The ancient city of Corinth was a true hotbed of competing cultures, philosophies, and religions. It was a port city with all the blessings and ailments that befall such a place. Although today we may have gotten really good at separating the church from the state, or for that matter religion from just about every other part of a person’s life, in the ancient world these things were not always so distinct. In fact, much about one’s daily life was wrapped up in some way with the faith they practiced. A great example of this is the discussion concerning meat being sacrificed to idols in Corinth. The city would have been full of all sorts of temples to various gods with dominion over distinct parts of one’s life. Economics, family, fertility, adventure, war, good crops, safety, and security were all covered by one god or another. There was a god and a temple and, therefore, sacrifices assigned for all sorts of life’s big and little challenges. So, with all the sacrifices, all the various beasts being offered up throughout the week, what would they do with all the meat? Could the priests of the temple consume all of it themselves? Most likely not. There is only so often you want goat meat for dinner. Therefore, the rest would make its way into the marketplace. Instead of farm-to-market, it was farm, to temple, to market.
As a result, when you went out to the marketplace to buy something for dinner, the meat you were buying had probably been offered in some sort of ritual sacrifice. It was simply built into the system. Which means, even if you were particularly careful not to eat that sort of meat, things got complicated when your neighbors invited you over for a barbeque. You could not be sure if their meat was used in this way. Now, all of this had big ramifications for the newly emerging church we now call Christianity. This is what Saint Paul is laying out for us in 1 Corinthians 8. He makes a distinction between those who have knowledge and those who are weak.
Paul says, “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.” So, an idol is not a real thing, and meat sacrificed to an idol does not change the meat. You do not believe in the idol, you worship the one true God, so with a good conscience you can go ahead and eat. In fact, he goes on to say, “Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.” In Christ, you are free to eat away. However, there are some who have come out of that life of idolatry, pagan worship, and sacrifice who simply cannot get past it. Their conscience is torn by this practice. When they eat, they are overcome with guilt and feel as if they have betrayed God. So, if they see you eating, you with the knowledge, their weak conscience is scandalized by your actions, and you cause them to stumble.
Notice, though, what Paul directs us towards. He does not say, “Look, you with the knowledge need to immediately teach those with a weak conscience to get them up to speed, so we can enjoy the barbeque.” No, in fact he puts the onus on those with the knowledge to change their actions. If you, acting out of your knowledge cause your brother to stumble, this brother for whom Christ died, why then you are sinning against them and so sinning against Christ. So, he says, “If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.” The focus is toward love, toward a sacrifice for one another, not a demand to have what is yours by right and freedom. But in freedom we take care of one another.
The Gospel, the good news that you have been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, is not a license to sin and disregard your brothers and sisters. Though works do not gain you anything before the throne of God and all depends solely on the work of Christ, it does not mean your works, your actions, the living out of your life is of no consequence. Your life matters. Your actions matter, not for your salvation, but for the care and the protection of one another. Five hundred years ago, when the Reformation was just beginning to pick up steam, when the Gospel was breaking out and bringing assurance and comfort to the troubled conscience of the people of God, Martin Luther wrote a famous little treatise titled, “On Christian Liberty.” In it, he addressed for his age precisely what Paul was dealing with in Corinth. And in that writing he put forth what has become a famous saying. He wrote, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”
Both these statements are true. They reflect the life of one free in Christ. They depict the reality of our life under the Lordship of Christ. You are free, lord of all, subject to none. You are an heir of eternal life. You are given freely all that is necessary to enter the gates of Paradise. It is finished. It is already completed by Christ alone. But in that freedom, you are turned toward one another, turned toward your brothers and sisters, turned to all those who struggle, who are hurting and plagued by doubts and hardship. To them, you are a servant. You are here to care for them, to support them, to help them in their struggle, to make their burden your burden.
So, to return to the Apostle Paul, he says knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. That is the key, the big takeaway from this text. Knowledge pulls us further from one another. It is the road toward individualism, toward being islands to ourselves. It puffs us up because it sets us up in comparison to one another. It places us and our desires at the center. The knowledge of salvation in Christ alone is good, right, and salutary, but that knowledge alone, that knowledge separated from our life together will lead to a bunch of unsufferable, puffed-up individuals who forget just what they have been set free for. We can lose sight of what this life can and should be. But love, love builds up. Love betters everyone, considers both the strong and the weak, the knowledgeable and the troubled of conscience, and together love makes a mighty stand.
This text is necessary, as are the words of Luther, because the Christian faith is not, in the end, an individual thing. It is not just about you and Jesus. No, there is a corporate reality to the faith. It is a life which is lived together. This is where we find our strength, our ability to resist temptations and false teaching, and overcome doubts. Here, in this gathering of the people of God, in this congregation of the saints, there are many who are knowledgeable and many who are weak. In fact, I would say you are all both of these. There are parts of you, parts of all your lives where you are puffed up in your right knowledge and there are parts of your life marked by weakness. These weak points are the very points that can jeopardize your faith. They are where you stumble, where doubt creeps in. And in your knowledge, you just might poke holes in the weakness of a brother or sister, causing them to stumble.
But these are those for whom Christ died. These gathered around you right here and right now, are your brothers and sisters. This place is not about demonstrating your knowledge, about gaining your own glory, it is about demonstrating your love. It is a love which will sacrifice what is ours by right, so we might care and heal one another. This is our common strength. This is life together. The heart of our fellowship is the love of Christ, given and shed for you. That love flows into you and through you into one another. This is how we endure to the close of the age. This is our call, to love as we have been loved; to forgive, to embrace, to bear one another’s burdens. As Paul will later say, “These three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” So, it is.
