1 Corinthians 8:7

The traditional interpretation of this verse is as follows. Whereas every Christian should know that there are no other gods but the one true God, some of the Corinthians, because of their previous belief in idols, had difficulty shaking that belief. They still had needless false guilt about eating meat that someone had previously dedicated to a heathen deity. They thought they were doing something wrong even though they were not. This false guilt created a problem for them in their relationship with God.

A modern equivalent might be a Christian who gets saved out of a pagan background in which he was spending all of his free time and money on recreation of various kinds. He becomes a Christian and realizes that recreation had been his god. As a conscientious Christian he wants to avoid slipping back into that trap so he avoids recreation. He may even become critical of other believers who enjoy the forms of recreation to which he considers himself previously enslaved. He has trouble accepting recreation as a legitimate activity for Christians. When he sees other Christians enjoying recreation, he tends to look down on them as carnal. He has false guilt about participating in recreation.

Probably Paul was describing a Corinthian Christian who would go to a feast in an idol temple, as he or she had done before conversion. That person would have pangs of true guilt because by participating he or she was tacitly approving the worship and consequently the existence of the idol. Paul said the person’s conscience was weak because even though he or she intellectually believed there was only one God, his or her emotions had not fully assimilated that truth. Evidently this was Peter’s problem when he compromised by withdrawing from eating with Gentiles (Galatians 2:11-14).