What Does 1 Corinthians 8:9 Mean?
But watch, lest somehow this right of yours become a stone for the weak to stumble over.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak.THE KEY
What you call freedom can become the thing someone else strikes against.
THE MEANING
Your liberty is real, and so is its effect on the one who is weak. A choice permitted to you can meet that person as an obstacle.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief this undoes is that what is permitted to me cannot become harmful in someone else’s path.
THE ROOT
πρόσκομμα
proskomma
GROWS FROM
κοπ-
kop-
To strike, beat, or cut.
“a stone for the weak to stumble over” in this verse is proskomma. The Greek image is not only an object lying in the way: πρόσκομμα (proskomma, “stumblingblock”) carries the sense of something struck against. What is liberty on one side can become a collision on the other.
ALSO GROWS
proskoptō: To strike against; to stumble.
προσκόπτω
This verb makes the obstacle an encounter: someone meets it with their own body and loses their footing.
kopos: Toil, labor, weariness.
κόπος
This related word carries the family’s sense of strain; here, the compound points to the impact that can trip another person.
ἐξουσία
exousia
GROWS FROM
ἔξεστιν
exestin
It is permitted; it is within one’s power to do.
“this right of yours” in this verse is exousia. ἐξουσία (exousia, “authority or right”) names more than an inward feeling of freedom: it is a power or permission to act. Its relation to ἔξεστιν (exestin, “it is permitted”) lets the verse recognize the right while still naming what its use may do to another person.
ALSO GROWS
exestin: It is permitted; it is possible.
ἔξεστιν
This word-family keeps liberty grounded in an available permission or right.
exousiazō: To exercise authority or control.
ἐξουσιάζω
The family connects liberty with power put into action, which can have consequences beyond the person exercising it.
THE PATTERN
A freedom or permission can become an obstacle for someone else through the way it is exercised.
You shall not curse the deaf, nor set a stumbling block before the blind; but you shall stand in awe of your God. I am the LORD.So let us no longer judge one another, but judge this instead, that no one sets a stone to strike against, or a trap, in his brother's way.All things are open to me, but not all things bring together. All things are open to me, but not all things build up.THE THREAD
So let us no longer judge one another, but judge this instead, that no one sets a stone to strike against, or a trap, in his brother's way.Romans uses the same Greek word, πρόσκομμα (proskomma, “stumblingblock”). What 1 Corinthians names as a possible effect of liberty appears here as an obstacle in another person’s path, making the relational consequence visible.
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