1 Corinthians 8
8
Food Offered to Idols
1In your letter you asked me about food offered to idols. All of us know something about this subject. But knowledge makes us proud of ourselves, while love makes us helpful to others. 2In fact, people who think they know so much don't know anything at all. 3But God has no doubts about who loves him.
4Even though food is offered to idols, we know that none of the idols in this world are alive. After all, there is only one God. 5Many things in heaven and on earth are called gods and lords, but none of them really are gods or lords. 6We have only one God, and he is the Father. He created everything, and we live for him. Jesus Christ is our only Lord. Everything was made by him, and by him life was given to us.
7Not everyone knows these things. In fact, many people have grown up with the belief that idols have life in them. So when they eat meat offered to idols, they are bothered by a weak conscience. 8But food doesn't bring us any closer to God. We are no worse off if we don't eat, and we are no better off if we do.
9Don't cause problems for someone with a weak conscience, just because you have the right to eat anything. 10You know all this, and so it doesn't bother you to eat in the temple of an idol. But suppose a person with a weak conscience sees you and decides to eat food that has been offered to idols. 11Then what you know has destroyed someone Christ died for. 12When you sin by hurting a follower with a weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13So if I hurt one of the Lord's followers by what I eat, I will never eat meat as long as I live.
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
1 Corinthians 8
8
Concerning Food Sacrificed to Idols
1 Now concerning food sacrificed to idols, we know that “we all have knowledge.”#Considered by many interpreters to be a slogan used by the Corinthians to justify their behavior Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2If anyone thinks he knows anything, he has not yet known as it is necessary to know. 3But if anyone loves God, this one is known by him.
4Therefore, concerning the eating of food sacrificed to idols, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world” and that “there is no God except one.”#Considered by many interpreters to be slogans used by the Corinthians to justify their behavior 5For even if after all there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many gods and many lords,
6yet to us there is one God, the Father,
from whom are all things, and we are for him,
and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ,
through whom are all things, and we are through him.
7But this knowledge is not in everyone. But some, being accustomed until now to the idol, eat this food as food sacrificed to idols, and their conscience, because it#*Here “because” is supplied as a component of the participle (“is”) which is understood as causal is weak, is defiled. 8But food does not bring us close to God. For neither if we eat do we have more, nor if we do not eat do we lack.#Some manuscripts omit “For” and have “Neither if we do not eat do we lack, nor if we do eat do we have more” 9But watch out lest somehow this right of yours becomes a cause for stumbling to the weak. 10For if someone should see you who has knowledge reclining for a meal in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, because it#*Here “because” is supplied as a component of the participle (“is”) which is understood as causal is weak, be strengthened so that he eats the food sacrificed to idols? 11For the one who is weak—the brother for whom Christ died—is destroyed by your knowledge. 12Now if you#*Here “if” is supplied as a component of the participle (“sin”) which is understood as conditional sin in this way against the brothers and wound their conscience, which is weak, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat forever#Literally “for the age”, in order that I may not cause my brother to sin.
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