1Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
2If anyone supposes that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.
3But if anyone loves God, this one is known by him.
4Concerning, then, the eating of food sacrificed to idols: we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one.
5For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many gods and many lords—
6yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we for him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him.
7But not everyone has this knowledge. Some, however, being accustomed until now to the idol, eat the food as though it were sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.
8But food will not commend us to God; neither if we do not eat are we the worse, nor if we eat are we the better.
9But watch that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.
10For if someone sees you, the one having knowledge, reclining at table in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, since he is weak, be built up to eat the food sacrificed to idols?
11For by your knowledge the one who is weak is destroyed—the brother for whom Christ died.
12And so, sinning against the brothers and wounding their conscience while it is weak, you sin against Christ.
13Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I may not cause my brother to stumble.
Open in the interactive reader →