Paul stops to head off a misunderstanding. Earlier Paul had agreed, "we know that an idol is nothing in the world" (1 Corinthians 8:4). Now his argument might sound as if he thinks idols have real power or that sacrificed meat is somehow changed. Barnes explains that Paul raises the question by "leading the mind to it rather than directly affirming it at once." The first question asks what his argument really means. The second asks whether he is claiming that the idol, or the meat offered to it, is anything in itself. Gill, following the Syriac version (an ancient translation), answers no: Paul had argued from the greater to the lesser.

Paul answers in the next breath with "But": "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils" (1 Corinthians 10:20). The idol is nothing, but the worship around it is not. So he concludes, "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils" (1 Corinthians 10:21).

In Corinth, some meat sold in the market or served at a meal had been offered to idols (1 Corinthians 10:25-28), and feasts were held in honor of idols. Barnes explains that Paul is asking whether "the block of wood or stone" is a real, living object of worship, or whether the meat offered differs from other meat. Paul's answer to both is no. Yet, as Barnes notes, the offerings were really made to devils, and that is why the feasts were dangerous. The KJV word "devils" here is the Greek daimonia, evil spirits.

This question shows Paul holding two truths together. An idol is nothing; there is "none other God but one" (1 Corinthians 8:4). Yet idolatry is not harmless, because what is sacrificed is offered "to devils, and not to God" (1 Corinthians 10:20).

This matters for understanding the whole section. Some Corinthians were right about the idol and wrong about the danger. Knowledge alone could make them careless, even to sitting "at meat in the idol's temple" (1 Corinthians 8:10). Paul's answer guards them from both mistakes: from fearing idols as if they were gods, and from treating idol worship as if it meant nothing.