1 Cor 8 – Studies

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each chapter is divided into a number of studies and each study or passage has a simple four-Part, verse-by-verse approach, to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: 1 Cor 8:1-7

1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: we know that ‘We all possess knowledge.’ But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 3 But whoever loves God is known by God.

4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: we know that ‘An idol is nothing at all in the world’ and that ‘There is no God but one.’ 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. 7 But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.

A. Find Out:    

1. What is Paul going on to write about? v.1a,4a
2. Yet what does he first seem to speak about? v.1b
3. How does he apply this to the first subject? v.4b
4. How do we need a right attitude towards knowledge? v.1c,2
5. 5. What understanding should the Christian have? v.5,6
6. 6. What problem did some people have? v.7

B. Think:

1. How can knowledge have good and bad uses, according to Paul?
2. How should knowledge help the Christian?
3. How was lack of it hindering some?

C. Comment:

Every time Paul starts with “Now”, we see him picking up subjects they had written to him asking questions about. They had obviously written asking was it all right for a Christian to eat meat (when visiting someone else’s home) that that person had first put before an idol. Would that “contaminate” them?

Look, says Paul, we all have a certain amount of knowledge. That can make you proud, but what you know and have been taught ought to deepen your love and your relationship with God. Apply what you know to the matter of idols. The ungodly world makes lots of “idols” or little “gods” but we know that in fact there is only one God, the Creator of all things. So (by implication) all these man-made idols are nothing.

Your faith in and knowledge of the Almighty God as experienced through His Son, Jesus Christ, ought to leave you so secure that any worries about worthless pieces of carved wood should be as nothing. Having said that, Paul recognises that there are some people who have come into God’s kingdom from the world where they did worship idols and the idols had seemed more real to them. Their conscience is weak and we need to consider them.

D. Application:

1. There is only one God, the Lord, God Almighty.
2. Idols are man-made. They may represent demonic entities but even those are small, fallen angels, not to be compared to our God.

Passage: 1 Cor 8:7-13

7 But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. 8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling-block to the weak. 10 For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? 11 So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12 When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.

A. Find Out:

1. What doesn’t food do? v.8
2. What are we to be careful about? v.9
3. What might happen? v.10
4. With what consequence? v.11
5. What are we actually doing when that happens? v.12
6. So what does Paul conclude? v.13

B. Think:

1. How do some people seem to have a “weaker conscience”?
2. What does Paul teach those with stronger consciences?
3. What examples of this can you think of?

C. Comment:

Yesterday we read Paul saying that eating meat that had previously been offered to idols was of no consequence to the Christian who is strong in faith. Yet now he acknowledges that some people will not be as strong in faith and, in fact, their conscience will worry them about doing such things. Very well, says Paul, so as not to put a stumbling block in their way, we who are stronger in faith would do well not to do that thing for the sake of the weaker brother or sister. If we carry on doing that thing then the weaker brother will perhaps try and imitate us and then, because of his weak conscience, will become guilt ridden and fall prey to the enemy. It is better, says Paul, that we who are strong in faith, simply abstain for the sake of the other.

This is an exception to the rule that, in Christ, we are free to do all things. We’ve already seen in this letter that not all things are helpful to my walk with Christ and so I simply don’t do some things, and now we have seen the same thing but this time it is for the sake of others. It may be that others have a problem with drinking alcohol, even though the Bible only warns against excess. Where we fellowship with such a person, for their sake, we would do well not to drink in their presence or encourage drinking in their presence.

D. Application:

1. All things can be mine, but not all are helpful to me.
2. All things are mine, but not all will be helpful to others.