Love builds up. It moves in the realm of truth, not of opinion.

Paul means that knowledge is a great thing and very useful to the person who has it, as long as it is tempered by love.

Paul rebukes those who think they are wiser than the rest by saying that everybody possesses knowledge—the self-appointed wise people are nothing special in this respect. If anyone has knowledge but lacks love, not only will he gain nothing more, but also he will be cast down from what he already has. Knowledge is not productive of love, but rather it prevents the unwary from acquiring it by puffing him up and elating him. Arrogance causes divisions, but love draws people together and leads to true knowledge.

Paul means that knowledge only does good in company with love. Otherwise it merely puffs a man into pride.

Only when a person has love can he be said to know as he ought to know.

Whatever knowledge we may have, it is still imperfect. How is it then that some people claim to have a full and precise knowledge of God? Where God is concerned, we cannot even say just how wrong our perception of him is.

Paul shows not only that they have no love but that they have no knowledge either.

We do not know God, but he knows us. This is why Christ said: You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you (Jn 15:16). This is the fruit of love and the death of pride.

Paul says: If one loves God, one is known by him. He certainly did not say one knows God, a dangerous presumption, but he is known by God. Elsewhere he remarks, But now you know God, and then immediately corrects himself: or rather you are known by God.

An idol is nothing, says the apostle. One who makes an idol makes what is not. But what is that which is not? A form which the eye does not see but which the mind imagines for itself.

Paul now develops his argument in detail in order to show that knowledge without love is both useless and harmful.

Although man has made his own gods, he nevertheless became their captive once he was handed over to their fellowship by his act of worshiping them. . . . For what are idols but things, as the Scripture says, which have eyes and see not?^[1]

Paul says so-called here because he is showing that they do not really exist.

We say one to stop anyone dreaming that there could be another. We say one lest you should hear of his work under manifold names.

When he says through him, did he deny that all things were made in him, through whom he says that all things are? These words, in him and with him, have this force, that by these is understood one and the same reality, not something contrary. . . . Scripture bears witness that these three phrases—with him, and through him, and in him—are one in Christ.

You have made not only what is created and formed but also whatever can be created and formed. Everything which is formed from the formless must first be formless before it can be a formed thing.

From him means from the Father. Through him means through the Son. In him means in the Holy Spirit. It is self-evident that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God.

Just as there is one God the Father from whom are all things, so there is one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things.

So all things are rightly ascribed to God since it is by him and in him and for him that all things exist, are co-ordered, remain, hold together, are completed and are returned.

It is written: Go baptize the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. In the name, he said, not in the names. So there is not one name for the Father, another name for the Son, and another name for the Holy Spirit, because there is one God, not several names, because there are not two gods, not three gods.

Everything which exists has been created by the Father through the Son. It is impossible for God not to be Lord as well, and since the Lord is God, it is clear that Father and Son are one.

The Father is one, just as the Son is one. If the Son is called Lord, that does not make the Father any less Lord, just as when it is said that God the Father is one, the Son is no less God.

Note once more the apostle’s wisdom. For having first demonstrated that the words Lord and God are synonymous, he then splits them up, calling the Father one and the Son the other.

When people were forbidden to touch idols they would suspect that it was because they had power to do them harm. Paul therefore makes his position clear. He says categorically that there is no such thing as an idol but that it is necessary to avoid them so as not to give cause for scandal to those who are weak in the faith.

Food by itself is neither here nor there. But as he goes on, Paul reveals all the harm which might arise from eating meat which had been sacrificed to idols.

Neither shall we have any abundance if we do eat, nor shall we suffer any loss if we do not eat. That is to say: neither will the former make me rich, nor will the latter make me poor.

[T]hough there are many that are called gods, there is but one true God, according to the testimonies of the Scriptures.

Paul is saying that if we are not prepared to correct our weaker brethren, then at least we should not trip them up.

Give nothing and take nothing from an idol! If it be against the faith to recline at table in the temple of an idol, what would you call it if one wore the garb of an idol?

Paul is afraid that the weaker brother may be tempted to eat meat sacrificed to idols, not because he also possesses the knowledge that there is no such thing as an idol but because he might think that there is some spiritual power in such food, which he will acquire if he eats it.

It is not only his weakness but also your ill-timed behavior which plots against him and makes him weaker.

Let us expand this thought so as to say: If someone sees you who have knowledge of piety passing the whole day in those senseless and harmful associations, will not the conscience of the weak man be emboldened to pursue such actions more earnestly? That blessed apostle said this to keep in check those who were heedless, even after having knowledge of piety, who were exposing themselves to places of idolatry and causing scandal to the rest.

There are two sorts of food, one ministering to salvation, and the other which is fitting to those who perish. . . . We ought not to misuse the gifts of the Father, then, acting the part of spendthrifts like the rich son in the Gospel.^[1] Let us, rather, make use of them with detachment, keeping them under control. Surely we have been commanded to be the master and lord, not the slave, of food.

There are two things which deprive you of any excuse in this mischief. The first is that he is weak, the second is that he is your brother. I should add a third excuse also, one which is even worse than the others. What is this? That whereas Christ died for him, you cannot even lift a finger to help him in the slightest.

If you love the weak person less because of the moral failing that makes him weak, consider the One who died on his behalf.

Paul magnifies the accusation in order to prevent people from committing the crime.

Consequently, either when something is done which is intrinsically evil and scandal results, or if the performance of a licit act and one within our sphere of competence causes scandal to one who is weak in faith or knowledge, then the penalty is clear and unescapable. . . . It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck.^[1]

Those who wound a weak conscience sin against Christ. He considers the concerns of his servants to be his own. Those who are wounded make up his own body. These people are destroying the work which Christ built up by his own blood.

It is the very law of Christ that we bear one another’s burdens. Moreover, by loving Christ we easily bear the weakness of another, even him whom we do not yet love for the sake of his own good qualities, for we realize that the one whom we love is someone for whom the Lord has died.

It is all right to have a wife, but if she commits adultery she is to be rejected. Likewise, it is all right to eat meat, but if it has been sacrificed to idols it is to be refused.

This is like the best of teachers, to apply to himself the things he is speaking about. Paul is not concerned about the rights and wrongs of the issue in any objective sense. His only concern is that his brother should not stumble.

Those who are stronger and are not troubled by scruples are nevertheless commanded to abstain so as not to offend those who, on account of their weakness, still find abstinence necessary.