1 Corinthians 10:31: eating, drinking and the glory of God
31Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever else you may do, do everything for the glory of God.
The line reads like a general motto and is, in context, the conclusion of an argument about food. That is what makes it concrete rather than decorative.
Short answer
1 Corinthians 10:31 concludes that eating, drinking and anything else a person does should all be done so as to glorify God. The line closes a passage about meat offered to idols, and the criterion it introduces appears immediately after: give offence to no one.
- Written by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 2 min read
Printed on a mug, the line sounds like general guidance about attitude. Read where it stands, it is the resolution of a concrete dispute between people who disagreed about a practical question — and it resolves the dispute by moving the criterion.
Where this verse appears
Paul had been handling a real problem in first-century Corinth: much of the meat sold in the city had passed through a temple, and Christians argued about whether they could eat it.
In the verses immediately before, he says that if someone points out the meat was sacrificed to idols, the other should stop eating — not on account of his own conscience, but the conscience of the person who spoke up.
After our verse he completes the thought: be no cause of offence to Jews, to Greeks or to the church of God, and says that he himself seeks the benefit of many rather than his own.
What it says
The sentence widens its scope on purpose: it begins with eating and drinking, the most banal acts available, and ends at "whatever else you may do". The choice of examples is deliberate — if acts nobody considers spiritual are included, no neutral area is left.
What "for the glory of God" means here is not vague, because the paragraph defines it. In context, glorifying God in that decision meant giving up a right you actually had, for someone else’s sake. The criterion is relational, not aesthetic.
Worth saying what the line is not: a stamp to place on any activity you were going to do anyway. Used that way it becomes a rubber stamp. Used the way Paul uses it, it is the opposite — the reason he stops doing something he could have done.
What to do with it today
The question the verse hands back is not "is this allowed?" but "what does this do to the person next to me?". It applies to what you post, to what you drink in front of someone trying to stop, to the right you hold and could decline to use. It is a harder criterion than permission, and a far more useful one.
A prayer to carry with you
Lord, break my habit of only asking whether I am allowed. Teach me to ask what my freedom does to the person beside me. Amen.