1 CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 8.
Christian Liberty in the Matter of Eating Meat Offered to Idols. 1 Cor. 8, 1—13.
Knowledge and charity: V. 1. Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.
In this chapter the apostle offers the answer to a second question which had been laid before him by the Corinthian Christians: Was it right for a Christian to eat flesh that had been offered in sacrifice to an idol?
The situation was somewhat complicated, since the entire public and social life of the people of Corinth and of the citizens of all the large cities in those days was permeated with, and to some extent governed by, the worship of idols. Feasts and banquets, both public and private, were usually connected with the name of some heathen god. A large part of the meat on sale in the shops and therefore found on the average table came from the temples, and so it became a difficult matter to avoid its use. This explains the perplexity of the Corinthians which caused their question to the apostle.
Before giving his real answer, he reminds them, in the form of a parenthesis, of certain basic facts. With a tinge of sarcasm he writes that he is aware of the fact that all claimed the possession of knowledge. They all were sure that they needed no more information as to the fundamentals of Christianity.
Paul proceeds to correct this idea: Knowledge puffs up, inflates, but love builds up. Many of the Corinthian Christians, as many believers are doing to-day, pretended to be so firmly grounded in head knowledge that they rose superior to all prejudices. But the result was an amount of proud self-satisfaction which forgot all considerations for their neighbor. And therefore Paul frankly tells his readers that such an attitude, according to which a person believes himself to be above all heathen superstition and to have the full and complete knowledge of God and His essence, is vain and sinful if it is not attended by the proper fruit of love in good works.