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 watched a group of young mothers sitting together, trying to decide which company made the best baby bottles.

Whenever they met, the mothers traded useful information: which materials were free of hormone-disrupting chemicals, and which brands could be trusted to be safe.

They wanted safe bottles for one reason: their babies’ health.

Anxious to know how to raise a healthy child, they went to great lengths to find reliable information.

What they cared about was not the bottle but the baby’s health. In other words, everything that touches a baby matters to a mother.

Because mothers will search the whole internet and pay a high price if it means a healthy baby, companies take pains to make baby products from sound materials.

What Paul says in chapter 8 about things sacrificed to idols follows the same logic. A mother’s concern is her baby. Once we know what God’s concern is, the question of food offered to idols no longer needs to trouble us.

After creating the heavens and the earth, God created human beings to share his glory with him.

But in their folly, people gave their hearts to what they could see rather than to God’s love, and in the end they cast aside his will.

Yet even as he watched humanity fall, God had no thought of withdrawing his purpose.

So he sent his only Son into the world, made him bear the burden of sin, and commanded him to atone for the sins of all humankind.

The Son, who obeyed the Father without condition, knew the depth of God’s love, and knowing it, he took up the cross without complaint. Because he did, anyone at all who believes in Christ can now share in God’s glory.

Even so, those who had received God’s deep love could not give up the world.

In Old Testament times God’s terrible wrath struck sinners dead on the spot. No sooner had the blood of Christ spared people from that wrath than they sank still deeper into the filthy mire of sin.

As the world grew more corrupt, people began making idols with their own hands, and even the children of faith failed to draw a clear line between God and idols.

With society full of people who served idols, the church in Corinth found itself in trouble over things sacrificed to idols.

Converts from Judaism insisted that food offered to idols must never be eaten. Those influenced by Gnosticism claimed that in Christ nothing a person does is any problem at all.

When these two positions collided, the church lost its way.

Unable to settle the matter, the Corinthians brought it to the apostle Paul.

Paul tells them that the problem can be resolved easily if they first understand what God is concerned with.

Put another way, if they knew clearly why Jesus came into the world and why God established the church, they could judge for themselves whether to eat the food offered to idols or not.

In those days the priests were responsible for disposing of the food used in religious rites. There was so much of it that they could not get rid of it all, and what was left over was sold in the market.

The priests could not dispose of it all, and that fact speaks clearly of how spiritually dark and confused the age was.

Of course, not all the meat in the market had been used in rituals, but in practice it was hard to tell offered food from ordinary food.

As matters stood, church members could not put a meal on the table without buying food that had been offered to idols.

If they bought meat from the sacrifices, their conscience troubled them; if they did not, they could not feed their families.

This dilemma over things sacrificed to idols became a grave matter for the church.

Hearing of it, Paul wrote words in verses 2 and 3 that are hard to grasp: that anyone who thinks they know anything does not yet know as they ought to know, and that anyone who loves God is known by him.

What Paul means is that knowing God’s will as information does little to help us understand his deeper purpose.

Those who know God do not live their faith by knowledge. They put the word into practice in their daily lives, and so they can show the same love God shows.

Paul then added that if anyone loves God, God knows that person.

Paul’s point is that those who serve God as their Father come to see how much he longs to share his glory with them, and from there the life of faith goes on naturally.

In the end, anyone who has truly met God does not stop at an outward show of religion. God’s love becomes visible in the concrete details of their life, so everything they do will display his glory.

God will love such children, and he will give them whatever help they need to reveal his glory all the more.

If God trusts you in this way, then every decision you make becomes his own.

Even if the world is full of gods and idols, people of such mature faith will serve only one God, the Father.

So once we have faith like this, we believe that God alone is God and Creator, and that because Christ has conquered death, all time and all things exist for him.

Christ’s sacrifice had one purpose: the saving of souls.

And those who serve Christ will never tolerate idols.

Why? Idols demand sacrifices from people, but the Lord came into the world to serve and to give himself up so that souls might be saved. The two are nothing alike.

Idols pose as gods and receive people’s worship, but the saints are not fooled, because they know who it is they are to serve.

Therefore, even when it comes to food sacrificed to idols, those who know God fully feel neither fear nor revulsion toward it.

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, separated the sea from the dry land, and created grass and herbs; he made the sun, the moon, and the stars, and caused them to mark signs and seasons, days and years.

He had prepared a perfect home in which his children could live.

And people spoiled this beautiful work of his.

Now they have forsaken the Father to make idols and serve them. The very food the Father created so that his children might live, they offer up to idols that do not even exist.

Christians who have lived by the faith that God alone is absolute hardly feel any pang of conscience over food offered to idols, because they eat every kind of food as his gift to his children.

Church members whose faith has not grown, however, do not see such food as something their Father created for his children. Each time they eat it, they think of it only as an offering made to an idol. That is what weakens their conscience and burdens them with guilt.

Now and then some church members, eating food left from ancestral rites, are afraid they have come under some spiritual influence, or refuse it as though they would be committing a grave sin against God.

But to fear an idol carved from stone and wood is to doubt who God is.

In Jeremiah 10, God tells his people not to fear idols.

Yahweh said that they were not to learn the way of the nations, nor to be dismayed at the signs of the sky as the nations were.

The idols they serve are made by nations who do not believe in God: they cut down a tree, shape it with an ax, deck it with silver and gold, and fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not move.

An idol made like that cannot speak and cannot walk. It is an object that moves only when someone carries it.

God said that there is no need to be afraid of such idols, since they can bring neither harm nor blessing.

Still, people fear the idols they can see more than they fear God, and they worship them, afraid that the idols will bring disaster on their homes and families.

But think carefully: that wood and that stone were created by God.

Before you fear an idol made from created things, come to know fully the God who created them, and understand his will; then you will find that an idol is nothing to be afraid of. The reason is simple: the world does not possess the power of Yahweh.

As long as you live as God’s children, you must believe that nothing can terrify you and nothing can do harm to your life.

Even if you eat food offered to idols, if you hold the faith that all such food was created by God for his children, you will know it cannot harm you, and you will be able to eat in peace.

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?

Those whose faith is mature can eat things sacrificed to idols as freely as they like and not stumble.

But suppose a new Christian, who has just received Christ, sees them do it and grows confused about what true faith is. Then, for that person’s sake, they must hold back.

The reason is that God arranged everything for the salvation of souls. So no matter how mature our faith may be, we must be careful, not for our own sake but for the sake of saving souls.

If someone weak in faith stumbles because of what you do, a soul that could have been saved is lost; so you must take the greatest care.

That is why Paul said that if a brother of weak faith were to stumble at seeing him eat food offered to idols, he would eat no meat ever again.

Teaching someone weak in faith that it is all right to eat food from the sacrifices takes time.

It takes time because they must first come to a full understanding of God’s will and his word.

We have to teach them the word, and they have to live it out and learn for themselves. Only then will conviction take root, and with it the courage to eat food offered to idols.

So Paul showed a resolve like that of a man ready to die: he would not eat, if that was what it took to save the soul God treasures more than the whole world.

Christ bore the cross to save the weaker brother, and we must never, through our own carelessness, dilute his sacrifice.

As I said at the beginning, God’s one concern is the saving of souls, and that is also the concern of those who believe in Christ.

So we must refrain from anything at all that stands in the way of a soul’s salvation.

Even if you have been given the freedom to eat.

For those who believe in almighty God and trust that after death they will enter the Kingdom of God and enjoy its freedom to the full, there is no stumbling block.

But if a brother is wounded in his good conscience by some small thing you do, then a child of God should refrain, for the sake of that brother’s faith.

I hope you will wait patiently for your brothers and sisters to mature, and take care not to become a stumbling block to them.

Once their faith has fully matured, they will enjoy freedom without stumbling, as you do, and they will save many souls according to God’s will.

As the Lord was patient with you until you grew, may you also be patient for your brothers’ sake and help them grow.

If every one of us comes to a faith mature enough to eat food offered to idols without fear, the Kingdom of God will flourish all the more.