Love Versus Selfishness in I Corinthians 8:1-13, Research Paper Example

In 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Paul takes up an issue that at first glance seems to be quite rooted in the character of his own time: the eating of meat offered to idols. The essential issue was that some believers were eating meat that had been offered to idols, to the detriment of the conscience of other believers in Corinth. For these believers, the central issue was the ‘knowledge’ that it was acceptable for Christians to eat meat offered to idols: after all, the Christian faith proclaims the reality of a single God, meaning that all other so-called gods are nonexistent. Paul, however, reframes the discussion: what matters is not how knowledgeable someone thinks they are, but rather the love that they show as a result of being known by God. As such, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 has a very great deal to say about timeless themes of the Christian life, such as the centrality of love, and the need to put the needs of others ahead of one’s own supposed ‘rights’.

What follows is considered exegesis based on a close reading of the text for the prevalent themes it contains. Information about the cultural context in which Paul was writing helps to explain a great deal of the relevance of this issue for the first-century Corinthian church, since the eating of meat offered to idols often had very profound social importance, and could also be somewhat difficult to avoid, especially for the poor. There are also important questions of context: meat offered to idols might be consumed in banquets at the temples, or it might be sold in the marketplace, where it could then be purchased and served in a private home. From there, the main theological themes are presented: an essential juxtaposition of claims to knowledge on the one hand, and love on the other, is seen to touch on a fundamental issue of self-centeredness and claims to “rights” versus selfless love for God and others.

From the vantage point of modernity in the contemporary West, the issue of eating meat sacrificed to idols may seem odd, and possibly even quite trivial. In Paul’s time, however, when believers were members of a still quite small and very new movement within the Greco-Roman Mediterranean world, it was a vital question indeed. At stake was nothing short of the identity of the Christian believer as an individual saved by the grace of God, and the communion of believers with God and each other. As such, answering this question correctly meant a great deal to Paul, and it had tremendous significance for the believers in the church at Corinth.[1]

In the cultural context of the Roman Empire in the mid-first century, when Paul wrote, the sacrifice of meat to idols was a quite commonplace practice. In addition to sacrifices made in the temples for specific religious purposes, there were also sacrifices made to deities at a number of civic and private occasions. Meat sacrificed to idols could also be consumed in many different venues, from temple precincts to private homes, since meat sacrificed to idols was available for sale in the public market. It was quite common in antiquity for the meat from a sacrificial animal to be divided into three parts: one part was offered to the gods, a second part was given to the temple priests, and a third part was typically given back to the one making the sacrifice so that they could hold a ritual meal in the temple. The second portion, that given to the priests, was often resold on the market.[2]

One particularly knotty problem for Christian believers with qualms about eating idol meat would have been occasions, such as private dinners, weddings, and funerals, in which the host served meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Compounding the interpretive problem was the fact that for some of the more impoverished segments of society, meat sacrificed to idols was distributed free of charge after public games and other civic events. For these individuals, these occasions provided precious opportunities to eat meat, often the only opportunities they could reasonably count on.[3]

In the first three verses, Paul defines the problem as he sees it. He juxtaposes knowledge and love, and defines the problem in terms of knowledge. “Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.”[4] Here, Paul seems to be calling out certain people in the church at Corinth. Evidently the offense of those in question was arrogance and pride: Claiming to be ‘knowledgeable’, they ate meat sacrificed to idols with a sense of pride. Paul seems to counter this by saying that “we all have knowledge” (gn?sis), the implication being that those laying claim to some sort of higher insight should desist. But Paul is not done: He further takes these arrogant individuals to task by contrasting the respective effects of knowledge that puffs up and love that edifies, and then, in verse 2, by stating that those who are arrogant are actually profoundly ignorant.[5] “And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.”[6]

“We know that we all have knowledge” was quite likely a Corinthian slogan. Paul’s brilliant counter to this is designed not only to upbraid, but to correct: those who think they ‘know something’, those who consider themselves to be knowledgeable, are foolish. In a manner of speaking, they know nothing: the essential heart of the Christian faith is still lost on them, because the heart of the Christian faith is love, not intellectual superiority. Those who understand that are the ones who are truly in the know, and they do not put on airs. This, then, is the essential contrast between the knowledge that breeds arrogance and superiority, and the love that is to be at the heart of the Christian faith.[7]

Thus, Paul is not condemning all knowledge. In verse 3, he specifically associates knowledge and love with regard to God: “But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him.”[8] Moreover, Paul has already said that love edifies, which is to say imparts knowledge. So knowledge and love are not opposites at all: They are complementary when they are focused on, and come from, God. Love is the central theme for Paul, and with considerable rhetorical brilliance he has redirected the Corinthians’ focus to it. This is the theme that runs through this whole passage, and also connects it with much else in Paul’s corpus.[9]

The problem is with those specific individuals who believe that they have a certain knowledge, and use this as the basis for feelings of intellectual superiority. Far preferable, Paul explains, to love God and be known by God—for then one knows love! Thus, Paul is setting up a crucial dichotomy here, a dichotomy between pretentious, puffed up, egotistical behavior and attitudes on the one hand, and loving behavior and attitudes on the other. By so doing he is calling out the vainglorious members of the Corinthian congregation and effectively showing them up.[10]

Paul affirms that idols are nothing, and affirms that there is only one God in language reminiscent of Hellenistic Judaism. He dismisses the “so-called gods” of the Greco-Roman world, and affirms the place of God as creator, lord of His creation, and Father to believers. Verse 6, with its specific invocation of Jesus Christ, may represent a kind of Christian ‘mutation’ of the Jewish tradition in which Paul was steeped: The verse references the Shema, and alsorecognizes Jesus Christ as an agent in creation.[11]Thus, Paul is invoking and laying claim to the biblical heritage of monotheism, and the rejection of the legomenoitheoi, the “so-called gods.” As a thriving Roman colony in Greece, Corinth, of course, had a tremendous number of idols, as revealed by archaeology.[12]

Having set the stage in theological terms, Paul then goes on to address the issue of whether or not Christians should eat meat offered to idols. He does so in his own unique way, pointing out that there are believers for whom the eating of meat offered to idols is an affront to conscience. Not everyone in the Corinthian congregation, simply put, has the knowledge and the awareness to be comfortable eating meat sacrificed to idols. The so-called knowledgeable of the church seem to assume that eating meat offered to idols is an exousia, in the Greek, a right that they have. The basis for this right is their knowledge that idols are ‘nothing’, because the gods that they represent are no gods at all. In fact, what Paul appears to be saying in verse 7 is that not all Christian believers in Corinth have yet come to the understanding that idols are false gods, representations of completely non-existent entities. This may sound shocking to contemporary audiences, but in the context of the times it makes perfect sense: Given the degree to which anyone in Greco-Roman society had been steeped in idol worship by the time they came of age, it is not at all surprising that many new converts would have had lingering psychological beliefs in other gods, even after their conversion.[13]

Thus, Paul is recognizing that for these believers, the non-existence of the deities in question cannot be taken for granted: It is not enough to simply tell them they are wrong, for that is not the problem. The problem is that they have lived their whole lives thinking of these gods as real, and now they are only just beginning to reconcile themselves to the idea of a single great, loving God. Given this, it is not at all hard to see why this would be such a difficult issue for these believers, and why it would be so important for Paul to address it beyond simply confirming that idols represent non-existent gods, and therefore it is perfectly fine to consume meat that was offered to them.[14]

However, Paul makes it clear that knowledge is not the central issue: The issue is the conscience of those who are not comfortable with the eating of meat offered to idols. Therefore, for the sake of these believers, other believers should abstain from eating meat offered to idols, relinquishing their ostensible exousiato do so. The knowledge that the haughty members of the church community pride themselves on is not what is truly important: What matters is the status of every believer and every person before God.[15] For those experiencing a state of weaksyneid?sis, conscience, those who still had some lingering beliefs in the Classical gods, eating meat offered to those gods might be a stumbling block. They might, in essence, eat the meat in a way that, at least to them, feels like honoring those same false gods. As such, this would be a defilement of their conscience. This is what is at stake. Again, it is not at all surprising that this might be so: For these people, the idols have always represented entities having real, actual existence, and as such meat offered to these entities has ritual and communal significance. Therefore, for new Christians who are still struggling to shed their remaining polytheistic inclinations, eating idol meat is profoundly difficult.[16]

According to Witherington, Paul’s usage of syneid?sisprobably reflects a pagan Greco-Roman usage, rather than a Jewish usage. The term appears elsewhere in 1 Corinthians, specifically 10:25-29, and then on a few occasions in 2 Corinthians, Romans, and the Pastorals. In this case as in certain other places where Paul used it, the word is probably best translated “conscience”, but the room meaning, Witherington explains, “is ‘awareness’ or ‘reflective consciousness.’”[17] The usage of the term, then, is similar in this context to contemporary understandings of conscience. Paul is saying that while it is not inherently wrong for believers to eat meat sacrificed to idols, for some believers it is wrong because it is a stumbling block to them: it is something they cannot help but associate, within their own hearts, with the worship of idols. Because of this, when other believers do it, the example constitutes a proskomma, a stumbling block, for these believers. A proskommais something that leads someone into immoral behavior. As such, the risk here is nothing less than spiritual destruction.[18]

The proper focus, then, is a matter of how best to show love to one’s fellow believers. It is less important, in this context, that the know-it-all believers are technically correct in that because idols represent gods that do not exist, it is not therefore a sin to eat meat offered to them. They have the exousiato eat such meat, but Paul is arguing that because of the second-order effect of it being a stumbling block to certain new converts, they should be sure not to let the exercise of their exousiabe a source of spiritual harm to their brothers and sisters in Christ. The problem is clearly that the weaker believer will follow the example of the (supposedly) stronger, but because of the more fragile state of their faith will be tempted to go astray.[19] “For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols?”[20]

From this comes Paul’s throwing down of the gauntlet. “And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ had died?”[21] Paul directly confronts the believers in question with the consequences of their own selfish behavior: they will lead their fellow Christians into the sin of idolatry if they do not desist. That they do not mean to do this, that they do not mean to set a proskommain the way of their fellow believers, is immaterial: that is the consequence of their actions, and if they hide behind their so-called exousia, their right, to do this, they will be acting out of pure selfishness. [22]

Paul is very clear: such behavior is selfish, and it is a sin. “But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.”[23] Following the call of the Christian faith to flee from sin and embrace the example of Christ, Paul urges his congregation to abjure this behavior. The spiritual well-being of the congregation at Corinth is vastly more important than the right of anyone to eat meat.[24] “Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.”[25] Put others first, the apostle is saying: their spiritual health is far more important than the enjoyment of particular foods.

The issue of idol meat in the first-century church at Corinth touches on a number of quite profound subjects for believers today as well. Paul’s argument that love for others should prevail over the exercise of one’s rights as a Christian believer touches on a surprisingly complex and multi-layered issue. On the one hand, it very clearly establishes that to be a believer is to have rights, as a child of God. On the other hand, it also very clearly establishes that being a believer and living in Christian liberty does not give one the freedom to neglect others.[26]

As MacArthur explains, there are two main extremes believers often resort to on issues of what is permitted and what is not: Legalism, and license. Legalism is black-and-white thinking, a rule-bound approach that seeks to classify every action, every thought, every species of behavior as either good or bad, sanctified or profane. This is not at all a biblical approach to the Christian life, which calls believers to life in the Spirit through Christ Jesus. The other extreme is license, which for Christian believers often takes the form of at the very least, deeming everything permissible unless it is explicitly forbidden in Scripture, and many who indulge in such license soon find ways to disregard Scripture outright. Like legalism, license is entirely unbiblical. Paul’s entire approach in 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 is practically designed to frustrate both legalists and licentious persons, because the emphasis is on loving others and loving God, and this is incomprehensible from either a legalistic or a licentious framework.[27]

One way to conceptualize all this may be to say that Paul is calling these believers to true freedom: He is calling them to go beyond any consideration of their “rights” to be so free that they are willing to foreswear their freedoms for the sake of others. By so doing, those believers who are in the know will respect the consciences of those of the congregation who are still having trouble with the whole concept of a single God and of all idols as representing non-existent deities. This is true freedom, Paul is saying, and only if a Christian is prepared to take the action of forbearing from eating idol meat can they call themselves truly free. The conscience of one’s fellow believers, Paul is saying, is far more important than one’s own rights to partake in meat offered to idols.[28]

Love is antithetical to selfishness and the pursuit of one’s own self-interest at the expense of others. The Corinthian believers who were eating idol meat were doing so with remarkable self-centeredness, taking no account of the consciences of their fellow Christians. In essence, theirs was the sin of pride and of selfishness: Priding themselves on their knowledge, they selfishly ate idol meat without taking any consideration for those for whom it was a problem. They turned the whole question into a kind of intellectual debate game, and prided themselves on being correct, although they were profoundly misguided. Only when the Corinthian believers put their love for God and for their fellow Christians first can they know the freedom that such love brings. This is the knowledge that the Corinthians must have, the believers who are so full of themselves on account of their knowledge. This is the ethic to which believers are called: To edify each other, to build each other up, to support each other. It is entirely antithetical to self-absorbed vanity.[29]

But if all of this is so, how then to account for 10:1-22 and 10:23-11:1? In 8:1-13 eating meat sacrificed to idols is portrayed as a potential danger to weaker Christians, and to be avoided in such situations, but as an act that is harmless in and of itself. However, Paul seems to take a very different view in 10:1-22. “Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.”[30] The conventional answer to this seeming aporia is that Paul is fundamentally addressing marketplace food in 8:1-11:1, but in 10:14-22 he forbids temple attendance. This might seem to solve the problem: Believers should take care lest their liberty to eat food purchased in the marketplace after being sacrificed to idols cause other believers to stumble, and all believers should avoid ceremonies in pagan temples, because those ceremonies are in honor of idol-demons. This would leave 10:23-30 as a passage reaffirming the basic principle of liberty, balanced by the need to again respect the conscience of others.[31]

However, returning to 8:10 for a moment, Paul specifically refers to eating in temples, which was indeed a common practice in antiquity. In this context, the meat would be meat that had been sacrificed to a pagan deity, and then prepared as a cultic meal. Fee argues that this is really what Paul is responding to in the whole of 8:1-10:22, with 10:23-11:1 addressing the issues of idol meat in the marketplace and idol meat served in private homes. The real issue, then, is not simply the eating of the idol meat, but rather going to the temples and participating in cultic meals. This was a common feature of worship in many ancient societies, including ancient Israel as well as the pagan Greco-Roman culture of the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire. These cultic meals were no light matter, in that they had profound social as well as ritual functions, and were believed to be actually presided over by the gods.[32]

As such, the cultic meals in the temples were part social event, part restaurant, and part worship. The profound social functions of these meals were quite probably why some Corinthian converts were so keen to continue attending them. Paul’s vigorous defense of his authority and credentials in 9:1-27 is very likely a response to both being challenged by Corinthian believers, who seem to have taken exception to Paul’s refusal to accept material support from them and the fact that he followed different practices with Jews and Gentiles: With Gentiles he ate sacrificial meat from the marketplace, with Jews he did not. Paul thus defends himself in chapter 9, in order to bolster the authority of his position on the issue of idol meat, which is now seen to be fundamentally an issue of temple meals, and a question of Christian ethics. By defending his authority and reminding the Corinthians that idolatry is demonic, Paul reminds them what is at stake, and points them toward the correct ethics for a Christian to practice: An ethics centered on love of God and of others, not of one’s self and one’s putative rights.[33]

Heil sees chapter nine as reiterating the theme of freedom, and the hollowness of “freedom” and “rights” versus love. “Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?”[34] Paul, Heil says, is confronting his audience with rhetorical questions in order to show them that if anything, his position arguably gives him more rights than them. Heil also agrees that Paul is defending his authority here: he is calling out those believers who have been causing problems, and forcing them to recognize that he does have authority over them, and they should listen to him and stop being foolish. Heil also sees this as a defense of a very specific right, one which Paul has not availed himself of: the right to be supported by the congregation. He is explaining to them that he had every right to avail himself of their hospitality, but refused to do so. From this position of self-denial, he is eminently well-positioned, then, to point out that they now need to rethink their supposed “rights” to eat idol meat.[35]

In fact, there is even more relevance with regards to 8:1-13, because Paul goes on to point out something very important: he has not availed himself of this right for a very specific reason, a reason that is highly relevant to the issue with the idol meat. Paul has not availed himself of the right to material support from his congregation because he did not want to hinder his effectiveness in preaching the Gospel.[36]“If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things? If others are partakers of this right over you, are we not even more? Nevertheless we have not used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ.”[37]This is why Paul has every ‘right’ to tell the Corinthians to abstain from eating idol meat that is causing a moral stumbling block for some believers: he himself has practiced self-denial and given up his own rights for the sake of others’ spiritual well-being. Once again, Paul is saying that freedom and supposed “rights” must give place to love, love of God and love of others.[38]

And in many ways, the controversy over idol meat centered on the question of how believers should comport themselves in relation to the rest of the world. Eating idol meat was about far more than having a good meal: it was about fitting in and doing socially acceptable things. For those believers who were prepared to defend the eating of idol meat, the temple meals were important social occasions, expressions of Roman culture that they were eager to maintain. Becoming Christians had not removed their desire to be authentically Roman. Not that it should have, but the point is that for these Christians, the cultural and social importance of eating at the temples was profound. Moreover, as Witherington explains, Corinth was the type of town in which upward mobility was quite possible, and for this reason it was especially important to fit in. Paul was placed in the position of having to define, yet again, the boundaries of acceptable conduct for Christian believers with respect to the world. At other points in his letters he defended the rights of Gentiles to remain non-Jewish; here, he found it needful to urge the abandonment of a pagan practice in those situations where it might morally compromise other believers.[39]

There is also a very good case that the purpose of Paul’s rhetoric in chapter 9, which defends his refusal to accept financial support from the church at Corinth, functions not only as a defense of his conduct but as a means of strengthening his argument in 8:1-13. In 8:1-13 Paul criticizes the arrogant and urges them to give up their rights for the sake of their fellow Christians. In chapter 9, the argument is that he presents himself as an example of someone who has waived his own rights, and is thus a model from whom the Corinthian believers could stand to learn. The fact that the Corinthians criticized him for not accepting financial support may seem odd to contemporary audiences, but in the world of the first century it makes far more sense. Paul may have been in competition with other missionaries, and in the world of the first century A.D. a refusal to accept hospitality would be interpreted in a different manner than in contemporary culture. Moreover, Christ himself encouraged the model of what Dunn calls the “itinerant charismatic”, the preacher and evangelist “who depended entirely on the hospitality and provision provided for him by those to whom he ministered.”[40] Whether or not Paul was being criticized for deviating from this model, he could legitimately point to his conduct as an example of someone who had foresworn what might well be thought of as his due. As such, Paul was eminently well placed to argue that the Corinthian believers who were eating idol meat in the temples should abstain for the sake of their fellow believers, because he had the moral standing to do so.

Love is more important than “freedom”, if “freedom” is measured in terms of “rights”.[41] This is the central message of 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, and it is a message with many resonances throughout Paul’s wider thought. This can be seen very clearly in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, the ‘love chapter’, wherein Paul expounds upon his teachings on love. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.”[42] Love is central to 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, since love is what can resolve the issue at hand. If the Corinthian believers who are full of themselves will only instead allow themselves to be ruled by love, they will abstain from any action which might cause harm to their fellow believers.

Putting the interests of others first, then, is a major characteristic of love as Paul understands it, a characteristic on display throughout much of his writing. “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil.”[43] Indeed, this speaks to Christ’s sacrifice, as Paul himself discusses in Romans: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”[44]Following the example of Christ, believers should be prepared to sacrifice personal wants and comforts for the sake of other believers. This is essential if believers are to follow Christ, who sacrificed himself as an atonement for the remission of sins. Following Christ, Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, means living according to love, rather than living in accordance with one’s own perceptions of one’s rights. Love of God and love of others before one’s self should lead one away from selfish behavior, and towards behavior that builds up one’s self and others in Christ.

Bibliography

Blomberg, Craig L. 1 Corinthians. NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994.

Collins, Raymond F. First Corinthians. Ed. Daniel J. Harrington. Collegeville, MN: Order of Saint Benedict, 1999.

Dunn, James D. G. 1 Corinthians. 1995; New York: T&T Clark International, 2003.

Fee, Gordon D. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1987.

Gorman, Michael J. Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul & His Letters. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004.

Heil, John P. The Rhetorical Role of Scripture in 1 Corinthians. Atlanta, GA: The Society of Biblical Literature, 2005.

Keck, Leander E. Paul and His Letters. 2^nd ed. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988.

Keener, Craig S. 1-2 Corinthians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

MacArthur, John F. First Corinthians MacArthur New Testament Commentary. Chicago, IL: The Moody Bible Institute, 1984.

Oster, Richard E. 1 Corinthians. 3^rd ed. Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company, 1995.

Soards, Marion L. 1 Corinthians. Understanding the Bible Commentary Series. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999.

Thiselton, Anthony C. The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text.Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000.

Witherington, Ben. Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995.

[1] Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians, ed. Daniel J. Harrington (Collegeville, MN: Order of Saint Benedict, 1999), 304-305.

[2] Collins, First Corinthians, 305; Marion L. Soards, 1 Corinthians, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 169-170.

[3] Collins, First Corinthians, 305.

[4] 1 Cor. 8:1 (New King James Version).

[5] Collins, First Corinthians, 309-310.

[6] 1 Cor. 8:2 (New King James Version).

[7] Craig L. Blomberg, 1 Corinthians, NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 161.

[8] 1 Cor. 8:3 (New King James Version).

[9] Collins, First Corinthians, 311.

[10] Richard E. Oster, 1 Corinthians, 3^rd ed. (Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company, 1995), 182-183.

[11] Collins, First Corinthians, 313-316.

[12] Oster, 1 Corinthians, 184-185.

[13] Collins, First Corinthians, 321-323; Oster, First Corinthians, 186-187.

[14] Collins, First Corinthians, 321-323; Oster, First Corinthians, 186-187; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000), 620.

[15] Collins, First Corinthians, 321-323; Craig S. Keener, 1-2 Corinthians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 72-73.

[16] Oster, First Corinthians, 187-188.

[17] Ben Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995), 198-199.

[18] Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth, 199-200.

[19] Oster, First Corinthians, 188-189.

[20] 1 Cor. 8:10, New King James Version.

[21] 1 Cor. 8:11, New King James Version.

[22] John P. Heil, The Rhetorical Role of Scripture in 1 Corinthians (Atlanta, GA: The Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 134.

[23] 1 Cor. 8:12, New King James Version.

[24] Heil, The Rhetorical Role of Scripture in 1 Corinthians, 134.

[25] 1 Cor. 8:13, New King James Version.

[26] John F. MacArthur, First Corinthians MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago, IL: The Moody Bible Institute, 1984), 189.

[27] MacArthur, First Corinthians MacArthur New Testament Commentary, 189.

[28] Leander E. Keck, Paul and His Letters, 2^nd ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988), 89.

[29] Michael J. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul & His Letters (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004), 237.

[30] 1 Cor. 10:20, New King James Version.

[31] Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1987), 357-359.

[32] Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 360-361.

[33] Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 361.

[34] 1 Corinthians 9:1, New King James Version.

[35] Heil, The Rhetorical Role of Scripture in 1 Corinthians, 135-141.

[36] Heil, The Rhetorical Role of Scripture in 1 Corinthians, 141.

[37] 1 Cor. 9:11-12, New King James Version.

[38] Heil, The Rhetorical Role of Scripture in 1 Corinthians, 141-142.

[39] Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth, 201.

[40] James D. G. Dunn, 1 Corinthians (1995; New York: T&T Clark International, 2003), 60-61.

[41] Blomberg, 1 Corinthians, 162.

[42] 1 Cor. 13:1, New King James Version.

[43] 1 Cor. 13:4-5, New King James Version.

[44] Rom. 5:8, New King James Version.