For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols?  And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died.  Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.  Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

1 Corinthians 8:10-13

Some of the Corinthian brethren could not in good conscience eat any meat that they knew had been sacrificed to idols (8:1, 4, 7), while others in that congregation viewed the meat as nothing more than normal food and thus ate it with no qualms (8:8).  Thus, they made themselves “a stumbling block” to their brethren whose consciences would not allow them to do the same (8:9-13).

The apostle had started his discourse about this controversy by addressing the “knowledge” both sides of the controversy claimed to have and how it had inflated their egos while keeping them from having the self-sacrificial “love” for each other which true knowledge of God would have produced (8:1-3).  He then acknowledged that the pagan gods represented by the idols in the local Corinthian temples did not actually exist, unlike the “one God” and “one Lord” worshiped and served by Paul and the saints at Corinth (8:4-6).  Paul then pointed out that “not all possess this knowledge” (8:7), referring both to the pagans outside of Christ whom the Corinthians needed to evangelize as well as their brethren converted out of pagan idolatry who had been so heavily involved in that sin that they now found it difficult to distinguish between the inherently innocent food (8:8) and the sinful idolatry in which such food was used.  These brethren were spiritually weaker than the disciples in that congregation who understood that eating such meat simply for sustenance was allowed by God.  Thus, Paul warns the stronger Christians in Corinth to “take care that this right of yours” – the freedom to eat food associated with idol worship simply for sustenance – “does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak” (8:9).

In verses 10-13, quoted above, Paul elaborates on this danger.  He points out to the stronger Christians that the possibility existed that their weaker brethren who had yet to come to the proper understanding about this food might observe them “eating in an idol’s temple,” likely the banquet rooms archeologists have found in these temple precincts where meals were served (8:10a).  Consequently, the weaker brethren might “be encouraged” to “eat food offered to idols” themselves even though it violated their conscience by doing so (8:10b, 12).  Since violating one’s conscience even over things which in themselves were not sinful was a violation of God’s will (Rom. 14:23), the Christians who were exercising their freedom to eat this food in sight of their brethren who thought doing so was sinful were contributing to the destruction of their weaker brethren’s souls (8:11a).  Since Christ had died for these weaker brethren too (8:11b), Paul wanted the stronger brethren to understand that they were not only “sinning against (their) brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak” (8:12a); they were also “sin(ning) against Christ” himself (8:12b).  For these reasons, Paul wanted the stronger Christians in Corinth to be willing to give up the freedom they had to eat this food so as to keep their weaker brethren from stumbling (8:13).

There are some things which are inherently not sinful that still violate the consciences of some within the church.  In such cases, those whose consciences are weak have a divinely ordained responsibility to “grow up in every way” (Eph. 4:15) and heed biblical teaching which shows that what they are concerned about is not intrinsically sinful (e.g., 8:8; 10:23a, 25-27, 29-30).  In the meantime as they are learning and growing in their comprehension, their brethren who already understand that they have the freedom to participate in this non-sinful activity must also put the spiritual welfare of their weaker brethren before their freedoms and rights and abstain from this action which currently offends their brethren (e.g., 8:9-13; 10:23b-24, 28, 32-33).  This requires the agape love God wishes all of us to have (8:1).

— Jon