1 Corinthians 10:25,26

“Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat, asking no question for conscience sake: 26. for the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.”

A Christian whose conscience is free from every scruple as to the eating of offered meats, sends and buys meat at the shambles; he has not to ask whether it is or is not sacrificial meat; it is pure in itself, like everything God has created. The term μάκελλον, shambles, is connected with the Latin macellum, and with the old French word mazel. The proper Greek word would have been κρεοπώλιον. The last words, διὰ τὴν συνείδησιν, for conscience sake, are naturally connected with μηδὲν ἀνακρίνοντες. Edwards also explains it in this way, applying it, however, to a strong conscience: an enlightened and firm conscience is a reason for abstaining from all inquiry. Holsten, on the contrary, alleges that the conscience here, as in the rest of the passage, can only be that of the weak Christian, of which the strong Christian needs not take account when he is eating alone at his own house. But, in these two senses, Paul would have added, as in 1 Corinthians 10:29, some qualification or other to indicate of which conscience he meant to speak. The simplest view is to hold that he is thinking of conscience, absolutely speaking, as in our expression: for conscience sake. The falsest interpretation is that of Chrysostom, Erasmus, etc.: “Making no inquiry, and that in order that, if you come to learn that it is meat which has been offered to idols, you may not have the burden of it on your conscience.” This meaning would suppose that the direction is addressed to the weak.

Vv. 26. This is a quotation from Psalms 24:1, a passage which, by proclaiming that all that fills the world comes from God and belongs to Him, saps the prejudice of the weak at Corinth at the root. By quoting this saying from the Old Testament, Paul wished to raise the weak to the height of the strong. Heinrici makes the interesting remark that these words of the Psalmist are used among the Jews as a thanksgiving at table.

The second case, that of an invitation to the house of a heathen: 1 Corinthians 10:27-30. Again, two alternatives must be distinguished; in the first place, the case of a feast at which no observation is made by any of the guests regarding the meats which are presented.