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)

¹² Therefore I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, though you know them already and are established in the truth that has come to you.^(A)

²¹ I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and you know that no lie comes from the truth.

¹⁶ Let the word of Christ^[a] dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.^[b](A)

¹⁰ For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols?

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)

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)

³ Likewise, tell the older women to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or enslaved to much wine; they are to teach what is good,^{(A) 4} so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children,

¹⁴ And we urge you, brothers and sisters, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them.^(A)

¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.