- Food Sacrificed to Idols
- 1
- Now about food sacrificed to idols:
- We know that we all possess knowledge.
- Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
- 2
- The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.
- 3
- But the man who 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 knows this. Some people are still so accustomed to idols
- that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed
- to an idol, 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 freedom does not become
- a stumbling block to the weak.
- 10
- For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have
- this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened
- to eat what has been sacrificed to idols?
- 11
- So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.
- 12
- When you sin against your brothers in this way
- and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.
- 13
- Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin,
- I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.