through one Lord. Paul does not refute it — he relocates it. Right knowledge that wounds a weak conscience becomes a sin "against Christ" (v. 12).
The chapter sets up chapter 9, where Paul makes himself the case study: an apostle with every right who waives those rights for others' sake.
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