Food Offered to Idols

8 Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.^(A)

⁷ It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.^(A)

³ Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat, for God has welcomed them.

¹⁴ But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel, so that they would eat food sacrificed to idols and engage in sexual immorality.^[a](A)

⁴ Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists” and that “there is no God but one.”^(A)

² Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge,^(A)

Paul’s Reason for Writing So Boldly

¹⁴ I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.^(A)

¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

³⁴ Sober up, as you rightly ought to, and sin no more, for some people have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.^(A)