1 Corinthians 8

¹Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. ²If someone thinks he has come to know something, he has not yet known as he ought to know. ³But if someone loves God, that person is known by him. ⁴So concerning the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” ⁵For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many gods and many lords—⁶yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

⁷But not everyone has this knowledge. Some, accustomed to the idol until now, eat the food as an offering to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. ⁸But food will not present us to God: neither if we eat are we better off, nor if we do not eat are we worse off. ⁹But watch that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. ¹⁰For if someone sees you who have knowledge reclining at a meal in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, weak as it is, be built up to eat food offered to idols? ¹¹For by your knowledge the weak person is being destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. ¹²And when you sin against the brothers in this way and strike their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. ¹³Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, so that I do not make my brother stumble.

Translation notes 4

8:1–4 — Knowledge, love, and quotations. The quotation marks identify probable claims voiced in Corinth, not words Paul necessarily rejects outright. Their extent is editorial. Being known by God reverses the emphasis on what someone knows. “Puffs up” continues the pride image from chapters 4–5; “builds up” introduces an image repeated ironically in verse 10.

8:5–6 — One God and one Lord. The text acknowledges so-called gods and lords while stating the community's allegiance to one God and one Lord. From, for, and through preserve the different relationships in the compact Greek. “We exist” supplies the verb in the phrases about us; no later technical account of the relation between Father and Son is inserted.

8:7–8 — Habit and conscience. The base reads accustomed association with the idol in verse 7; another textual reading has consciousness of the idol. Conscience concerns a person's moral awareness and assessment. “Present us to God” carries the sense of establishing standing before him. The base gives eating first and not eating second in verse 8; many other editions reverse the order.

8:9–13 — Building up toward harm. Verse 10's “built up” is pointed irony: the knowledgeable person's example emboldens someone to do what that person's weak conscience still regards as participation in idol worship. “Being destroyed” is the strong verb Paul uses, not merely feeling offended. “Brothers” includes the community's women. Meat is the specific food Paul says he will forgo; the warning concerns causing another to stumble into sin.