1 Corinthians 10:28,29

“But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice, eat not, for his sake that showed it, and for conscience sake. 29. Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for to what purpose can my liberty be judged by another's conscience?”

The τίς, any one, of 1 Corinthians 10:28 cannot, as Grotius thinks, denote the same person as the τίς of the foregoing verse, the heathen who invited the Christian. He would not be designated by an indefinite pronoun. It must therefore be one of the guests. Are we to suppose him, as has been thought by Chrysostom, de Wette, etc., a malicious heathen, who wishes by the remark to embarrass the Christian, or a serious heathen wishing to call his attention to the mistake he is about to commit without knowing it (Ewald)? But in these two cases the duty of the believer would have been, not to abstain, but, on the contrary, to partake of the meat while stating the motive of his conduct, and justifying his freedom from all scruple in regard to idols in which he does not believe; it was an excellent opportunity for expounding his faith. The person in question, therefore, is a sincere Christian, whose conscience is still hampered with scruples, and whom his strong brother is bound to treat with consideration. In this way, the following words: For his sake that showed it, and for conscience, are easily explained. The two motives refer to the same person, remaining, however, distinct. The first is directed against the influence which the example might exercise over the weak Christian, by leading him to eat against his conscience; the second, to the shock which his conscience will infallibly undergo on seeing the strong believer eat, even supposing he should resist the example which is set him. The repetition of the quotation from Psalms 24 at the end of 1 Corinthians 10:28, in the T. R., is evidently due to an interpolation. The only meaning which could be given to the words here would be this: “There is on the table plenty of other meats which thou mayest use.” But such a reflection is far from natural.

Vv. 29. The apostle expressly declares that such a sacrifice by no means implies that the strong believer renounces his conviction and right; his conscience remains independent of his brother's, though he voluntarily subordinates his conduct to the other's scruple.

The reason which the apostle gives for this conduct has been differently understood. Meyer and de Wette think that Paul means: “For on what ground should I subject your conscience to the judgment of your neighbour's? You preserve, therefore, so far as you are yourselves concerned, your entire liberty.” But the conjunction ἱνατί does not signify: For what reason, with what right? This compound conjunction, after which we must understand γένηται, literally signifies: that what good may come about? The meaning is therefore: “For what advantage can there be in my liberty being condemned...?” We have in the parallel discussion of Romans 14 a perfectly similar saying, which leaves no doubt as to the meaning of this. Paul there says, 1 Corinthians 10:16: “That your good be not evil spoken of (blasphemed)!” This good is the liberty of the strong, and Paul asks of them not to make such a use of it as will provoke the disapproving judgment of the weak. Here he asks, besides, what advantage such a judgment, imprudently provoked, can have; what edification it can afford either to the Christians present, or to the non-Christians, who become witnesses of the mutual contradictions between believers, and of the condemnations which they pass on one another. The question put in 1 Corinthians 10:29 is reproduced still more clearly in 1 Corinthians 10:30.