1 Corinthians chapter 8

vs 1

Don't ignore the idea that this verse is in answer to the letter the Corinthians are writing to Paul (there's a suggestion of it in the NIV footnote, but it's even implicit in the normal wording). Understanding the dynamic of this letter answering part of the book is important to understanding why Paul says what he says.

So the most probable reason Paul links eating idol-food and knowledge is because the Corinthians do so in their letter. One thing this suggests is that, contrary to normal understanding of 1 Corinthians, the Corinthian church didn't write to Paul with a bunch of questions for him to answer - their letter may have been somewhat more antagonistic, perhaps as if writing a corrective to Paul! Paul replies that while knowledge might sound good, all it really achieves is puffing the person up and making them arrogant. The Christian life is about love, and that builds people up and helps them. You can teach a child more usefully with love than you can with knowledge - contrary to modern educational philosophy, education does not change people. It just teaches them to do what they want more effectively. And if that is to hurt people, no amount of education will stop people from doing it.

vs 2

The simple lesson of philosophy has always been that if you think you know something, you don't really know anything. It's a lesson that the scientific community strayed from a few centuries ago. While it has allowed science to postulate on a lot of things (which means getting them wrong really), it has also given it a very arrogant attitude, which unfortunately has just been gobbled up by the masses.

vs 3

Instead, if you love God, then God knows who you are. Of course, God knows who everyone is, so what Paul means here is that he's got you on his list. He knows you from a bar of soap, as it were.

vs 4

Back to idols now. This sounds like a reply to the Corinthian letter, as if they said "we know that idols are actually nothing, because there is only one God, so what we do with them doesn't matter, because they are powerless". Paul also knows this.

vs 5

It sounds stupid to us, but of course the Roman God-Emperor cult was well into swing by the time you get to Paul's time. So when Paul says that there are lots of "gods" and "lords" in heaven and on earth, he's not joking. There had been a fairly high turnover of emperors, and all of them were supposedly a "god", as well as the pantheon of greco-roman gods too.

vs 6

Long verse! This verse is probably a bit of a hymn or something, in the way it repeats. For Christians, there's only one God, and that is God, and there is only one Lord, or Emperor, and that is Jesus. They created everything (which separates them from all the other false Gods) and they give eternal life too.

vs 7

So Paul is aware of the psychological power of idols over people. They've been using them for so long that they still feel like food or drink dedicated to them must be somehow corrupted.

vs 8

Paul seems pretty clear that it isn't, but that they think it is is a problem.

vs 9

And here is where knowledge must step aside for the sake of love. Sure, whoever wrote the letter to Paul knew that idols had no power and that only God is God, but for some people this is a real struggle. They have a weak faith about this, and seeing the leaders doing it might make them stumble.

vs 10

And even though they might be encouraged to go and eat (after all, if the meat is cheap, why not?) if they are having pangs of conscience about it, is it healthy for them to do so? See, this is less of a theological argument that the Corinthians are making - it's more an argument of "we want to eat meat, so we've worked out how our freedom in Christ lets us".

vs 11

Arrogant knowledge is destructive, and destruction is not the purview of the Christian. Love builds up, and so love should be your guiding principle in your Christian freedom, not knowledge.

vs 12

Ouch. Paul really wants to show them that the church body is more important than the individual believer's freedom. Oh, and if this is sounding a lot like Romans 14, that's because it's the same principle.

vs 13

Better to be a vegetarian and to keep your brothers and sisters in Christ spiritually healthy, than to exercise your Christian freedom and have it stumble them in their faith.

But don't think that Paul wants to give power in the church over to the weak and lame in the faith! Hell no! Love does not stop at preventing the stumbling of the weak. It is also our job to encourage those who are weak in the faith to grow stronger. This solution of Paul's, just as in Romans 14, is not a for-all-times solution, it is a stop-gap solution, to allow the poor in faith to become rich in faith. People should always be making the forward journey in their faith, and it is the job of the church to help them do that.