Gospel Decoded
HomeAll entries › 1 Corinthians

“Eating in an idol's temple”

1 Corinthians 8:10
Cultural referenceSettledPaul
For if someone with a weak conscience sees you who are well informed eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged to eat food sacrificed to idols? (1 Corinthians 8:10 BSB)

What it sounds like today

Why would a Christian be dining in a pagan temple at all?

The cultural key

Because that is where dinner was. Temples ran the banquet halls of a Greco-Roman city: guild dinners, weddings, birthdays, business meals, all convened in temple dining rooms, and surviving papyrus invitations read 'X invites you to dine at the table of the lord Serapis.' Meanwhile most meat in the market had passed through a sacrifice on its way to the butcher. Declining all of it meant social and commercial exile, which is why the question consumes three chapters. Paul's triage: temple banquets, no (that table has a host); market meat, yes, and don't interrogate the butcher ('eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question,' 10:25).

Recovered meaning

The idol-food chapters are about whether a Christian can keep a social life in a pagan city, and Paul answers with a map: the food is nothing, the fellowship of the venue is not, and the weaker conscience at your elbow outranks your rights.

Parallels: 1 Corinthians 10:20–28; Acts 15:20; Revelation 2:14
Part of Gospel Decoded, 833 phrases from across the whole Bible decoded into their first-century meaning. Open this entry in the interactive explorer →
Browse all 833 entries →