Take Care with Your Liberty

¹Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

²If anyone thinks that he has known anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know;

³but if anyone loves God, he has been known by Him.

⁴Therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one.[#8:4 An idol has no real existence]

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 exist for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

⁷However, not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

⁸But food will not commend us to God. We neither lack if we do not eat, nor abound if we do eat.[#8:8 Or present]

⁹But see to it that this authority of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.[#8:9 Or liberty]

¹⁰For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be built up to eat things sacrificed to idols?

¹¹For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died.

¹²And in that way, by sinning against the brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.

¹³Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again—ever, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.