How to be "Right" Without Being "Wrong"
Notes
Transcript
Our Scripture lesson this morning is 1 Corinthians 8:1-13:
Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.
Therefore, 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.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet 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.
However, 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. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For 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? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
May God bless this reading of His holy and infallible Word.
A young newly wed husband looks at the fried eggs his wife places in front of him. The outsides were crispy and the insides were rubbery.
“How many times have I told you that you have to cook eggs low and slow?”, he says to his young wife. Then he adds, “Perhaps I should cook the eggs from now on.”
His wife’s eyes fill with tears and as she rushes out of the room she says, “Fine! Why don’t you cook all the meals, and why don’t you find a new wife while you’re at it!”
One of the most painful and difficult lessons a person must learn in life is that being “right” does not guarantee that we are “wrong”. Anyone who has been married knows exactly what I am talking about. The same dynamics can happen in any relationship, even within the church.
Last week we learned that idols are nothing in and of themselves. They are nothing more than lumps of wood, stone or metal. Within the Corinthian church there was a group of Christians who were “right” about this, but were “wrong” about many other things. In chapter eight, Paul shows us how to be “right” without being “wrong”. In this chapter, Paul lays out for us:
The Guiding Principle
The Foundational Truth
The Wise Application
The Guiding Principle is found in 1 Corinthians 8:1-3:
The Guiding Principle
The Guiding Principle
The guiding principle is love. Paul certainly could have started with truth. As we will see very clearly in the next point and again in 1 Corinthians 10, these Corinthians were allowing their right knowledge that idols were nothing blind them to the sin of idolatry, but Paul does not start there. Why? Because prideful, unloving people never listen to the truth.
Knowledge, Paul reminds us, pride has a tendency to “puff up”. Isn’t it interesting that both the Greek language and the English language use the same metaphor to describe pride? People do not literally become “puffed up” when they become prideful, but the consequences of pride are much like an object becoming over inflated.
Have you ever overinflated a balloon? First it becomes distorted, then you start seeing stretch marks and finally the balloon explodes! This is what pride does to us. It distorts us, then damages us and finally destroys us!
Love on the other hand, “builds up”. Love most certainly builds up others, but in the context of this passage Paul is saying love builds us up. I say this because in verses two and three, Paul is focusing on the second person, not the third. He is saying to his readers: “You think you know something, you don’t know what you ought to know; but if you love, you are going to be known by God.”
To be “known” by God must be understood in its Hebrew or Biblical sense. God obviously “knows” everything, but to be “known” in the biblical sense is to be loved in an intimate way. The most famous example of this is Adam “knowing” his wife Eve. Love has a transforming effect upon us. There is a very familiar passage in 1 John about love that I hope you will now have a greater appreciation for:
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Love is the only cure to pride. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul writes:
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
So how do we avoid being “wrong” when we are “right”, the first step is to be guided by love.
The next step is to be firmly grounded in the uniqueness of God and an exclusive love of Him:
The Foundational Truth
The Foundational Truth
In 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, Paul appeals to the Shema:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
These Corinthians were letting their prideful knowledge lead them into idolatrous worship. Paul first hints at this in 1 Cor 8:10, when he points out that they were “eating in an idol’s temple” and he hammers home on this point in 1 Cor 10:
What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
Do you see what Paul is doing here? He starts off by saying “you are right, idols are not anything”, then he says, “you are so wrong in thinking you can participate in pagan worship, it is idolatry!”.
Is this not what we are seeing with those who are troubling the church today on the issues of gender roles, homosexuality and social justice? They start off with something that is “right” according to Scripture and they run with it and overturn a whole host of other biblical truth. They are like blind bulls in God’s theological china closet. What blinds them? A lack of love and fear for the Lord.
There is a reason Scripture constantly reminds us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”, when we don’t love and fear God, we will turn to human wisdom. This is what these Corinthians were doing and it was leading them astray.
We know come to Paul’s final point:
The Sacrificial Application
The Sacrificial Application
Once again, Paul begins by reminding his readers that the issue is often not the issue.
However, 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.
These people were right, idols are nothing and the meat sacrificed to them is not polluted, but that is not the point. The point is: what does your eating meat sacrificed to idols do to those who believe such meat is polluted?”
The answer is it can “become a stumbling block” to others (1 Cor 8:9) and even cause them to be “destroyed” (1 Cor 8:11). By doing this, Paul says we sin against both our brother and Christ Himself (1 Cor. 8:12)!
Here is where the sacrifice come into play, is our being “right” worth it? The answer for Paul is clearly no.
Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
Like most other men, Paul surely loved his meat, but he loved Christ and His church more. He was willing to sacrifice eating meat if this could help prevent his brother in Christ from stumbling.
Too many of those who profess faith in Christ, practice a form of consumer Christianity. They know what they like, they know they are right and if they don’t get their way they will go to someplace else. When they leave, they alway know they are “right”.
The only type of Christianity the Bible knows of is “sacrificial Christianity”. Sacrificial Christianity is founded upon the confession that God is one and that we are to love Him with our whole being. It is guided by not only love for God, but love for our fellow man, especially those who are a part of the household of faith.
Is it any wonder that the only type of Christianity the Bible knows is sacrificial Christianity, for the life of sacrificial love is the type of life Christ lived. Our closing hymn is At Calvary; its first verse reads:
Years I spent in vanity and pride,
Caring not my Lord was crucified,
Knowing not it was for me He died on Calvary.
If you want to know something, know Christ and Him crucified! Let us pray.