Study Desk

For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol's temple, will his conscience, if he is weak, not be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols?

For through your knowledge the one who is weak is ruined, the brother or sister for whose sake Christ died.

If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

For it is written in the Law of Moses: "YOU SHALL NOT MUZZLE THE OX WHILE IT IS THRESHING." God is not concerned about oxen, is He?

Or is He speaking entirely for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing in the crops.

But I have used none of these things. And I have not written these things so that it will be done so in my case; for it would be better for me to die than that. No one shall make my boast an empty one!

For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast about, for I am under compulsion; for woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.

For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have been entrusted with a commission nonetheless.

For though I am free from all people, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may gain more.

I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our fathers were all under the cloud and they all passed through the sea;

and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.

Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased; for their dead bodies were spread out in the wilderness.

Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they indeed craved them.

Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

Since there is one loaf, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf.

Eat anything that is sold in the meat market without asking questions, for the sake of conscience;

FOR THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S, AND ALL IT CONTAINS.

If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go, eat anything that is set before you without asking questions, for the sake of conscience.

But if anyone says to you, "This is meat sacrificed to idols," do not eat it, for the sake of that one who informed you and for the sake of conscience.