After Paul answered the questions the Corinthians had about marriage, he turned to another problem they asked about. He wrote, “Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up but love edifieth” (1 Corinthians 8:1).
Unlike the issue of marriage which still troubles the church today as much as it did then, the problem raised about eating meats sacrificed to idols would be seldom discussed today — at least not in our nation. However, the world of Paul’s day was vastly different: most people were idolaters. When Paul was in Athens waiting for Silas and Timothy to join him, he walked about the streets of that esteemed city, which was noted for its knowledge, and Luke described Paul as “his spirit was provoked within him as he beheld the city full of idols” (Acts 17:16). The worship of idols involved the worshiper buying a live animal, then having killed it, offered it as a sacrifice to whatever idol he worshiped. The worshiper ate part of the meat; the priests ate part; part of the animal was burned on the altar; and, the remaining part (if there was any) was sold in the market places for food.
That raised a problem for brethren. Could brethren buy and eat that meat without sin, even though it had been offered in sacrifice to idols? Yes they could; at least some of them could. Whether it was right or wrong depended on the person who was faced with eating the meat. A strong brother knew that an idol was nothing and there was no God but one — it was just food for him. But not all Christians had the faith that the strong brother had. Some brethren, although they were disciples of Christ, had not progressed in their hearts to fully believe that the idol they once worshiped did not exist, and that one could not worship something that did not exist. Rather, they still had convictions that the idol lived, and they could not eat meats offered in sacrifice to that idol without feeling they were worshiping that idol. The strong could eat without sin, but the weak could not. Paul wrote, “But he that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith and whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). That did not resolve the issue: W. What reaction might the action of the strong brother have on the weak?
Paul urged the strong brother to forgo his “right” to eat. He reminded the strong that while “we all have knowledge,” knowledge “puffeth up” but “love edifieth.” For while he had a “right to eat,” that did not mean that he had to eat. And if he ate in a way that led a weak brother to eat something he had doubts about, the weak brother sinned, and the strong brother also sinned if he knew the weak brother was uncertain about eating the meat. Paul wrote, “If meat causeth my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh forever, that I cause not my brother to stumble” (1 Corinthians 8:13).
The second commandment, “Thou shalt love thy brother as thyself” demands that when we find ourselves in a circumstance in which we can exercise a right we have; but by doing so may cause a weak brother to sin, we will forgo that right lest we cause our weak brother to sin. Likely there will be another time we can exercise the right and not wound a weak brother’s conscience. Love for my brother’s welfare and salvation demands that I forfeit a right I have if the exercising of that right may bring ruin to my brother in Christ.
Jim McDonald