Paul wants the strong believers to count the cost of their freedom. They were right that "an idol is nothing in the world" (1 Corinthians 8:4), but their knowledge could now harm a fellow believer. Gill says "every word almost carries in it an exaggeration of this matter": the harm is great ("perish"), the person is a "brother," he is "weak," and the harm comes "through thy knowledge." Most of all, he is one "for whom Christ died." The question asks how something Christ valued so highly could be treated so lightly.

Paul answers his own question by naming the act for what it is: "But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ" (1 Corinthians 8:12). Then he states his own choice: "Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend" (1 Corinthians 8:13).

Eating meat that had been offered to idols was a live question for the church at Corinth, and Paul takes it up in 1 Corinthians 8:1, 4. Some believers still ate it "as a thing offered unto an idol," and their "conscience being weak is defiled" (1 Corinthians 8:7).

Commentators read "perish" differently. Barnes defines it as "Be destroyed; ruined; lost," and says the verse describes where such a course tends, not what must happen. Gill holds that the perishing "is to be understood of his peace and comfort," explained by the defiling and wounding of his conscience (1 Corinthians 8:7, 12), "and not of his eternal damnation in hell." Both agree the harm is serious and should never be risked for the sake of a meal.

This question measures a person by the price Christ paid. The "weak brother" may have little knowledge, but Christ died for him. Gill says he is one Christ "had such a value for as to purchase and redeem with the price of his own blood." Barnes says the phrase "is urged as an argument why we should not do anything that would tend to destroy the souls of people."

Paul had opened the chapter with a warning: "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth" (1 Corinthians 8:1). Knowledge alone asks what it is allowed to do. Love asks what this will do to a brother. In this chapter Paul does not measure the strong by how much freedom they use, but by how they treat the weak (1 Corinthians 8:9-13).