Love before Knowledge
Notes
Transcript
Pray
When we joined Africa Inland Mission before going on the mission field we had a whole seminar of giving up our rights.
We even had to sign a document to agree that we gave up our rights to certain things that we take for granted or ‘rights’ in Britain.
I can’t remmebr what they all were, but they were things like:
My right to personal space or private time.
My right to food I like,
My right to accessible medical care,
my right to live according to the culture I’m comfortable with,
my right to access to communication.
Rights are an interesting thing - and we have been taught by our own culture to defend them at all costs.
But today - Paul is going to call us to give up on some rights,
not becasue we’re going on the mission field
- but because it might be the way to love others before ourselevs.
The main point - Love before Knowledge
The main point - Love before Knowledge
The first few verse give us a summary principle to govern our Christian life in terms of our relationship with fellow believers.
1 Corinthians 8:1 (NIV)
Now about food sacrificed to idols: (Which Paul will talk about in a minute) We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.
Some statements are so simple - and so worth remembering in our day to day life areen’t they,
Knowldege puffs up.
Love builds up
KNowledge puffs oursleevs up doesn’t it!
Chest out, shoulders back, breath deep - I’m the fount of all knowledge.
I’m empowered, enanbled, more enlightened than most - knowedge puffs up.
He’s not saying knowledge is a bad thing - far from it - knowledge of the truth about Jesus as he often states - essential.
Elders are to protect truth, to teach it in our churches, this all requires and places a very high value on knowledge.
But - knoweldge without Love is nothing - it is a resounding gong or a clanging cycmbal (as he’ll say about anything that is done without love is in chapter 13.
I can impress you with theological knowledge all day (well for a minute of 2) but if i never communicate in love (in a way that builds up) - all I am doing is being puffed up - over inflated - myself.
There are echos back to earlier chapters about wise speakers impressing people with eloquense and wolrldy persausions.
Knowldge is good,
but on it’s own it puffs up.
Love must come first.
pause
love - builds up.
See how love is other focused.
It build the other up.
You can retain every detail you read or hear - possessing great knowledge or have a brain like a sieve - in one ear and out the other - but either way - you can build up others in love.
YOu can be a bright spark, or not the shaprest knife in the block - but you can still build up others in love.
knowledge puffs up,
love builds up.
I wonder how often we use our knowledge to win a debate or argument in church.
We throw in a wise word of scripture to shut down another -
we may be right - but if it’s not done in love then all it does is puff ourself up
- you’re unlikely to be heard anyway!
rather build up the other in love.
That is your primary goal says Paul
- as we move into an extended section in 1 Corinthians looking at rights and freedoms of a Christain,
and relationships within the church,
the use of spiritual gifts and church structures and male and female roles.
Love says Paul is both key and primary in all those areas.
Building others up. - that’s a good definition of true biblical love isn’t it.
Rather than puffing up ourselves.
If you’re in any doubt Paul gives us v3 - which twists what we expect to hear.
But whoever loves God is known by God.
Surely, in the context of knowledge and love - we’re expecting Paul to say - that if we love God - then we know him rightly - our knowledge is good if we love him.
But he doesn’t.
The only knowledge that really makes any difference or impact in this life is in fact a knowledge we don’t even have access too!
It is not our knowledge that is important but God’s knowledge of us!
And it is only God knowing us that gives us any hope.
The point Paul makes is clear - you cannot love God unless he knows you.
Knows you in a salvation sense - in a called by God sense,
elected, chosen, set apart by God, for God.
KNown by God.
Galatians 4:9 (NIV)
But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces?
Our salvation - our sins being forgiven - our relationship with Jesus,
if we have one,
if it is of any worth,
is not based on us at all - but on Him - choosing to show us grace,
Choosing to know us.
to enable us to believe in Jesus His Son who died and took our judgment,
And as such - any further grace of knowledge we then gain -
and any rights or freedoms that knowledge gives us- cannot be used puff ourselves up
love must come before knowledge.
pause
So now let’s look at an example of what that might look like in everyday life.
The issue in this chapter is about eating food, or meat that has been sacrificed or offered to idols - to false gods.
The reason Paul is specifically addressing this is becasue it appears to be a question they have asked him in a letter we no longer have.
Most translators recognise that some of this chapter is Paul using quotations from them in that letter.
But becasue we don’t have that letter - and becasue the original language didn’t have quotation marks - we have to guess a little bit.
The NIV adds quotation marks where they think Paul is quoteing the Corinthinas.
Ultimately though - the principles and meaning of the passage doesn’t change whether those quotes are in the right place or not.
So what is Paul’s application of love before Knowledge.
Firstly, notice it does not mean that we forego, or forget knowledge.
Paul gives, or perhaps simply confirms their current knowledge (depending on whether he’s quoting them or teaching them.
He wants them to have correct knowledge and thinking about this matter.
But secondly - knowledge does not nessicerily determine our actions.
Simply put he’ll argue that just becasue you may have a right knowledge that gives you feedom to do something - does not mean it is right before God to do it!
Perhaps this is a helpful model for us to use as we think about issues in our own culture and church.
It’s a 2 step model
1 - Knowledge - Think through the theology
1 - Knowledge - Think through the theology
2 - Love - Apply the theology for the sake of others first
2 - Love - Apply the theology for the sake of others first
So,
1 - Knowledge - Think through the theology
1 - Knowledge - Think through the theology
One God and One Lord
One God and One Lord
So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
Paul there in v4, probably quoteing the Corintihain letter is confrming what the knowledge they already have writen to him about.
An idol is nothing - why, becasue there is only 1 God.
There may be many gods or lords that the world testifies to, but in reality says Paul - they are nothing, they are not real.
In our context that rules out a lot of other options!
Hiddu Gods, The God of Islam, Mother Nature, Spiritualist, Star signs, the idol of believing the answers are all within ourselevs.
mind emptying meditation, the spiritual side of yoga.
Sure - in a sense some of those things exists in how people live and practice life - but in reality - in truth - they are nothing at all.
The bible teaches,
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
There is no other God to love,
For there is just one God - One Lord.
NOt only that - but becasue there is only one God
- unless he knows US - we have no life at all!
We are dead in our sin, nothing to live for, no hope before us, no knowledge that can help or save us.
v6 is facinating,
1 cor 8 6 “yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live;
So all things came from God and therefore we live only for him,
But as we know that’s an impossibility - ulimtately we are only interested in living for ourselevs.
But, end of v6, Paul reminds us how it is possible for us to live for God,.
1 cor 8 6 “yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, (he is how we know God) through whom all things came and through whom we live.”
So - also all things come through Jesus - for we know Jesus is God, still one God in 3 persons - Fatehr Son and HS,
And now though - it is Jesus ‘through whom’ we live!
It is the perfect righteous life of Jesus whom we live through - so that - despite our sin - we live for God alone.
It’s exiting stuff - and this reminder that there is only 1 God, 1 Lord which all things are from
and for whom we live
through the Lord Jesus.
With that knowledge - wat do we make of food offered to idols?
Paul’s answer in short is - well nothing!
The food is from the One God anyway - and the idol it is offered too is not actually there.
For the Christian who has life in Jesus - nothing about what and how we eat makes a difference to our faith.
But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.
It’s an irrelevance almost - theologically speaking.
But so prevalent is the practice of the Corinth culture of offerings food to idols,
And so ailien is that thinking behind it compared to what the Christains have now become,
it’s understandably hard to accept the theology that says you can still eat the food.
But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.
So, while the very act of eating the food offered to idols may not be sinful - if you eat it thinking that it is sinful - then the act is in fact still sinful.
Because we are choosing to do something that we believe to be against God - and anytime we do that - we are choosing our own way over and against His.
Most of us will have memories of our parents coming into a room and saying - ‘you look guilty - what have you done wrong’?
It doesn’t really matter if what we were doing was actually wrong or not
- they are still rightly disappointed that we are doing something we ‘think’ is wrong!
And so it is with God.
Now this is the important point - becasue it leads us to the second step -
2 - Love - Apply the theology for the sake of others first
2 - Love - Apply the theology for the sake of others first
Knowing that food is ok to eat - having the knowledge - thinking through the theology
- does that mean you should go ahead and enjoy that freedom?
The answer - it depends!
Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.
The situation here is that others see what you are doing -
thinks well if he or she is doing it - then I can too,
and so does the same.
The problem though - is that they are not doing it with a clear conscience.
They still think it is wrong - but what the heck - Sam is doing it, so I can too.
The knowledge of why it is ok has freed me to eat - but it has become a stumbling block for others to trip over.
I might be casueing other brothers and sisters to sin - becasue they don’t have the same knowledge - and are going against their conscience.
My freeing knowledge causes others to sin!
It’s a serious issue.
So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.
Not only can we casue others to sin by being careless in enjoying our freedoms and rights in Christ,
but we too are sinning in being carless about those freedoms and rights.
We sin against Christ - the very God we claim to be having knowledge about - to free us!
Instead - says Paul:
Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.
Most meat in the markets, so not just meat at special feasts,
would have been offered to idols somewhere in the process -
and so Paul says he’d make the greatest sacrifice known to mankind if it stopped someone else falling into sin - he’d become a vegetarian!
Paul’s point is clear - our knowledge that gives us freedom in this life through Jesus are not to be enjoyed at the expenses of the Love of building others up.
We are to be
Giving up rights for the sake of lovings
Giving up rights for the sake of lovings
Food offered to idols isn’t a particularly prevalent issue in our culture - but there are plenty of things we should be careful about how we enjoy our freedoms.
Perhaps the types of TV and films we watch,
how we engage with Halloween or not,
what we spend our money on,
The sort of music we listen too.
They are complicated things to think about.
Of course one good way to deal with them is to think about these things as a church,
so that we share our knowledge (in love) about them
- so that we may all have a clear conscience about decisions.
So, on the whole we as a church are free to enjoy much that other generations might not.
Previous generations banned dancing or alcohol entirely -
and if we lived in those times
- it may well be the right thing to not enjoy what we now believe to be a freedom
- so that we didn’t lead other to sin- and sin against Christ ourseleves.
You may need to think through this week -
What areas do I look at other Christains and wonder why they are so ‘restircted, or narrow in their thinking and or behaviour’.
Do we need to change our actions or freedoms for the sake of others?
do I need to give up something I do, for the sake of Love before knowledge.
pray
pray