What Does 1 Corinthians 10:29 Mean in the King James?
Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my liberty judged of another man’s conscience?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Your liberty enters another person’s field of knowing, yet the verse questions whether that other conscience gets to judge it.
THE MEANING
Your freedom does not exist in a vacuum: another person’s conscience is present in the same moment. Yet the verse does not hand that conscience unquestioned authority; it asks why your liberty is being judged by it. The tension is real, another person matters, and your freedom remains yours.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
That another person’s conscience is the final measure of your freedom. The verse leaves that claim open to challenge.
THE ROOT
συνείδησις
syneidēsis
GROWS FROM
συν + οἶδα (syn + oida)
To know with; awareness held together with knowing.
“Conscience” carries the sense of knowing-with: an inner awareness that can enter the space between people. Here the verse names the other person’s knowing as part of the scene, while asking whether it should judge your liberty.
ALSO GROWS
synoida: I know with; I am conscious of.
σύνοιδα
This verbal form shows the shared knowing contained in “conscience,” which the verse places beside your liberty.
oida: Know; recognize.
οἶδα
This is the knowing within the compound: another person’s awareness is present, but the verse still questions its authority to judge.
THE PATTERN
Freedom in a shared life is held alongside its effect on another person.
But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak.But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.THE THREAD
Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.The same Greek word for “conscience” appears here, where one person’s awareness is described as vulnerable to what they eat. Read beside it, 1 Corinthians 10:29 holds both the other person’s conscience and the question of who gets to judge your liberty.
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