1 Corinthians 8

Paul answers a question about meat that had been offered to idols. He agrees that idols are nothing and that there is one God. But knowledge is not enough. Love must guide how Christians use their freedom, especially toward those with a weaker conscience.

1 Corinthians 8:1

Corinth’s markets and feasts were full of meat from pagan sacrifices. Paul grants that believers have some knowledge about this, then warns that knowledge alone swells a person with pride. Love, by contrast, helps others grow. Love is the test of whether knowledge is used rightly.

BSA: puffs up (“inflates, makes proud”): Knowledge without love fills a person with air, making him look big while giving no real strength. builds up (“edifies, strengthens”): Love is like a builder, adding stone by stone to the lives of others.

Greek: φυσιοῖ (physioi, G5448) — “puffs up, inflates like a bellows.” The word pictures a person blown up with self-importance. Paul uses it often in this letter for the proud attitude in Corinth.

See also: 1 Corinthians 13:2.

1 Corinthians 8:2-3

Anyone who feels he has mastered the subject has not yet learned how to know. The real mark of a mature person is not what he knows but that he loves God. And that love rests on something greater: God himself knows and cares for him.

BSA: known (“recognized, understood, perceived”): To be known by God means he acknowledges us as his own, which matters more than anything we know.

See also: Galatians 4:9.

1 Corinthians 8:4

Here Paul states what the knowledgeable believers were saying, and he agrees with it. An idol is only wood or stone, with no real divine power behind it. There is only one true God. So the meat itself is not changed by being offered to an idol.

BSA: nothing (“none, without significance”): An idol has no real standing as a god, however much people worship it.

See also: Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 44:9-20.

1 Corinthians 8:5-6

People may speak of many gods and lords, but believers confess one God, the Father, the source and goal of everything. They also confess one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom everything was made and through whom we live. Paul places Jesus within the one God’s identity.

BSA: through whom (“as the means, the agent”): Christ is the one through whom creation came about, and through whom believers have life. Lord (“authorities, masters”): Many powers claim to be lords, but only one Lord has real authority.

See also: Colossians 1:16-17; John 1:3; Ephesians 4:5-6.

1 Corinthians 8:7

Not every believer has fully grasped this. Some had worshiped idols all their lives, and to them the meat still felt tied to the idol. If they eat it, they do so with a troubled conscience and feel they have done wrong.

BSA: conscience (“moral awareness, inner guide”): The conscience is the inner sense of right and wrong, and acting against it does harm even when the act itself is not sinful. defiled (“spiritually stained, polluted”): Their inner sense of right and wrong is soiled by doing what they believe is wrong.

Greek: συνείδησις (syneidēsis, G4893) — “conscience, a shared knowing with oneself.” The word describes the inner witness that knows what we have done and speaks to us about it.

See also: Romans 14:23.

1 Corinthians 8:8

Food does not change a person’s standing with God. Eating or not eating does not make us better or worse. Since the matter is neutral, nothing is lost by giving it up for another’s sake.

BSA: closer to God (“the one true deity”): Our nearness to God depends on Christ, never on what we put on our plates.

See also: Romans 14:17.

1 Corinthians 8:9

Christian freedom is real, but it is not only for ourselves. Paul warns that using it carelessly can trip up someone whose faith is less settled. A believer should watch where his liberty leads others.

BSA: stumbling block (“an obstacle, a cause for sin”): Our freedom can become something others trip over and fall into sin.

Greek: πρόσκομμα (proskomma, G4348) — “an obstacle, something one strikes the foot against.” The word pictures a stone in the path that makes a traveler fall. The freedom was meant to be a road, yet it becomes a hazard.

See also: Romans 14:13.

1 Corinthians 8:10

Paul pictures a believer dining in a pagan temple, as he is free to do in his own mind. A weaker believer sees him and is led to eat too, but with his conscience still convinced it is wrong. The example becomes a pressure to violate conscience.

BSA: encouraged (“emboldened, persuaded”): The weak believer is pushed into an act he is not convinced about, not truly strengthened.

Greek: οἰκοδομηθήσεται (oikodomēthēsetai, G3618) — “will be built up.” This is the same word as the ‘builds up’ of verse 1. Paul uses it with irony: that kind of building up actually tears the person down.

1 Corinthians 8:11

Paul speaks sharply. The person you treat so lightly is a brother for whom Christ died. If Christ gave his life for him, we cannot count his faith as less important than our meal. Our knowledge, used without love, can wreck him.

BSA: destroyed (“ruined spiritually, lost completely”): The harm is serious: a person’s faith can be shattered. brother (“fellow Christian, sibling in faith”): The weak believer belongs to the same family and is owed family care.

See also: Romans 14:15.

1 Corinthians 8:12

Wounding a fellow believer’s conscience is more than a social mistake. It is sin against Christ himself, because believers belong to him as his body. How we treat his people is how we treat him.

BSA: wounding (“striking, causing pain to”): Pushing someone against his conscience hurts him like a blow.

See also: Matthew 25:40; Acts 9:4.

1 Corinthians 8:13

Paul gives himself as the example. He would gladly give up meat for good if it kept a brother from falling. Love is willing to set aside a permitted thing for the sake of another’s faith, and this is the way of Christ.

BSA: stumble (“be led into sin, offended”): Paul’s concern is that his brother not be led into sin or away from faith.

Greek: σκανδαλίζει (skandalizei, G4624) — “causes to fall, trips up.” The word comes from the trigger of a trap. Paul will not set a snare for a fellow believer, even by accident.

See also: Romans 15:1-3; 1 Corinthians 10:23-24.