“That They May Be Saved”

Paul has been settling a dispute about eating meat once offered to idols. He ends it not with a rule but with a principle, and the principle reaches all the way to the saving verb.

Lawful, but Not Expedient

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth.

1 Corinthians 10:23–24

Paul grants the Corinthians their point: they are free, the idol is nothing, the meat is just meat. And then he removes the ground from under the freedom as a trump card. The question is not may I? but does it build up, and does it serve the other person? Liberty is real, and liberty is not the highest consideration. Love is.

Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth — another’s good, another’s benefit. That is the pivot on which the whole passage turns.

The Aim: That They May Be Saved

Paul then states his own practice, and states its purpose with the saving word:

Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.

1 Corinthians 10:33

Hina sōthōsin — that they may be saved. Here the instrument of salvation is not preaching but conduct. Paul orders his ordinary behaviour — what he eats, whose scruples he honours, which rights he waives — so that his manner of life clears the way to the gospel rather than blocking it. A believer’s needless offense can compound a person’s unbelief; a believer’s self-denial can remove an obstacle. Paul chooses the second, deliberately, for the sake of the many.

This is the domestic, everyday counterpart to the grand strategy of the previous chapter. There Paul became all things to all men to save some; here the same principle governs a dinner table. The stakes are the same — that they may be saved — and so the meat on the plate is subordinated to them.

Conscience and Freedom Held Together

Paul is careful not to turn this into a new bondage. He tells the Corinthians they may eat what is set before them without raising questions of conscience; the freedom stands. The limit comes only when someone points out that the food was offered in sacrifice — then, for that person’s sake and conscience, abstain. “Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other.”

The reasoning is exact. Paul is not surrendering his liberty to a rule; he is surrendering it, in the moment, to a person. His own conscience is free; he restrains it for someone else’s sake. The freedom is genuine, and love decides when to use it and when to lay it down.

Do All to the Glory of God

The passage gathers into a summary that lifts the whole matter above food: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

And then the horizon widens to everyone: give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God. The believer’s conduct is answerable to God’s glory and to the good of every kind of neighbour — inside the church and outside it. Salvation is served not only from a pulpit but by a life arranged so that it does not needlessly repel the people it might draw.

Follow Me, as I Follow Christ

Paul signs the argument with its deepest ground: “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

The self-denial he asks is not his invention; it is Christ’s pattern, and Paul is only passing on what he received. The One who did not seek His own is the model, Paul the imitator, the Corinthians invited to imitate in turn. The renouncing of rights for another’s salvation runs, ultimately, back to the Cross.

What the Word Means Here

The full sense — salvation from unbelief — with the accent on conduct as its instrument. Paul seeks the profit of the many rather than his own, that they may be saved, and orders even his eating and drinking to that end.

Its contribution to the gateway is to bring the instrumental theme down to the ground. Not everyone preaches; everyone behaves. And a believer’s ordinary, rights-laden choices — what to insist on, what to give up, whom to accommodate — can serve or hinder another’s coming to Christ. Paul’s answer is to lay down his own advantage for the many, in imitation of the Christ who laid down far more, that they may be saved.

This study is part of What Does It Mean to Be Saved?, an examination of every New Testament use of saving language in context, within Resource Cluster 3: Life in Christ. 91 of 91 passage studies are complete — see every occurrence.