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Meat left over from pagan temple sacrifices was sold daily in the market. It was about the only option available for those who didn’t raise their own livestock. Paul knows that idols are nothing really because there is only one God, but another brother thinks he is engaging in a heinous act and supporting a pagan temple by eating food that comes from a pagan sacrifice. So what is a believer to do? Well, it is not a matter of knowledge: Who’s right? Who’s wrong? It’s a matter of love. Paul says that he has the right to eat the meat, but that he gladly gives up that right for the sake of the other brother. Paul limits his freedom out of love for the Corinthians.

Am I not truly free? Am I not an emissary[a] of the Liberating King? Have I not personally encountered Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work, my mission in the Lord? Even if others don’t recognize that I am His emissary,[b] at least you do because you are the seal, the living proof that the Lord commissioned me to be His representative.

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Footnotes

  1. 9:1 Literally, apostle
  2. 9:2 Literally, apostle

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