Think of God’s Will First
1Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2But if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know. 3But if anyone loves God, the same is known by him. 4Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one. 5For though there are things that are called “gods”, whether in the heavens or on earth; as there are many “gods” and many “lords”; 6yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him. 7However, that knowledge isn’t in all men. But some, with consciousness of the idol until now, eat as of a thing sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8But food will not commend us to God. For neither, if we don’t eat, are we the worse; nor, if we eat, are we the better. 9But be careful that by no means does this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak. 10For if a man sees you who have knowledge sitting in an idol’s temple, won’t his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols? 11And through your knowledge, he who is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died. 12Thus, sinning against the brothers, and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore if food causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat forever more, that I don’t cause my brother to stumble.
One day I saw some young mothers sitting together, trying to decide which company made the best baby bottles.
Whenever they got together, they shared useful information with one another: which materials make bottles free of chemicals that disrupt hormones, and which companies’ products are safe.
Mothers want safe bottles for one reason only: their babies’ health.
They worry about how to raise their babies in good health, and that is why they work so hard to find good information.
What they care about is not the bottle but the baby’s health. In other words, everything to do with the baby is the mothers’ concern.
If it will help them raise a healthy baby, they will search the whole internet and buy it, however expensive it is. That is why companies work hard to make baby products from good materials.
What the apostle Paul is saying here in chapter 8 about things sacrificed to idols is this: just as the mothers’ concern is the baby, there is no need to agonize over things sacrificed to idols if we know what God’s concern is.
After God created the heavens and the earth, he created human beings to share his glory with him.
But foolish human beings let what they could see take their hearts away from God’s love, and in the end they threw away God’s will.
Yet even as God watched humanity fall, he had no thought of withdrawing his will.
So he sent his only Son into the world, had that Son bear the burden of sin, and commanded him to atone for the sins of all humankind.
The Son always obeyed the Father without conditions. Because he knew God’s deep love, he carried the cross without complaint. That is why anyone at all who believes in Christ can now enjoy the glory of God.
Even so, people who had received God’s deep love could not let go of the world.
In Old Testament times, God in his terrible wrath struck people dead on the spot when they sinned. Once people could escape that wrath through the precious blood, they fell into a pit of sin even dirtier and uglier than before.
As the world grew corrupt, people began to make idols for themselves, and even the children of faith failed to draw a clear line between God and idols.
The world was full of people who served idols, and so trouble arose in the church at Corinth over things sacrificed to idols.
Those who had converted from Judaism insisted that things sacrificed to idols must never be eaten. Those influenced by Gnosticism insisted that in Christ nothing a person does is any problem at all.
When these two views clashed, the church lost its way.
When things reached the point where the church could not solve the problem, the Corinthian believers took it to the apostle Paul.
The apostle Paul tells them that if they first know what God cares about, this problem can easily be solved.
In other words, if they know for certain why Jesus came into the world and why God established the church, they can tell for themselves whether they should eat things sacrificed to idols or not.
In those days the priests were supposed to dispose of all the food used in religious rites. But there was so much that they could not dispose of it all, and the leftover offerings were sold in the market.
There was more than the priests could dispose of. That tells us clearly how spiritually dark and confused the times were.
Of course, we cannot assume that all the meat in the market had been used in the rites, but in fact it was not easy to tell offerings apart from ordinary food.
In this situation the believers could not set a table without buying things sacrificed to idols.
If they went to the market and bought meat that had been used in the rites, it troubled their conscience. If they did not buy it, they could not put meals on the table for their families.
This struggle over things sacrificed to idols became a serious problem for the church.
When the apostle Paul heard about it, he said something hard to understand in verses 2-3: if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know, and if anyone loves God, the same is known by him.
What Paul means is that if we know God’s will only as head knowledge, that knowledge is not much help in knowing the deep will of God.
People who know God do not live the life of faith by knowledge. They live out the Word in their daily lives, and that is why they can show the same love God shows.
Then Paul said that if anyone loves God, that person is known by God.
This means that those who serve God as their Father come to realize how much the Father wants to share his glory with them, and they naturally go on living the life of faith.
In the end, those who have truly met God do not stop at an outward life of faith. God’s love shows itself concretely in their lives, so everything they do will reveal God’s glory.
God will love such children, and he will help them in every way so that they can reveal his glory all the more.
If God trusts you in this way, every decision you make becomes God’s own decision and choice.
Believers who are mature in this way will serve only one God, the Father, even though there are many gods and idols in the world.
So when they come to have this kind of faith, they believe that God alone is the only God and the Creator, and that because Christ has overcome death, all time and all things exist for Christ.
Christ’s sacrifice is for the saving of souls alone.
And believers who serve Christ never tolerate idols.
For idols, which demand sacrifices from people, are completely different from the Lord, who came into the world to save souls, and who served and sacrificed himself.
Idols pass themselves off as gods and are served by people. But believers know whom they serve, so they are not deceived.
That is why believers who truly know God feel no fear or aversion toward food, even food that has been sacrificed to idols.
Genesis 1:11-12
11God said, “Let the earth yield grass, herbs yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with their seeds in it, on the earth”; and it was so. 12The earth yielded grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with their seeds in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1 records just how God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning.
God made light and darkness, divided the seas from the dry land, made the grass and the herbs, and made the sun, the moon and the stars to mark signs, seasons, days and years.
He prepared a perfect world for his children to live in.
Human beings ruined this beautiful work of God.
And now they abandon the Father, make idols and serve them, and offer the food the Father created for his children to live on to idols that do not even exist.
Believers who have lived by the faith that God alone is absolute eat all food knowing it as God’s gift to his children. That is why eating things sacrificed to idols like this hardly troubles their conscience.
But church members whose faith has not grown do not think of such food, each time they eat it, as food their Father created for his children. They see it only as an offering made to an idol, so their conscience grows weak and they feel guilty.
Now and then some church members, when they eat food from ancestral rites, are afraid, as though it had some spiritual effect on them, or refuse it as though they were committing a great sin against God.
But if we fear an idol carved out of stone and wood, we are not sure who God is.
Jeremiah 10 records the Word telling us not to be afraid of idols.
Yahweh said not to learn the way of the nations, and not to be dismayed at the signs of the sky as the nations are.
The idols the nations served were made by people who did not believe in God: they cut a tree out of the forest, shaped it with the ax, decked it with silver and with gold, and fastened it with nails and with hammers so that it would not move.
An idol made like that cannot speak and cannot walk. It is a thing that must be carried if it is to move at all.
Such idols can neither bring people harm nor give them blessing, and that is why Yahweh said there is no need to be afraid of them.
Yet people fear the idols they can see more than they fear God. They are afraid the idols will bring disaster on their homes and families, so they worship them.
But if you think it through, God created that wood and that stone.
If, before you fear an idol made from created things, you truly meet God, who created them, and understand his will, you will find that an idol is nothing to be afraid of. For the world does not have the power of Yahweh.
You must believe that as long as you live as a child of God, nothing can make you afraid and nothing can harm your life.
Even if you eat things sacrificed to idols, if you believe that God created all that food for his children, you will know that it cannot harm you, and you will be able to eat without worry.
1 Corinthians 8:9-10
9But be careful that by no means does this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak. 10For if a man sees you who have knowledge sitting in an idol’s temple, won’t his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols?
Mature believers can eat things sacrificed to idols as freely as they like and not stumble.
But if a believer who has only just received Christ sees this and becomes confused about what true faith is, then for that believer’s sake we must hold back.
For God has prepared all things for the saving of souls. So however mature our faith may be, we must be careful, not for our own sake but for the saving of souls.
You must be very careful. If a believer whose faith is weak sees what you do and stumbles, a soul that was to be saved is lost.
That is why the apostle Paul said that if a brother weak in faith saw him eating things sacrificed to idols and stumbled, he would eat no meat ever again.
It takes time to teach a believer whose faith is weak that it is all right to eat food that has been offered to idols.
For they have to understand God’s will and the Word fully.
We have to teach them the Word. And only when they try living by the Word and come to understand it for themselves will they gain confidence and the courage to eat things sacrificed to idols.
That is why the apostle Paul showed his resolve not to eat, with the heart of one ready to die, if only to save that soul, which God holds more precious than the whole world.
Christ carried the cross for the salvation of the weak brother. We must never water down his sacrifice through our own carelessness.
As I said at the beginning, God’s only concern is the saving of souls, and the concern of believers in Christ is also the saving of souls.
So we must refrain from anything at all that stands in the way of the salvation of souls.
That holds even when you have been given the freedom to eat.
For believers who trust in almighty God and believe that after death they will enter the kingdom of God and enjoy freedom to the full, there is no stumbling block.
But if a brother in faith is hurt in his good conscience by some small thing you do, then holding back for the sake of his faith would be your duty as a believer.
I hope you will wait for your brothers in faith until they mature, and take care not to become a stumbling block to them.
Once they come to have fully mature faith, they will enjoy freedom without any stumbling block, as you do, and will save many souls according to God’s will.
Just as the Lord was patient with you until you grew, I hope you too will be patient for your brothers’ sake and help them grow.
If all believers come to have mature faith, a faith that can eat things sacrificed to idols without fear, the kingdom of God will flourish all the more.