1 Corinthians 8 WEB
Summary: Paul takes up the question of food sacrificed to idols, noting that "knowledge puffs up, but love builds up" (v. 1) and that while an idol has no real existence and there is only one God and one Lord, not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some believers, formerly accustomed to idols, still have a weak conscience that is defiled if they eat food offered to an idol, believing it to be real. Paul therefore urges the Corinthians to be careful that their liberty not become a stumbling block to the weak, concluding, "if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble" (v. 13).
1Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
2But if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know.
3But if anyone loves God, the same is known by him.
4Therefore 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.
5For though there are things that are called “gods”, whether in the heavens or on earth; as there are many “gods” and many “lords”;
6yet 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.
7However, that knowledge isn’t in all men. But some, with consciousness of the idol until now, eat as of a thing sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.
8But 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.
9But be careful that by no means does this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak.
10For 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?
11And through your knowledge, he who is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died.
12Thus, sinning against the brothers, and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.
13Therefore if food causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat forever more, that I don’t cause my brother to stumble.
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