1 Corinthians 8:1. NOW CONCERNING THINGS SACRIFICED UNTO IDOLS: WE KNOW THAT WE ALL HAVE KNOWLEDGE ‘Ye plead your knowledge; we are at one with you there; but this is a question, not of knowledge, but of love.' KNOWLEDGE PUFFETH UP, BUT LOVE EDIFIETH _Gr._ ‘buildeth up.' The knowing are apt to put... [ Continue Reading ]
As part of the sacrificial victims went to the market, it was liable to be served to Christians at the tables of their heathen friends; and as festive entertainments were often held in the idol temples, as being the most spacious as well as most public places of meeting, this would inevitably raise... [ Continue Reading ]
It was impossible for Christians in almost any Greek or Roman colony, and least of all at Corinth, to avoid coming frequently in contact with idolatrous practices in various and ensnaring forms. In writing, therefore, for instruction and direction on various practical points, we can hardly suppose t... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 8:2. IF ANY MAN THINKETH THAT HE KNOWETH ANYTHING, HE KNOWETH NOT YET AS HE OUGHT TO KNOW has not got upon the right track in his search after knowledge, for what inflates its possessor cannot be true knowledge: all knowledge worthy of the name begets such a consciousness of remaining... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 8:3. BUT IF ANY MAN LOVETH GOD, THE SAME IS KNOWN OF HIM. See Galatians 4:9. These preliminaries now bring the apostle to his point. 1 Corinthians 8:4. CONCERNING THEREFORE THE EATING OF THINGS SACRIFICED UNTO IDOLS, WE KNOW THAT NO IDOL IS _ANY THING_ IN THE WORLD, AND THAT THERE is... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 8:6. YET TO US (Christians) THERE IS ONE GOD, THE FATHER, OF WHOM ARE ALL THINGS as their primal _Source,_ AND WE UNTO HIM as their last _End;_ AND ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THROUGH WHOM ARE ALL THINGS as the immediate _Agent_ in their production, and we through him. [1] [1] The use of th... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 8:7. HOWBEIT IN ALL MEN THERE IS NOT THAT KNOWLEDGE: BUT SOME, BEING USED [1] UNTIL NOW TO THE IDOL, EAT AS OF A THING SACRIFICED UNTO AN IDOL; AND THEIR CONSCIENCE BEING WEAK IS DEFILED. The “weak” here are Gentile converts who, being steeped in idolatry up to the time of their conver... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 8:8. BUT MEAT WILL NOT COMMEND US TO GOD: NEITHER, IF WE EAT, ARE WE THE BETTER; NOR IF WE EAT NOT, ARE WE THE WORSE. [2] [2] The order of these clauses is reversed in some texts; but as the evidence is pretty equally balanced, the sense precisely the same, and the matter of no import... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 8:10. FOR IF A MAN SEE THEE WHO HAST KNOWLEDGE of the emptiness of idols and the lawfulness of all food SITTING AT MEAT IN AN IDOL'S TEMPLE. The word here used (in the Greek of the Old Testament and this one place of the New Testament) is used only for _heathen_ temple, to mark its ido... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 8:11. FOR THROUGH THY KNOWLEDGE HE THAT IS WEAK PERISHETH, THE BROTHER [1] FOR WHOSE SAKE CHRIST DIED. It might seem that “for” here is inappropriate; but the thought is this: ‘The wrong you thus do, through your uncalled-for exercise _of_ liberty, is far greater than you think; _for_... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 8:12. AND (not only so, but) THUS SINNING AGAINST THE BRETHREN, AND WOUNDING THEIR CONSCIENCE WHEN IT IS WEAK, YE SIN AGAINST CHRIST who is wounded in their wounds.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 8:13. WHEREFORE, IF MEAT MAKETH MY BROTHER TO STUMBLE, I WILL EAT NO FLESH FOR EVERMORE, THAT I MAKE NOT MY BROTHER TO STUMBLE a hyperbolical way of expressing the recoil of his soul from any act of selfish gratification by which the soul of a brother might be endangered. The question... [ Continue Reading ]