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8. Food Sacrificed to Idols

¹ Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. ² Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. ³ But whoever loves God is known by God. An early manuscript and another ancient witness think they have knowledge do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves truly knows.

⁴ So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” ⁵ For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), ⁶ yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

⁷ But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. ⁸ But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

⁹ Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. ¹⁰ For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? ¹¹ So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. ¹² When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. ¹³ Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.

10. If any one see thee. From this it appears more clearly, how much liberty the Corinthians allowed themselves; for when the wicked made a kind of sacred banquet for their idols, they did not hesitate ⁴⁷¹⁴⁷¹ “Les Corinthiens n’auoyent point de honte;” — “The Corinthians were not ashamed.” to go to it, to eat of the sacrifice along with them. Paul now shows what evil resulted from this. In the first clause, instead of the words who hast knowledge, I have rendered the expression thus — though thou shouldest have; and in the second clause, in the expression who is weak, I have introduced the word notwithstanding. This I found it necessary to do for the clearing up of Paul’s meaning. For he makes a concession, as if he had said: “Be it so, that thou hast knowledge; he who seeth thee, though he is not endowed with knowledge, is notwithstanding confirmed by thine example to venture upon the same thing, while he would never have taken such a step if he had not had one to take the lead. Now when he has one to imitate, he thinks that he has a sufficient excuse in the circumstance that he is imitating another, while in the meantime he is acting from an evil conscience.” For weakness here means ignorance, or scruple of conscience. I am aware, at the same time, in what way others explain it; for they understand the occasion of stumbling to be this — when ignorant persons, induced by example, imagine that in this way they perform some kind of religious service to God, but this idea is quite foreign to Paul’s meaning. For he reproves them, as I have said, ⁴⁷²⁴⁷² See commentary on 1 Corinthians 8:7. because they emboldened the ignorant to hurry on, contrary to conscience, to attempt what they did not think it lawful for them to do. To be built up means here — to be confirmed ⁴⁷³⁴⁷³ The original word οἰκοδομηθήσεται, shall be built up, is used here, in the opinion of some learned critics, to mean encouraged or emboldened, and a parallel passage is pointed to in Malachi 3:15, where the Hebrew word כבכי is rendered in the Septuagint ἀνοικοδομοῦνται or emboldened It deserves notice, however, that the Apostle had in the commencement of the chapter spoken of love as edifying, while knowledge puffeth up, and it is not improbable that he made use of the same word here ironically, as we would say — “Will not this be edifying the wrong way?” — Ed Now that is a ruinous kind of building, that is not founded on sound doctrine.