<p>8:10- see on 1 Cor. 8:9; 11:3.</p><p><i>For if a man sees you who have knowledge dining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be encouraged to eat things sacrificed to idols?- </i>Paul may mean this as a hypothetical case; the believer who knows for sure there is only one God could sit and eat at an idol sacrifice<i>, </i>seeing the food as just food and nothing else; and do nothing technically wrong. But by doing so, he would encourage the weaker brother to eat just the same food but as an act of fellowship with the false gods of paganism. But it might also be that the Corinthians were so weak that despite their knowledge of the one God and rejection of the existence of other gods, they still ate in the idol's temple. Interestingly, Paul doesn't criticize them for doing this itself; rather he reasons more subtly that by doing so, they were leading weaker Christians into sin. Later on he will argue that one cannot eat at the Lord's table and at the table of idols: &quot;You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons&quot; (1 Cor. 10:21). But at this point in 8:10, Paul is saying that one can literally eat food there, if this is not a participation, an active fellowshipping, with the idol. But externally, eating food at the idol's table looked as if they were partaking with the idol / demon. Paul recognized that two men can do the same thing externally and yet understand it quite differently in their hearts. But the problem is that the external behaviour can lead the weaker brother into sin in their heart, or as Paul has put it, &quot;their conscience is defiled&quot;.</p><p>Our example- and let&rsquo;s not forget, we all set an example of one sort or another- will either edify others towards righteousness, or &quot;encourage&quot; AV &ldquo;embolden&rdquo; our weaker brother to sin (1 Cor. 8:1,10). We &lsquo;edify&rsquo; others in only one of two directions; this is the point behind Paul using the same Greek word in both verses.</p>