Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
Don't Wound the Weak Conscience
1 Corinthians 8:9-13
9 But be careful that by no means does this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak. · WEB
A liberty that ruins a brother is measured against what Christ paid for him, and Paul says he would give up meat permanently rather than do it.
But be careful that by no means does this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak 1 Corinthians 8:9.
The liberty is granted and then made answerable. A right is not self-justifying in this letter; it is assessed by what it does to somebody else, and the same logic will govern Paul's account of his own rights in the next chapter 1 Corinthians 9:12 and the treatment of freedom later still 1 Corinthians 10:23–24.
For if a man sees you who have knowledge sitting in an idol's temple, won't his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols? 1 Corinthians 8:10.
The mechanism is social, not logical. The weaker believer is not persuaded by an argument; he is emboldened by an example — he sees a respected member at the temple table and follows without having resolved anything. The harm travels by imitation, which is why the strong cannot answer it by explaining themselves better.
And through your knowledge, he who is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died 1 Corinthians 8:11.
The verse is built so that the last clause lands hardest. Perishes is a serious word, and through your knowledge makes the correct theology the instrument. Then the identification: the brother for whose sake Christ died. Two valuations are set against each other — a man's freedom to eat, and the death of Christ for the person that freedom is damaging. Once the comparison is stated it does not need arguing.
Thus, sinning against the brothers, and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ 1 Corinthians 8:12.
And the offense is finally located. What looked like a private matter of diet is a sin against Christ, on the same principle by which what is done to the least of his people is done to him Matthew 25:40 Acts 9:4. The verb wounding is physical — a blow struck at something tender.
Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat forever more, that I don't cause my brother to stumble 1 Corinthians 8:13.
Paul closes with his own commitment rather than a rule for them, which is how this letter usually enforces things. The undertaking is absolute — no meat forever more — over a matter he has just said is weightless 1 Corinthians 8:8. That is the whole argument in one sentence: precisely because nothing is at stake in eating, there is no cost worth counting in giving it up, and a man who will not surrender something indifferent for his brother has revealed what he values. The next chapter is the same principle applied to rights that were considerably more valuable than dinner.
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