What Does 1 Corinthians 8:9 Mean in the King James?
But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak.
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
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.
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.
“liberty” 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.
Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the LORD.Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.THE THREAD
Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall 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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