1 Corinthians 8

             Ah, “Christian liberty.”  That over-used, often abused expression.  Such is the topic of 1 Corinthians chapter 8. 

            The apostle Paul addresses the topic of Christian liberty apparently in response to another question which the congregation in Corinth had sent to him.  He begins, “Now concerning things offered to idols,” but then, it would seem, he digresses for two and a half verses:  “We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.  And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him.”  In reality, Paul here lays down the principle for how a Christian must approach matters which the Bible does not specifically address: not with pride in his or her ability to understand and apply the Scriptures, but with love for his or her fellow saints.  Paul reaffirms this idea later in this letter, “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (I Corinthians 13:2). 

            Then, specifically addressing the question at hand, Paul affirms, “We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one.”  Paul’s statement brings to mind Psalm 115, “But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands,” or Isaiah 44, where the prophet recounts that pathetic scene in which a man cuts down a tree.  Part of the tree he uses to build a fire to warm himself and to prepare food to fill his empty stomach, and what is left over he carves into a god, to which he bows down and implores, “Deliver me!”  So, knowing that an idol is nothing, Paul reasons, whether or not food has been offered to an idol god is of no account.  The Corinthian believers were free to eat it.

But Paul doesn’t stop there.  He acknowledges that there were some whose convictions did not allow them to eat the food that in principle they were free to eat.  Whether one eats or doesn’t eat does not make him or her more or less acceptable to God, writes Paul, “but beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak.”  It could be, he continues, that seeing you eat food offered to idols is enough to persuade another to violate his conscience in order join you, making you guilty of causing your fellow saint to sin.  “And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?  But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.  Therefore,” Paul asserts, “if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.”

So how do we apply this principle to our own lives?  By remembering that, at heart, “Christian liberty” does not refer to our freedom to dress as we’d like, drink what we’d like, spend our time as we like, live as we’d like…  It refers to our being set free to love our fellow saints.  To our being set free from serving ourselves to serving our God by loving our fellow believers.  Also, by acknowledging that it is the consciences of others that determine how we will live (I Corinthians 10:29).  That rubs us the wrong way, doesn’t it?  As in chapter 6, we prove ourselves more concerned with our “rights” than ready to face our Christian responsibilities to God and to the neighbor.

So do not treat your liberty as license to live in whatever way you please.  Nor exchange your freedom in Christ for legalism.  Rather, remember: you have been set free to love.