Issues Concerning Giving Up the Right to Sacrificed Food (8:1-11:34)

Paul now turns to a new question: the eating of food offered to idols and the associated theme of Christian liberty. Some believe it was this issue that was dividing the church as the Corinthians would quote those who had mentored them to prove their case and license their behavior. Paul was working back toward how issues are really settled, not by presuming the opinions of leaders or searching for proof texts in Scripture but by discerning the love and grace in the heart of Christ. 

Motivated by Love (1-3)  

Paul begins by telling the Corinthians to “know” that what one has the freedom to do without being tempered by love promotes pride (1). Paul then states that if someone imagines that they know what God thinks, then they do not really “know” much at all. Those who imagine they already know what God thinks often do not know what God wants. 

There is no way anyone can imagine they absolutely “know” what God thinks without being humbled by what God wants. To not know what God wants produces incredible pride (2). God's first goal is not that His followers would “know” something, but rather that they would know by experiencing the love of God as their driving motive in all things. Love is the one action against which there is no law (Galatians 5:23) or divine restriction (3).

What Is Known for Certain (4-6)

Paul then starts with what the Corinthians “know” as he works them toward the motive of love. They know there is only one God, Yahweh. Thus no idol has any real existence beyond its lifeless self. While the world makes claim to many gods and lords, there is really only one God, Yahweh (4-5).

It is here where some believe Paul quotes an early Christian statement of faith that elaborates on the Shema (6).

In essence, the early church reworked the statement so it would read:

“There is one God, the Father, 
from whom are all things, 
and we belong to Him; 
and one Lord, Jesus the Messiah, 
through whom are all things, 
and we live through Him.” 

- Tom Wright Translation

So as the early Church would recite the Shema, “hear,” and “the Lord is one,” they would insert this statement to declare what Yahweh had finally come to mean in saying the Lord is one: for the declared Yahweh and His Christ to be one. 

Differing Degrees of Knowledge (7-8)

Paul then begins to explain that as people come to Christ, each has different degrees of knowledge. Further, coming to a more complete truth or a more complete comprehension of theology is not what connects people to Christ. Paul is clearly teaching here that a person's failure to comprehend Scripture does not make that person less a part of the Christian family nor more worthy of indifference, and most of all, not less worthy of love. 

Paul lays out the problem: some who formerly worshiped idols could not eat meat offered to idols without their conscience smiting them, as in their eating they felt as though they were worshiping the god to whose idol the meat was offered (7). As a side note, Paul realizes food offered to idols has no real bearing on a person's spiritual condition—it is neither sin or not sin to eat or not eat. Why? Because the idols do not represent any power that has influence over them in any way (8).

Defining Degrees of Responsibility (9-12)

Paul then levels a clear and serious warning. If a person has no problem of conscience eating meat offered to idols but their eating encourages a person whose conscience does bother them to eat, therein lies a most serious problem. When they encourage another to eat in disregard to their own conscience, they are causing those who eat to stumble into sin. Paul's point is obvious: protect and keep the conscience clear at all costs. Never encourage a man or woman to violate their sense of what God approves or does not approve (9).

In Paul's day, the pagan temples were like modern restaurants. As a matter of custom, meat was offered to idols and then purchased to enjoy. Paul warns the Corinthians that those strong in conscience who would eat in the temple may encourage those weak of conscience to do the same (10). Using their knowledge that the idols were nothing and of their liberty in the gospel to eat, they were in effect destroying the weak person by encouraging them to disregard their own conscience and eat. Even though a person may be weak in knowledge, Paul declares that Christ yet died for them. They have value in Christ that should never be dishonored (11). 

Paul takes the issue further by stating that to wound a person's conscience (encouraging someone to behave or engage in actions against their conscience) is a sin against Christ Himself (12). In Paul's mind, God made each person in different ways—some more sensitive than others. In the Church, each person was to blend together to become one huge, caring community—everyone in the Jesus community encouraging each other to follow Christ with their conscience unblemished. 

To violate the conscience would be destructive to any person's soul and would desensitize the spirit to lose all ability to really know when something is actually a harmful action—meaning doing things that remove Jesus from being at the absolute center of life. So Paul promoted great care in the body of Christ for each other's conscience.  

Paul's Solution (13) 

Paul's solution was simple: if necessary, he would never eat meat again (meat being almost exclusively offered to idols before purchase in the pagan world) if it made his brother stumble (13). In other words, Paul is clearly stating that a person's conscience is of greater value to him than the pleasure of enjoying a good rib-eye. More than that, Paul stated that the protection of another's conscience is more important than any personal pleasure of liberty.