1 Corinthianschapter 8
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Speaks with:Romans 14×71 Corinthians 8×21 Corinthians 10×2Isaiah 5×11 Corinthians 13×11 Corinthians 3×1
Summary
Chapter summary
Meat offered to idols. Knowledge puffeth up; charity edifieth. We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and there is none other God but one. Yet some have conscience bound by idols, and through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died. Paul declares: if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth. Henry reads this chapter and the next two as the Christian-liberty principle bounded by love of the brother.
Context
Epistle · Paul — 1 Corinthians overview
- A. 1–6 Knowledge Puffs Up, Love Builds Up
- B. 7–13 I Will Never Eat Meat Again If It Trips My Brother
The outline
A.Knowledge Puffs Up, Love Builds Upvv. 1 to 6
Read vv. 1 to 6 →B.I Will Never Eat Meat Again If It Trips My Brothervv. 7 to 13
Read vv. 7 to 13 →
The world behind this chapter
1 Corinthians 8The history
Temples were not only places of sacrifice; they were the city's banquet halls. Excavations at Corinth have uncovered dining rooms in temple precincts with stone couches around the walls. Guild dinners, family celebrations, and civic occasions were held in them, and the meat served had come from the altar.
That made refusing a huge social and economic cost. A tradesman who would not attend his guild's dinner lost his network. A client who declined his patron's invitation insulted him. Withdrawing from temple meals meant withdrawing from ordinary life.
The knowledgeable Corinthians had a defensible argument: an idol is nothing, there is one God, so the meat is just meat. Paul agrees with the theology outright, which is what makes his answer so striking.
But not everyone experienced it that way. A believer who had spent his whole life treating those meals as real worship could not switch the association off, and eating there could pull him back into what he had left.
What it meant to them
The first hearers were told that knowledge puffs up but love builds up — that being right about the theology did not settle the question of what to do.
The standard Paul gives is the weaker brother's ruin, not the stronger brother's freedom. He ends by saying that if food causes his brother to stumble, he will never eat meat again — a sacrifice of his own rights that sets up the whole of the next chapter.
Sources cited
- Bruce W. Winter, After Paul Left Corinth
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on 1 Corinthians 8. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.