This week, Pastor Matthew continued on with our 1 Corinthians series with Chapters 8 and 9.
In this section of the book, Paul talks about food sacrificed to idols.
In the city of Corinth, people worshiped pagan gods by sacrificing animals within their temples, and eating the meat afterwards as a meal. There were often leftovers, and these were sold to the general public within their markets. This is the reason that some Jews refused to eat meat at all, as they didn’t want to risk even getting close to pagan sacrifices. This is the primary issue that Paul is dealing with within these chapters.
Within them, he sketches out the principles of Christian living in a pagan world before coming back to the specific topic itself.
Pastor Matthew made three primary points:
1. The principles of Christian living spring from love, not knowledge.
Paul says “knowledge puffs up;” bringing with it pride and arrogance. Instead of knowledge therefore we need love; practiced and put into action. We must figure out what it means to love the one true God with everything we are, and everything we have. God is both the world’s creator and redeemer, and if there’s any knowledge that we need to know, it’s of this God.
Paul therefore warns the Corinthians to be careful, doing everything they can not to cause other people to stumble and sin.
In the context of Corinth this came back to food sacrificed to idols, as before they became Christians, many of the people in the church would have been involved in shrine worship and would have therefore found it difficult to separate any part of their prior practice from the whole thing. The very smell of meat may have taken them back to the temple, and therefore Paul is asking the other believes to take this into consideration and practically love their brothers and sisters in Christ; prioritizing their love for them over their personal rights, knowledge and freedoms.
Similarly, we must all hold up our rights up to the light of love.
2. Love relinquishes rights and freedoms.
As Christians there shouldn’t be one single part of our lives that is not given to loving God. Everything about our lives should be devoted to Him. This has implications on how we live and how we treat others. Essentially: it’s not about us.
Our entire lives should revolve around Jesus, and this has practical implications for us.
First and foremost, we must be aware of our brothers and sisters and their consciences. We must sacrifice and relinquish our rights for them, laying our lives down.
Our freedom is for something. It is a freedom from all the things that keep us from who God wants us to be, and a freedom for His service and the Gospel. This is why He set us free, and what true freedom looks like.
God has given everything for the sake of the Gospel, including His own son, and He wants a return on that investment in the form of lives won through the Gospel all over this world.
Paul asks and answers the question, who am I becoming for the sake of the Gospel? Paul’s rights and freedoms were nothing to Him. What mattered most was that people were being rescued from darkness and transformed by the Lord’s glorious light. This message has not changed.
3. Love requires hard work and discipline of our own lives.
As Christians there are things we have to do not for our salvation, but for our growth. Our relationship with Jesus takes work, and requires laying down our lives everyday.
Our entire lives need to be oriented around the Gospel, and laying down our rights and preferences for the love and service of other people. A big part of the Christian life is discipline and self-denial.
Paul had his sight on nothing less than the renewal of all creation and the abolition of death itself. We are called to join this purpose, and be a sign of what’s to come.
