Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 8:13

"Wherefore, if meat causeth my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for evermore, that I cause not my brother to stumble." — 1 Corinthians 8:13 (ASV)

Therefore.—He states his own solemn determination, arising from the considerations which have just been urged. If a matter of food causes a brother to fall in his Christian course, I will certainly never again eat any kind of flesh, lest I should be the cause of making him fall.

It is noticeable that St. Paul in discussing this question makes no reference whatever to the decision of the Council at Jerusalem , that the Christians should abstain from meats offered to idols, and from things strangled, and from blood. Probably, the Apostle felt the importance of maintaining his own apostolic authority in a Church where it was questioned by some, and he felt that to base his instruction upon the decision of the Church at Jerusalem might have seemed to imply that he had obtained authority from them, and not directly from the Lord.

It was also more in accordance with St. Paul’s usual style of instruction to base the smallest details of conduct upon that highest of all principles—our union as Christians with Christ. An appeal to the letter sent from Jerusalem would have been no step in the ascending argument, which reaches its great climax in 1 Corinthians 8:11–12, and which, in 1 Corinthians 8:13, the Apostle enunciates as the guide of his own life.