Paul first makes clear whose conscience he means: "not thine own, but of the other." The believer who knows an idol is nothing has a clear conscience about the food. Gill says the other person may be "the weak brother, or the unbelieving master of the feast." Then comes the question. Barnes calls the clause difficult and weighs several readings, but he thinks it probable that it is part of Paul's reason for holding back: if I eat, my liberty will be misjudged and condemned by that other person's conscience, so why give occasion for that? Gill agrees that "it was best to abstain from eating, rather than expose his liberty to such a censure and condemnation." The question is not a complaint against the weak. It explains why love chooses to give way.

Paul presses the same point with a second question (1 Corinthians 10:30) and then gives the rule that settles it: "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). He adds, "Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God" (1 Corinthians 10:32), and points to his own example of "not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved" (1 Corinthians 10:33).

Meat sold "in the shambles," the meat market, could be eaten "asking no question for conscience sake" (1 Corinthians 10:25), because "the earth is the Lord's" (1 Corinthians 10:26). The problem came only when someone pointed out that food had been offered to an idol. Gill describes the believer's own conscience as one that "is fully persuaded that an idol is nothing." The other person, weak or unbelieving, might take the believer's eating as approval of idolatry.

This question shows how Christian freedom works in a community. The freedom is real: Paul never says the strong believer's conscience is wrong. But freedom is not the highest value. Paul has already said, "Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth" (1 Corinthians 10:24), and in 1 Corinthians 8:9 he warned that "this liberty of yours" could become a stumblingblock to the weak.

Matthew Henry notes that Christianity does not forbid "the common offices of kindness" toward those who differ from us. Paul lets believers accept a dinner invitation. He simply asks them to love the people at the table more than the food on it.