Navigating Gray Areas in Love

Introduction

Good morning!

We are taking a short week off from our series in Jude. And we come this morning to the book of 1 Corinthians, so if you wouldn’t mind, please open your bibles with me to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 8.

In Christ, we enjoy unfathomable freedom: we are free from day to day curse of sin, we are free to be who God wants us to be in His power, we are free from the dread of eternal punishment and can breath in the greatness of God’s mercy. The freedom we have in Christ is spectacular. A lot of this freedom is gained as we grow in the knowledge of Christ: the more we know about Him, how He operates, what He expects, and what he does to empower us to do life His way, the more and more we can live reflecting this freedom.

Paul was writing to the Corinthian church, who had some significant issues he wanted to address, and a big part had to do with their attitude about their freedoms in Christ. There was a spirit of arrogance and a sever deficit in love within the church. Knowledge was an area of pride that this church, made up of former pagans, brought with them from their days of Paganism. This pride, this arrogance, manifested itself in several different ways, like dividing themselves over who their favorite teachers were, suing one another in the Roman courts, so on and so forth, and these were all two-sided issues, arrogance and a lack of love.

It was a lack of love that emboldened them to be divided, it was a lack of love that said, “you are wrong and I will have my own sense of justice satisfied before men.” Throughout the letter, Paul is addressing these issues in a way to drive home that they have a sinful attitude of the heart.

Arrogance and lovelessness, these heart issues tat are seen in the Corinthian church, can bee seen just as clearly in our own churches today. John MacArthur said, “To have love but no knowledge is unfortunate; but to have knowledge and no love is equally tragic.” The Corinthian church errored to the side of knowledge and allowed themselves to be puffed up because of it. This is essentially the heart of what Paul is going to address.

So please read with me in:

1 Corinthians 8 CSB

1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know it. 3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by him. 4 About eating food sacrificed to idols, then, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father. All things are from him, and we exist for him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through him, and we exist through him. 7 However, not everyone has this knowledge. Some have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 Food will not bring us close to God. We are not worse off if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat. 9 But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, won’t his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols? 11 So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge. 12 Now when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother or sister to fall.

Paul is reminding the believers of the importance of love. For anyone who wants to take notes or just little help following along, our outline will be:

Love Above Knowledge

Love Above Liberty

Love Above Self

Love Above Knowledge (8:1-6)

Sometimes, the best way to explain what you mean is by clearly defining what you don’t mean: In no way, shape or form am I advocating an all love, no-knowledge kind of faith. We have seen that enough in the Christian church and in the culture, and it is not a responsible way to carry the mantle of the faith given to us. People today will disparage the study of theology saying that it does nothing but divide, but there are times when division is necessary. Not what you expected to hear on a Sunday morning in church, huh?

Do we follow people who espouse error? No. Denominationalism, the fact that there are different denomination within the church, is seen in a bad light, but most denominations were formed as a result of trying to correct theological issues or in protest to social/relational issues. Some of the issues that caused church splits were perfectly valid - and because one side was unwilling to repent of their faulty doctrine, faithful followers of Christ stood for their convictions and left. The Protestant Reformation, for example, was based on several doctrinal issues in the church - can the church forgive sins? Can the church determine whether or not a person goes to heaven and if they can, why don’t the just let everyone in? Nope?! The Catholic church sold forgiveness of sins in notes called, indulgences. The German monk, Martin Luther nailed a list of 95 doctrinal grievances with the Catholic church to the doors of the Church in Wittenburg, Germany on October 31st, 1517 and that is what sparked the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic church had veered away from the truth of the Bible and fought tooth and nail to keep the bible away from “common” believers. In that situation, I believe we could all agree that separating themselves from the Catholic church was the right move. Less than 100 years later, the King James Translation of the bible would be published and the world would be changed forever. People could learn and interpret the bible for themselves and not rely only on what they were told from the Catholic priests.

We know that knowledge is important.

1 Peter 3:15 CSB

15 but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

2 Timothy 2:15 CSB

15 Be diligent to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth.

Christianity is not a religion for those who want to be mentally stagnant. Everything in our lives hinges based on how we respond and deal with the outworking of the gospel in our lives. There is a quote floating around out there in the internet that says “religion is a man sitting in church thinking about fishing, Christianity is a man sitting in a boat thinking about God.” Where our minds are reveal the condition of our hearts toward God.

CS Lewis said,

“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

So in this first point, I am not saying that knowledge is unimportant. What I am saying however is that Paul is issuing a caution to the church in Corinth not to allow their knowledge to trample over their responsibility to love one another. We cannot allow our knowledge to trample over our responsibility to love one another.

Corinth was a an awfully secular city where knowledge, philosophy and religion were a past-time. People loved acquiring knowledge for themselves and that was the thrust, they loved learning new ideas and systems of thought. The church in Corinth was, unfortunately, caught up in the lifestyle that surrounded them.

Earlier in the letter, he addressed how their love of knowledge had caused them to splinter into different groups who preferred the teaching of one over anyone else. People would say, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.” He was trying to remind them that all these teachers came with the same message, the same system of faith - the gospel - that was supreme over all others because it is the only true faith. He was pointing out how foolish it was to have their church not be unified for something so stupid.

This letter was also written in response to a letter that Paul recieved from the church asking him various questions. We have no idea what the letter Paul recieved said except through some of his responses.

1 Corinthians 8:1 CSB

1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

From the very onset of addressing this matter of meat sacrificed to idols, he addresses the inherent pride they’ve had in their knowledge and how love is more valuable to them. In the CSB, we see quotation marks around “we all have knowledge,” noting a reference to what was probably written in the letter he had received from the Corinthian church. If I’ve ever seen a moment in Paul’s writings where he is saying something like, “duh!!” this is it!

1 Corinthians 8:2 CSB

2 If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know it.

There are two things Paul is saying in this snippet, first that you think you know, but how you are acting shows that you don’t know it how you should - it may be in the head but it has not impacted the heart, so your ‘knowledge’ that you brag on so much is incomplete.

Has anyone ever known, or been that person who had to have the answer to every problem? This is really common in first year seminary students, and as I am sure a lot of you remember from my younger days, I was excited about what I was learning, and I had the tendency to be that guy. We have all known people like this and they can be somewhat of a labor of love.

There is theory in academics called the Dunning-Krueger effect - and I have a graph to illustrate what it talks about. The X-Axis refers to actual knowledge of a subject, it could be spiritual truth, medicine, law, engineering, whatever. The Y-Axis refers to confidence in the subject

You’ll see on the graph how there it kind of looks like a backwards u, when someone starts studying a subject, there is a huge boost in confidence in that subject because they feel like their eyes have been opened to all this new information that they understand! Parents, this is one of the reasons why our teenagers feel like they know everything about everything - if you’re in that stage of life as a parent, or as a teenager or young kid, know that as hard as this time can be, it is now when your kid needs that relational understanding that when they realize how much they still have left to learn that you will still be there for them. This time when they think they have all the knowledge is when they really need all the love. Because when they finally realize that there is so much more to learn, and that they have realistically barely scratched the surface on truly understanding, that their confidence takes a huge plunge. This is where a lot of young adults begin to experience symptoms of depression, or see people abandon the subject all together.

For those who continue to learn and work on it, there is a gradual growth in confidence as they grow in deeper knowledge and of the subject. What this does, hopefully, is teach people that even when they get a pretty good grasp on the subject they are studying, that there is still a lot for them to learn. It’s almost, in a way, humility being incorporated into the process of learning.

Experts in any field never stop studying. They want to stay informed and keep their chops up and learn what they didn’t know already. Experts have an understanding that there will always be more to learn. So when we think we actually know something, we show that we don’t know it fully, but guess what, love is different.

1 Corinthians 8:3 CSB

3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by him.

Paul says this in contrast to what he said in 8:2, that he who thinks he knows has an incomplete knowledge, but he who loves God is known by God. God knows everyone He creates, but those who love God are known by God. Think about what it means for a second: being fully known and fully comprehended by God. There is a contrast here: what we think we know, we don’t know perfectly, but if we love God, He knows us fully and perfectly.

And now we get into the nitty-gritty of this example from Paul:

1 Corinthians 8:4–6 CSB

4 About eating food sacrificed to idols, then, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father. All things are from him, and we exist for him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through him, and we exist through him.

Verses 4 through 6 is Paul essentially agreeing with the Corinthians that there really isn’t anything to worry about with eating meat that was sacrificed to idols, because idols were figments of the imagination of the men who carved them.

For a little background, the city of Corinth was a Roman city where Paganism had deep roots. They had gods for every situation you could think of and they all demanded the sacrifices. The priests at the various pagan temples would get a portion of the meat as their payment, but they couldn’t eat all of it, so they would sell it to the market place. People thought the food was cleansed because it came from a sacrifice, so it was a popular custom to get sacrificed meat. I have heard people preaching this say that the meat was even cheaper than the meat that went directly from the farm to the market, which makes sense on why it would be an issue - should I or should I not buy this meat when I can get it for a bargain?! If the meat was cheaper, it is a good way to save some money to get the same meat.

Love Above Liberty (8:7-12)

For newer Christians who had just come out of Paganism, though, there would be a good reason for the consciences to be bothered. While they recognized God as being the only God they served, they probably held to the position that the gods of Paganism were evil and enemies of the real God. They were less mature in the faith and didn’t recognize yet that God is the only real God.

1 Corinthians 8:7 CSB

7 However, not everyone has this knowledge. Some have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

They also didn’t know that food didn’t make Christians any more or less holy before God

1 Corinthians 8:8 CSB

8 Food will not bring us close to God. We are not worse off if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat.

So, whether their theology is right or wrong, they were following Christ but had things they wanted to avoid because they didn’t know any better and didn’t want to potentially defile themselves. They were living with under-developed convictions. But Paul’s command to those who had more knowledge, that there were no such things as idols and that food didn’t gain you any points with God, is the gist of the entire chapter, all the way through chapter 10.

1 Corinthians 8:9 CSB

9 But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.

At this point, Paul made this issue of love instead of liberty. He’s saying, “You are exactly right about the meat from the temple, you have all the freedom in Christ to eat it because there were no other gods attached to them because no other gods exist. But you are wrong to think you have the license to do whatever you want because your weaker brother or sister is still working these issues out. You are to love them, and in loving them, you are to act.”

Convictions can be a funny thing. The more we know, the stronger they become. The less we know, the more we have to work through. To act against our conscience willingly is sinful - we can’t do that and we can’t encourage others to do it either.

Whatever stage of spiritual development we are in, we cannot go against our convictions.

In Romans 14-15, Paul addresses a similar issues, that we cannot allow our own convictions about something to be used as a stumbling block for weaker believers.

He says this,

Romans 14:19–23 CSB

19 So then, let us pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another. 20 Do not tear down God’s work because of food. Everything is clean, but it is wrong to make someone fall by what he eats. 21 It is a good thing not to eat meat, or drink wine, or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble. 22 Whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23 But whoever doubts stands condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith, and everything that is not from faith is sin.

He is saying, if you have doubt in your mind whether it is okay or not, then don’t do it! Act in accordance to your conviction. He spells out clearly in Romans 14:14 what his conviction was, that nothing is unclean, but his concern wasn’t his own spiritual maturity, his concern was for those around him who did not have the same convictions enlightened by revelation and the scriptures that he did. His goal wasn’t to persuade them that it is okay to eat meat - he would teach them that, for sure, but he wouldn’t indulge and ruin them by encouraging them to eat meat that they thought had actually been sacrificed to another real god, his goal was to love them and not cause them to stumble, so he didn’t eat the meat.

1 Corinthians 8:10–12 CSB

10 For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, won’t his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols? 11 So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge. 12 Now when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ.

Can you start to see what the principle of this passage is? We are all at different points in our walks with the Lord. Knowledge will vary, but love is a constant. You have rights, you have liberties, but could your example embolden a weaker believer to do something that they think is sinful? Anything that doesn’t come from faith is sin - if you are not sure it’s okay and you do it anyway, you are as guilty of sin as if what you did really wasn’t allowed for real.

We don’t really have meat sacrificed to idols in our culture, so what are some other ways we can see this principle in our lives today? They are things that Scripture doesn’t really teach on: those grey areas where we use principles in scripture to guide us since a there may not be a direct teaching.

Eating meat/vegetarianism. I have heard it argued that Christians need to advocate for any life - including animals that are farmed for food. Some people have a strong conviction on this, some people look back to God’s command to subdue the earth, to go, kill and eat, so we have to know a little about people and their convictions, don’t we?

Consuming alcohol. The Bible says don’t get drunk, but it doesn’t say not to drink. Yet, if a younger believer who isn’t sure if drinking is acceptable for a believer partakes because I have a beer, I have lead him to sin.

Tithing in the New Testament church. The Bible doesn’t say much in the way of tithing, but in the Old Testament it was a command. Did that carry over or not? There are people who land on both sides of that conversation. Am I going to force my opinion and possibly embolden someone to act or not act when they are not convinced and lead them to sin? No way!

Secular Entertainment (music, movies, media, etc)

Notice how these aren’t doctrinal issues that deal with the person of God, but rather with what is permissible vs. what is non-permissible? That’s an important distinction. Doctrine can be corrected, conviction is something that is learned over time through experience. We need to navigate these gray areas with a concern, not for getting others to act according to our convictions, but in a spirit of love and with an awareness of those around us, for the weaker brother and sisters around us, to know how we can best love them.

Love Above Self (8:13)

This all boils down to our own attitude. We can have all the knowledge in the world and have some of the most well-informed, well studied positions on the gray areas of scripture. But we are called love our brothers and sisters by considering them before ourselves. This requires humility that is willing to look outside of ourselves and our own needs. Let’s look at our greatest example.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote about Jesus in chapter 2, saying:

Philippians 2:3–6 CSB

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. 5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.

Paul gives us a clear and definitive statement regarding the example of eating meat that was sacrificed to idols. He is willing to sacrifice his right to eat meat in order that his brothers and sisters in Christ would not be emboldened to sin because of his freedom.

1 Corinthians 8:13 CSB

13 Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother or sister to fall.

In just a few short chapters, reads come to 1 Corinthians 13. It’s called the love chapter. The way it is written was to help the church to compare and contrast what their lives were like verses what love really is. He is showing them that they were an arrogant church, impatient, unkind, envious, rude, self-seeking, irritable, keeping record of wrongs, so on and so forth. They were a church who wasn’t placing love for others above themselves.

Romans 12:3 CSB

3 For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one.

We have a tendency to both consider ourselves more often than others, and to consider ourselves as more important than others. Scientifically, we would look at this tendency towards selfishness as a survival strategy - ensuring our own needs are met gives a better chance at survival. However, we know that what Christ has done cannot be explained scientifically and likewise, the love that we are called to have for one another cannot be explained scientifically either. It goes against our sin-nature to look out for others more than we do for ourselves. When we find ourselves in a gray area of life, we need to press in to the Lord and mine the Scriptures for all the wisdom God would grant for us. But ultimately, we need to find out how to handle these situations in a way that honors the Lord. Whether we need to correct someone outright for a heretical belief about God or understand that scripture doesn’t teach on this topic specifically, we have a responsibility to obey God in the midst of it, while we are walking through it. And many times, that will require that we forgo our rights for the purpose of loving those in the church with underdeveloped convictions.

Conclusion - Love Because Christ Loved Us

Why would we even contemplate this level of self sacrifice? What love could motivate us to love another fallen and broken person enough to sacrifice our freedoms and liberties?

Friends, if I were to take a moment and be completely honest, this is something I struggle with. I enjoy my liberties and am not as mindful as I should be. Part of it is that I am growing older and not use to having any sort of influence in other’s lives - through example or by pouring into them directly. The other part is that I can be a sinfully selfish person who is content and intent on being comfortable. Like the Corinthians, the more I have examined this issue in myself the more I realize that a lack of love is a sin issue.

But guess what. We have a God who loves us dearly. That love isn’t just a squishy emotional feeling, but Christ loved us with action. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. There is a love that motivated God to sacrifice His position, His freedoms, His rights in order to love me the way He did. We love others sacrificially because we have been loved sacrificially. Considering what Jesus was willing to give up for us, we should also be willing to give our comforts and freedoms to love others. It is literally the least we could do.

Gray areas in the bible are sometimes the most fun parts to study and honestly can be some of the most divisive. We know we have freedom in Christ and that leads the greatest possible weight taken off our shoulders. But experiencing that full life that Jesus talks about in John 10:10 wasn’t supposed to be a lone venture. Christians, we are meant to walk through this life together and build one another up in the Lord. So let’s love another the way Christ loved us. We can never do it perfectly, but that doesn’t give us license not to do our best anyways.

Let’s pray.