1 Corinthians8:7
Previous VerseTranslation
But not all [are] in this knowledge. In contrast, some at this time by habit [see] anything sacrificed to an idol as of that idol, and their weak conscience is made dirty. (See comment below.)
Paraphrase
But, unfortunately, not everyone, not even all believers in Jesus, understand that idols do not represent real gods. There are some today who, because of the habits they have had for a long time, still think that anything sacrificed to an idol belongs to the god represented by that idol, and therefore, they think that eating such meat would give them a guilty conscience.
PAUL’S USE OF THE WORD WEAK
For the rest of this passage, Paul uses the word “weak” to indicate those believers who have not yet reached the level of spiritual maturity to understand that other gods do not exist and therefore idols dedicated to them are nothing to be concerned about. Yes, there is deception on the part of demons to make people believe in those false gods, but a believer in Jesus has been set free from such thinking patterns and therefore need not be concerned about whether meat has been involved in a ceremony involving other gods or not. It does not affect the meat in any way. This is the mature position.
Michael Heiser raises the spiritually weak position to the level of truth, meaning that what Paul saw as the spiritually mature position was actually a falsehood, in Heiser’s mind.