1 Corinthians 10:27-30 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

If any of them that believe not Any heathen who lives in your neighbourhood; bid you to a feast Invite you to his house; and ye be disposed To accept the invitation; whatever is set before you At the entertainment; eat, asking no question About its having been sacrificed to idols; for conscience' sake. See on 1 Corinthians 10:25. But receiving it, whatever it may be, as that supply which Divine Providence has then been pleased to send you. But if any man say, This food is part of what hath been offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not, for his sake that showed it Whether he be a heathen, who might thereby be confirmed in his idolatry, or a brother, who might otherwise be insnared by thy example, and tempted to violate the dictates of his own mind; and for conscience' sake For the sake of his weak conscience, lest it should be wounded by seeing thee do what he judged to be unlawful. To explain this further, “The heathen often, in their own houses, made an ordinary feast of a part of the sacrifice, see on chap. 1 Corinthians 8:1; to these entertainments, the apostle told the Corinthian brethren, they might lawfully go when invited. But on such occasions, if a Christian domestic or slave, by informing them that this or that dish consisted of things which had been sacrificed to an idol, signified that they considered their eating these things as sinful, they were to abstain from them, for the reasons mentioned in the text.” For the earth is the Lord's, &c. This clause, inserted in our copies, is omitted in the Alex. Clermont, and other manuscripts, and the Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate versions; and some other critics think it disturbs the sense. “But,” says Macknight, “it renders the argument more complete; for the meaning is, The Lord, to whom the earth and all its fulness belong, having allowed men a sufficiency of other wholesome food, no one is under any necessity of offending those who are either ignorant or scrupulous, by eating a particular kind.” Conscience, I say, not thine own I speak of his conscience, not thine, lest it be troubled, and his mind be disquieted; for why is my liberty judged by another's conscience I ought not to use my liberty so as to do that which another man thinks in his conscience to be evil, and so judges me a transgressor for it. Or, as Dr. Doddridge paraphrases the verse, “I mean not thine own conscience immediately, but that of another person; for how indifferent soever thou mayest esteem the matter, thou art obliged in duty to be very cautious that thou dost not wound and grieve that of thy brother: but you will observe, that I here speak only of acts obvious to human observation; for, as to what immediately lies between God and my own soul, why is my liberty to be judged, arraigned, and condemned at the bar of another man's conscience? I am not, in such cases, to govern myself by the judgment and apprehension of others; nor have they any authority to judge or censure me for not concurring with them in their own narrow notions and declarations.” Others think it is an objection in the mouths of the Corinthians, and to be thus understood: “But why should I suffer myself to be thus imposed on, and receive law from any, where Christ has left me free?” But the above interpretation seems more probable, which supposes that this and the following verse come in as a kind of parenthesis, to prevent their extending the former caution beyond what he designed by it. For if I, by grace The divine favour; be a partaker Of the common gifts of Providence; why am I evil spoken of for my free and cheerful use of that for which I give thanks As tracing it up to the hand of the great Supreme Benefactor?