CHRISTIAN LOVE

The Controlling Guideline

1 Corinthians 8:1-13 

INTRODUCTION

                 In the chapter that serves as our Scripture reading, the Apostle Paul is dealing with a practice that was common in the first century but is not familiar to us today.  N America today people generally either worship one god or no god at all.  In ancient Corinth there were many gods and many different religions.  Sacrifices were made to these various idols, and then the worshipers and their guests ate the meat offered in sacrifice.  To eat meat offered to an idol was to engage in a form of worship and to receive nourishment and the hope of help from the idol god whose sacrifice was being consumed.

                 Those who were converted to faith in Jesus Christ forsook the worship of idols and recognized idols to be nothing.  Some of these new converts insisted that, since the idols had no reality, there was no harm in feasting at an idol temple, or in purchasing the meat offered in sacrifice to idols.

 Paul says that to participate in such feasts or to use the meat offered to idols could be harmful to those who had not yet come to a knowledge of the true God.  He declares that not everyone has the knowledge of the truth as they had come to know it in Christ Jesus.  He is eager that these new converts relate properly to those who are still pagans.  In our text he enunciates a principle that reveals that Christian love must be the controlling guideline for all of our conduct as it affects nonbelievers.

                 It is interesting to note how the various modern translations deal with this verse.  Today’s English Version says, “If food makes my brother sin, I myself will never eat meat again, so as not to make my brother fall into sin.”  Phillips translates it, “This makes me determined that, if there is any possibility of meat injuring my brother, I will have none of it as long as I live, for fear I might do him harm.”  Williams translates it, “So then, if food can make my brother fall, I will never, no never, eat meat again, in order to keep my brother from falling.”

  What the Apostle Paul, and these translators of the Word, are trying to tell us is that:

 We are responsible for our influence (Matt 5:16).

                 Christian love will cause us to recognize our responsibility for our influence and cause us to beware lest we cause others to stumble.