Love Builds Up

8 Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. ² If anyone supposes that he knows something, he does not yet know the way he ought to know. ³ But if anyone loves God, this person has been known^[a] by him.

⁴ So, concerning the eating of food from idol sacrifices, we know that an idol is not anything real in the world and that there is no God but one. ⁵ Indeed, even if there are so-called “gods,” whether in the heavens or on earth (as in fact there are many “gods” and many “lords”), ⁶ nevertheless for us there is one God—the Father, from whom all things exist and we exist for him—and one Lord—Jesus Christ, through whom all things exist and we exist through him.

⁷ However, that knowledge is not in everyone. Instead some, who are still affected by their former habit with the idol, eat the food as something sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

⁸ Food will not bring us closer to God. We do not lack anything if we do not eat, nor are we better off if we do. ⁹ And be careful that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. ¹⁰ For if someone sees you, a person who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not the conscience of this man, weak as he is, be emboldened to eat food from an idol sacrifice? ¹¹ You see, the weak person is being destroyed by your knowledge—the brother for whose sake Christ died! ¹² And when you sin in this way against your brothers and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. ¹³ Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I do not cause my brother to sin.