1 Corinthians 8

All right. It's been a little while since I last posted, over a week, so I'm getting one of the posts up that I wrote while I was on my vacation in Mexico! And here it is:

The first time I read through this chapter of 1 Corinthians I wasn't sure how exactly I was going to apply it to real life. It's about food sacrificed to idols. No one (that I am aware of) sacrifices to idols these days, so you can see my dilemma. This passage is, however, a great example of an appropriate time to take a principle and apply it to other areas of life, so let's do that.

In verse one, Paul says: "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." That in itself is enough to write a book on, but I'll sum it up as best I can. Without love, knowledge only makes us arrogant and self-righteous, consequently tearing others down and making them feel inferior. This is the antithesis of love, which by definition builds others up and encourages them. We can see this from our life experience as we examine the reactions of people and see that this is obviously true. People like being loved. They crave it. No one looks forward to anyone making them feel lowly and ignorant, which is what knowledge will do without love. Simple enough, right?

Now, why is Paul telling us this? It's because he's giving us a reason to prefer love, so that the consciences of the weaker brothers are not violated by what those with stronger consciences do. In the case of the Corinthians, it was over which foods they could eat, but it could be appled to a multitude of other situations. A specific example eludes me at the moment, but I'm sure you all are intelligent and can think of an example from your own life. Perhaps it is over decided whether to send one's child to public or private school, or deciding whether to go to Christian or secular college. Oh! Dancing, now there's a grey area if I've seen one. Some people's consciences are pierced by doing this, whereas other people have no problem with it. The point is that as Christians we can have a great freedom in the things we do (v.8) bar sinfulness, so long as it doesn't violate our consciences or anyone else's (v.9).

The idea here is that if you cause a defiled conscience, you have sinned against your brother and against Christ. If we excercise our freedom without concern for our brother, it can have very serious remifications (v.11). This destruction is the opposite of love and what Christ calls us to, therefore it is sin against that person, and consequently against Christ (v.12). Paul further explains how serious the matter is in verse 13 when he says: "Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall." we see here that Paul is completely devoted to his fellow Christians, regardless what the cost is to himself.

We need to strive to be like Paul, as he strove to be like Christ in this way. Christ was always looking out for the good he could do for us, and was willing to pay any penalty for that good. All the way up to death on a cross, as well as the numerous other pains he endured prior to that so that we can be saved. This especially applies in light of Bobby's message today concerning the family. We can always be looking out for how we can prefer them over ourselves, and I'm confident that we won't have to look long to find an opportunity to do this good work that God has laid before our feet.

"But the man who loves God is known by God." ~ 1 Corinthians 8:3


P.S. Christa's pregnant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!