Knowledge That Puffs, Love That Builds

Transcript

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[0:02] So we're continuing on in our journey through 1 Corinthians, and we've skipped a couple of passages at this point. The passage we have today is incredibly, incredibly important, and I'm excited to be able to speak about it with you today.

[0:23] Let's just jump right in. We're going to be reading through 1 Corinthians 8, so I'll give you a second to get that ready. And while you are getting your Bibles ready, I want to, I really think, Dwayne and I have been talking about this for a while, but he just texted me a picture of his cat trying to eat him, and said that his mere cat got sick from eating him. So Dwayne and I have been talking about a pun-off for a long time, and I feel like this is coming sooner than later.

[0:56] By now, you should all have turned to 1 Corinthians 8, and that really was a story just to fill time. Let's read. Now about food sacrificed to idols. We know that we all possess knowledge, but knowledge puffs up while love builds up.

[1:22] Those who think they know something do not. Yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God. 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.

[2:01] And there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we all live. 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 one, they are not. They are a Be careful, however.

[2:42] 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 at an idol's temple, won't that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols also? 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.

[3:25] Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or my sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again so that I will not cause them to fall. Let's pray. Our gracious God, we thank you for your word. God, we ask for your blessing over it.

[3:50] Speak into our hearts and our minds. As we learn what you have to say to us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So I had the chance to go to Thailand when I was in seminary. And on the way to one of our excursions, we stopped for food and rest. A man was selling meat next to a small shrine.

[4:19] It was an unknown sight to me and it was my very first encounter. My first encounter with idol food. It was novel and intriguing. And I did spend some time watching him. Watching what he was doing, watching his practice. He was very kind. And he allowed us to just kind of watch as he walked through his rituals and acts of worship. In fact, he even offered us a sample of what he was selling. And he talked us through what he was doing each step. We did not partake in the meat that he sold afterwards.

[5:01] And at the risk of admitting that I am a weaker Christian, at least according to this passage, I really did feel uncomfortable with the situation. Not uncomfortable watching him and what he was doing, but uncomfortable in partaking in what was offered to another god and not being able to get to know him better. other than my own. And he was kind in that too. He did not worry that we all refused what he was selling. He understood. Now this was my only interaction with such a situation. And I imagine, well, we travel often in this congregation. I imagine some of us have had the chance to see something like this. And I imagine many of us have not.

[5:56] It's not a common practice to us today. Not in this culture. It's not something we see every day. And so passages like this that talk all about whether or not you should eat food offered to idols, well, that's a little strange to us, maybe. But it was important to Paul.

[6:20] And so he said, In Corinth, like in all Roman cities, sacrificing meat to the pagan gods was a common religious practice. And often the sacrifice included an entire meal. It was similar to what's described in the Old Testament. In fact, some of you might have seen something like this in Exodus 24, 11, or in Deuteronomy 14, 22 to 26, or in other passages. And so it's important to us to know that this was a common practice. And I imagine many of us have had the chance to see something like this. And so I imagine places where rituals like this are described. The sacrificer would invite his whole family and his friends to join in this ritual. And then after the actual ritual, all of the guests would be invited to partake in the meal as well. And they would eat what was left over of the sacrificed animal. Many times, the sacrifice would be a meal that was eaten by the sacrifice. And so the sacrifice would be even after this meal, there would be plenty of meat left over. And that meat was given to the temple.

[7:29] And so the temple would take it and the priest would take a cut if he needed. And after that, the meat could be used for community feasts, or oftentimes temples would do community outreach, where they blessed the poor with food. And so the meat was used for those situations. And then what was still left over was sold at the temple market. And that was a bargain. That was like going to Smart and Final instead of going to Sprouts. And so people wanted that. People sought a bargain even thousands of years ago. It was just easier on the budget to buy meat from the temple places. And after that, what was still left over was sold at the temple market. And so the meat was given to the more mainstream marketplace and sold there as well. So we see that this idle meat has really, really just infiltrated society. And there's along with that, a hierarchy of ethical decisions to be made. If you are invited to somebody else's ritual, it's pretty rude to decline. And so the idea of the ritual is that the ritual is a ritual. And the ritual is a ritual. And if you go to some endemic endemic endemic endemic endemic endemic endemic endemic endemic endemic other implications because do you go and buy your meat at the temple where it is

[9:25] a lot cheaper to buy meat? Is that supporting the temple that is a shrine to gods not your own? Or do you, if you are one of the poor in the community, do you accept the charity that is being given by the temple? Or do you decline it at the risk of not having meat to give to your family? There are all kinds of ethical decisions and surely if the meat is being sold in the commonplace market then it can't possibly be a problem anymore to some people but to others it still was. So there are a number of issues to discuss in this. And then there's us. Here today. Must we have an opinion on the matter? We do not encounter idle food here in Los Altos on a daily basis. And yet Paul is about to spend three chapters talking about idle food. And so there's some importance here and there must be importance to us because God's word is youth useful for teaching and for building us up. And there wouldn't be three chapters spent on something that we couldn't do anything about. And so Paul spent three chapters talking about this blurry gray line and I think that means it's important for us to resolve it. Now in the past weeks we've talked about the Corinthians prequel letter that is missing to us today. Paul and the Corinthians had been

[11:23] in communication before this letter was written. Here he's answering a specific question that they sent to him. Our Bibles have these nice handy punctuation marks and they have these nice handy quotation marks and that indicates that Paul is referring to a phrase that is not his own. But way back then they didn't use quotation marks when this was written. So when we come to phrases like this we wonder first of all where they came from. But we do think that those select phrases that are set in quotations in our Bible today, we do think that phrases like we all possess knowledge or an idol is nothing at all in this world were quotes that were directly taken from a previous conversation with the Corinthians. So it seems that somewhere in these past letters that they had sent to each other the Corinthians had specifically brought up this issue of idol food and not only that but they had specifically used the phrase we all possess knowledge. And an idol is nothing at all in the world. It seems they were boasting about their knowledge.

[12:58] And that's in character. We've seen in preceding chapters that there's tension between Paul and the church and some members are majorly questioning Paul's authority. They've been growing themselves in spiritual knowledge. Sure Paul is a great Christian, but he's not a Christian. He's not a great man. Paul is an apostle. And Paul has spiritual knowledge. But now the Corinthians are thinking but we too are building up in knowledge. We're a pretty big deal actually. And some of them feel like they know better than the others in their community. And some of them feel that they know better than Paul.

[13:41] Some of them are becoming a bit full of themselves because some others don't. of their knowledge. And regarding this whole issue of partaking in idle food, well, they are seeking Paul's response, but ultimately they are pretty certain that they already know the right answers.

[14:07] And it wasn't just about knowing the right answers. It was the fact that their knowledge showed them how flawed their weaker brothers and sisters were. They had been given the gift of knowledge by the Holy Spirit. They had strived to build that knowledge and to draw themselves closer to God. And their actions, their carelessness in how they treated their earthly bodies, or their ability, to dissociate themselves, dissociate the idol from the idol food, or the act of idol worship. Those types of things only seemed to prove to themselves and the world just how spiritual they were becoming through their own knowledge. And what they feel certain of is this, that they are somehow on a higher stage of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage

[15:26] of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage of spiritual development than they ever were. And that is, they are on a higher stage things. Some people in their midst don't know as much. And that is what they feel the real true issue is. It's these other Christians who don't seem to know as much and they don't seem to accept the same freedoms that Christ offers. And if those people have lacking knowledge, then they must be less spiritual. Otherwise they would have put more effort in and otherwise the Holy Spirit would have gifted them with better knowledge. And so these knowledgeable people wonder about their leaders. Remember the whole Paul and Apollos and Peter debate from chapter one? Who's the best leader? Well this is all still a part of it. Does Paul know that he's the best leader? Does he know that he's the best leader? Does he know that he's the best

[16:39] leader? Does he know what we know? Is Paul even fit to be our leader? And how will he respond to this situation? And so Paul steps in and he says, okay, well it's great that you know things. We know that all of us possess knowledge. And that's their quote. On the one hand he's acknowledging certain parts of their argument. On the other hand he's using their own words to gain their attention. This knowledge that you have puffs you up. Makes you have kind of a puffy big head. But love builds you up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, his He does not yet know as he ought to know.

[17:38] But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. Their knowledge was one more layer of disunity and pride amongst them. Their heads were getting puffier, but they were not maturing in faith. So first of all, if you have real knowledge, then you know how little you know. I think as I grew and went through school, I'd learn a little bit about something, and then I'd realize there was so much more about that thing I did not know. And the more I learned about that thing, the more I realized there's a whole world of resources and knowledge that I just haven't obtained yet. The more you know, the more you know you know the less. Okay. Okay. This is the mark of a truly knowledgeable person.

[18:39] But another thing you would know is that love, not knowledge, marks the Christian who has a real relationship with God. Love, that is the mark of a truly spiritual person. And that is not the mark of a Christian if you remember how great his life was for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church was for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church was for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church. So if you remember how great his life for his church. the test of true spirituality. It's also the true measure of this freedom that we have in Christ. So a big thing to the Corinthians was that we have freedom in Christ. We have freedom from the law. We have freedom from sin, freedom from this world. Freedom was a big thing and they took that to mean

[19:48] we are free to do with our earthly lives and our earthly bodies as we want because we're free in Christ. But the true measure of freedom in Christ is love because our freedom in Christ was won by the greatest act of love when Jesus laid down his own life for our salvation.

[20:10] And so the measure of our freedom is also great love. We are free in Christ from sin and pride and this puffy false knowledge. We are free to do, we are free so that we can do, what is truly loving in God's sight.

[20:32] Now many of the Christians at Corinth were of a Jewish background. They always knew that God was the one true God and eating idol food meant nothing to them because idols were not truly God and so they could not truly be worshipped. But most of Corinth was not of a Jewish background.

[20:57] Most of Corinth worshipped idols. There were Christians among them who had once lived a pagan lifestyle and those sacrifices and rituals once met something very very important to them. They were not weaker Christians simply because they did not want to participate in these rituals once again. Things that could make them remember the past, or things that could cause them to fall into old practices again, participating in one of those meals as a Christian may have felt exactly like it used to when they were experiencing the same type of meal as an act of worship to a different God. They simply did not want to worship those gods anymore and the meals made them feel as though they were.

[21:52] And so is it worth our pride? To allow a brother or sister to struggle with those thoughts and decisions? Is it worth it to cause someone pain emotionally or to even to a degree risk their salvation so that we can look knowledgeable to the world?

[22:16] No, we don't often struggle with the ethics of idol food here in our time and place, but we struggle with plenty of other things. Do we use wine in our communion service instead of grape juice? When even a sip of wine can cause somebody who struggles with addiction to fall back into destructive practices?

[22:44] To what degree do we as Christians interact with mainstream culture? On the one hand, interacting with mainstream culture is how we are witnessing the world's violence and how we love people to a degree. And yet, does that mean that we are able to handle violent or sexualized media? Or that we allow our children to hang out with certain types of other children? We want them to be a witness, but we don't want them to be hurt or taken advantage of.

[23:21] Paul is not accusing. These Christians who struggle with these issues of being weak. He's using the words of those strong, knowledgeable Corinthians to get their attention. But every single person has strengths, spiritual strengths, other strengths, and every single person has weaknesses.

[23:49] In fact, didn't Jesus himself didn't Jesus himself say, say, blessed are those who are poor in spirit. Blessed are those who depend on Jesus. Blessed are those who are weak and can't make their way to God themselves.

[24:09] We all have weaknesses. And so we need to be there for each other. Now, certainly we are responsible as individuals for our own self, our own faith. We are responsible to have an individual relationship with God and to try and grow in spiritual knowledge to follow Jesus as Lord.

[24:35] There's an individual element. But there's a big, big community element too, because God's plan was never for us to walk this journey alone. And we cannot go it alone. We must be there for each other. And we must be there for each other.

[24:54] And teach each other. And call each other out lovingly. We must laugh with each other and help each other and worship God alongside each other. We must support each other. When a brother or sister is struggling, it is our struggle too.

[25:16] We love them alongside and through that struggle. And through their weaknesses, just as they love us alongside and through our struggles and our weaknesses. And that is how we grow up instead of puff up.

[25:35] How do you make your spiritual decisions? I hope it's with prayer and scripture. But may the Holy Spirit also guide you in this knowledge, in true knowledge. By showing you which paths you can take. May you remember them for life. May you remember them for life.

[26:20] Where might you need to ask for help from those around you? Or where do you wish you could get more help from those around you? And then the second question is this. Ask the Holy Spirit if there's an area that you need to grow to be more compassionate in. And how can you help your brothers and sisters in faith in this area?

[26:51] Let's pray. Dear Jesus, we thank you for community. God, we thank you for your guidance. We thank you that you strengthen us in our weakness. God, we ask for your discernment to help us in all decisions, to support our family in Christ.

[27:23] God, would you show us how to be more compassionate? And would you help us to live that out? These things we pray in Jesus' name.