8:1Meat bought in the marketplace was likely to have been Offered to an idol in one of the many pagan temples. Animals were brought to a temple, killed before an idol as part of a pagan religious ceremony, and eaten at a feast in the pagan temple or taken to butchers who sold the meat in the marketplace. The believers wondered if, by eating such meat, they were somehow participating in the worship of idols.
Life Application Study Bible1 CorinthiansChapter 8
1 Corinthians 8
New Living Translation · Life Application Study Bible · Original page: 1940
A few verse numbers on this page were hard to read in the scan and are marked with a dotted underline — compare with the original page image if in doubt.
81 Corinthians 8
2. Instruction on Christian freedom
Food Sacrificed to Idols
18 Now regarding your question about food that has been offered to idols. Yes, we know that “we all have knowledge” about this issue. But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. 2Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn't really know very much. 3But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes.* 4So, what about eating meat that has been offered to idols? Well, we all know that an idol is not really a god and that there is only one God. There may be so-called gods both in heaven and on earth, and some people actually worship many gods and many lords. °But we know that there is only one God, the Father, who created everything, and we live for him. And there is only one LORD, Jesus Christ, through whom God made everything and through whom we have been given life. 7However, not all believers know this. Some are accustomed to thinking of idols as being real, so when they eat food that has been offered to idols, they think of it as the worship of real gods, and their weak consciences are violated. ®It's true that we can’t win God's approval by what we eat. We don't lose anything if we don’t eat it, and we don’t gain anything if we do. 9But you must be careful so that your freedom does not cause others with a weaker conscience to stumble. 1For if others see you—with your “superior knowledge”—eating in the temple of an idol, won't they be encouraged to violate their conscience by eating food that has been offered to an idol? 11So because of your superior knowledge, a weak believer* for whom Christ died will be destroyed. 12And when you sin against other believers* by encouraging them to do something they believe is wrong, you are sinning against Christ. 13So if what I eat causes another believer to sin, I will never eat meat again as long as I live—for I don’t want to cause another believer to stumble.
Textual footnotes
- 8:3 Some manuscripts read the person who loves has full knowledge.
- 8:11 Greek brother; also in 8:13.
- 8:12 Greek brothers.
Life Application Notes 4 notes
8:1-3Love is more important than knowledge. Knowledge can make us look good and feel important, but we can all too easily develop an arrogant, know-it-all attitude. Many people with strong opinions are unwilling to listen to and learn from God and others. We can obtain God's knowledge only by loving him (see James 3:17, 18). And we can know and be known by God only when we model him by showing love (1 John 4:7, 8).
8:4-9Paul addressed these words to believers who weren't bothered by eating meat that had been offered to idols. Although idols were phony, and the pagan ritual of sacrificing to them was meaningless, eating such meat offended some Christians with sensitive consciences. Paul said, therefore, that mature believers should avoid eating meat offered to idols if it would violate the conscience of weak Christians.
8:10-13Christian freedom does not mean that anything goes. It means that our salvation is not obtained by good deeds or legalistic rules; it is the free gift of God (Ephesians 2:8, 9). Christian freedom, then, is inseparably tied to Christian responsibility. New believers are often very sensitive to what is right or wrong, what they should or shouldn’t do. Some actions may be perfectly all right for us to do but may harm a Christian brother or sister who is still young in the faith and learning what the Christian life is all about. We must be careful not to offend a sensitive or younger Christian or, by our example, cause him or her to sin. When we love others, our freedom should be less important to us than strengthening the faith of a brother or sister in Christ.