Freedom or Love

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

¹Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. ²If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. ³But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. ⁴Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” ⁵For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— ⁶yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. ⁷However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. ⁸Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. ⁹But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. ¹⁰For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? ¹¹And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. ¹²Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. ¹³Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

Paul now addresses something that was central to the culture in which the Corinthians lived. They were surrounded by pagan temples, idols, and practices. One of which was the offering of meat (and probably other foodstuff) to these pagan gods. For Paul, because “an idol has no real existence”, this was a non-issue. It was just food. But that was not the case for all of the new believers. For many, knowing where that food came from was a source of scandal and sin.

Paul opens this part of his letter with a reminder (for it appears several times throughout this letter) that knowledge puffs us up. It tends to enlarge the ego rather than serving the community. Love for the other builds up and so along with knowledge we must have love. This idea is not new to the New Testament. Even the ancient prophets carried this theme.

Habakkuk 2:4

Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

A great many of the new believers in Jesus came from a Jewish up-bringing. Those customs and practices had staying power. From the Jewish viewpoint, this food (meat) was unclean and therefore forbidden. Paul’s concern throughout the chapter is that arrogance may scandalize a brother and cause a fellow Christian to fall from the faith; love, on the other hand, always builds up.

From their catechetical instruction the saints in Corinth had learned not to fear idols nor the so-called deities behind them. These entities had lost their reality. Thus the more sophisticated members of the congregation seem to have operated with a broad interpretation of the circumstances in which they thought they could eat idol-food.

Lockwood, G. J. ©2000. 1 Corinthians (p. 277). Saint Louis: CPH.

Today, there isn’t a temple to a pagan god on every street corner. (Although one might argue that the preponderance of retail outlets might be wildly similar – but I digress.) But the concept remains and that being one of love. Are we loving enough to put aside our own freedoms for the sake of someone who struggles with a particular sin or problem. The simplest example is being sensitive enough not to serve alcohol to someone for whom this is a struggle. I have a few bottles of alcohol in the back of my pantry that I use for cooking from time to time. But when I had a house guest who was an alcoholic, we moved all of those bottles into a box and down into the basement. There was no need to even present the temptation. That would have been cruel. Several years ago, I knew a man who refused to go to an “R” rated movie. That constituted sin in his eyes. And so, I respected his position and didn’t push him on it. While many of those movies do indeed take the mind to places it doesn’t need to go, some of them have merit. For him, it was all or nothing. That position needed to be respected.

So, in our minds and hearts, love must be the over-riding factor. Our own freedoms mean nothing if we have caused another person to stumble in their faith or have caused them pain through our own selfish inclinations. When we are watching out for each other, we’re doing it as Jesus calls.