<p>8:7 <i>However there is not in all men that knowledge, but some being used until now to the idol, eat things sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled- </i>This is a description of how things were in reality within the &quot;all men&quot; of the Corinthian church. Not all had the knowledge; yet in :1 Paul says that they did all have knowledge. He is again playing on the difference between theoretical knowledge, and the spiritual knowing of relationship. Indeed he opened the letter in chapter 1 by doing the same; likewise, they all had the Spirit, and yet they were not spiritual (3:1). They knew God on one hand, but on another they had not the knowledge of God in real spiritual terms (15:34). It was because of this lack of knowledge as it was meant to be, that their conscience was defiled. They thought the gods really existed, because their 'knowledge' that God is one didn't translate into knowledge as knowledge is meant to be. When they ate the food offered to idols, they did so as a real act of fellowship with those supposed gods; the act of eating their food was understood by them in their conscience as meaning that those gods existed, and they were in fellowship with them. Despite this 'weakness', Paul speaks so often of the need to care for the &quot;weak&quot; (s.w.) and retain them within the Lord's body, and to become weak that we might save these weak ones (1 Cor. 9:22; 11:30; 12:22). Without doubt, Paul's approach was to preach the Gospel, get people baptized into Christ whether by his hands or others, and then tolerate their weakness of understanding and moral behaviour whilst making every effort to teach them further and correct them. This is in sharp contrast to the attitude of many today.</p><p>When dealing with the problem of fornication, Paul doesn&rsquo;t directly appeal to any legal code, not even the ten commandments, nor the agreement at the Council of Jerusalem, because he was appealing for life to be lived according to the spirit rather than any law. Likewise when writing about meat offered to idols in 1 Cor. 8, he could so easily have appealed to the agreements made at the Council as recorded in Acts 15. But he doesn&rsquo;t. For love&rsquo;s sake he appeals. He asks them &ldquo;judge ye what I say&rdquo;, he seeks for them to live a way of life, rather than obey isolated commandments as a burden to be borne. It is simply so that brethren and sisters, men and women, prefer simple yes / no commandments rather than an appeal to a way of life. In those communities and fellowships where everything is reduced to a mere allowed / not allowed, there tends to be less internal division than if it is taught that life must be lived by principles. Paul was smart enough to know this, especially with his background in legalism. And yet he chose not to lay the law down with Corinth; instead he appealed to a spirit of life, even though he must have foreseen the strife that would come of it.</p>