CHAPTER 8

(A.D. 59)

FOOD SACRIFICED TO IDOLS

¹Now as touching things offered unto idols (lambs and oxen were offered up and Sacrificed to idols, with part of the meat then offered for sale in the market place), we know that we all have knowledge (but our consecration must not stop there). Knowledge puffs up (knowledge without love), but charity (love) edi fies (builds up).

²And if any man think that he knows anything (refers to the fact that we never know as much about the Word of God as we think we know), he knows nothing yet as he ought to know (we ought to know much more).

³But if any man love God, the same is known of him. (We all should have knowledge of the Word, but the emphasis must be on Love.)

⁴As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in Sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world (in effect, Paul is saying that the eating of such meat contains no offense to the Lord or His Word), and that there is none other God but one. (The gods the heathen worshiped actually didnt exist.)

⁵For though there be that are called gods, whether in Heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)

⁶But to us there is but one God (One in unity and not One in number; it can refer to either), the Father (speaks of relationship), of whom are all things (refers to God as the Creator of all things), and we in Him (which we are by virtue of Christ and the Cross); and one Lord Jesus Christ (our Saviour), by whom are all things (what He did at the Cross made it all possible), and we by Him. (Everything we have from God comes to us from Christ, with the Cross being the means by which it is done.)

⁷Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge (the knowledge of the Cross was deficient, even as Paul said in I Cor. 1:17): for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol (means some could not dismiss from their minds the painful sense that, by eating the idol-sacrifice, they are participating in idol-worship); and their conscience being weak is defiled (refers to these Gentiles who until recently had been idolaters).

⁸But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse (has nothing to do with spirituality).

CHRISTIAN FREEDOM

⁹But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them who are weak. (We make men worse if, by our example, we teach them to act in contradiction to their conscience.)

¹⁰For if any man see you which has knowledge sit at meat in the idols temple (speaks of those who knew and understood true Christian Liberty, but yet lacked wisdom), shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols (contains the idea that such action on the part of the strong could very well fall out to the spiritual destruction of the one who is weak);

¹¹And through your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? (Paul could use no word that would more effectually point his warning.)

¹²But when you sin so against the Brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ (to sin against a brother in any capacity is to sin against Christ).

¹³Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world stands, lest I make my brother to offend. (Everything we do must be done always with the idea of how it affects others.)