Wednesday, September 23, 2009

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

"Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God.

So then, about eating fool sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall."

Christian Freedom

Christian freedom does not mean that anything goes. It means that our salvation is not determined by what we eat or legalistic rules, but by the free gift of God. New believers are often very sensitive to what is right or wrong, what they should or shouldn't do. Some actions may be perfectly all right for us to do, but may harm a Christian who is still young in the faith and learning what the Christian life is all about. We must be careful not to offend a sensitive or younger believer by our example to cause him or her to stumble. Our freedom should be less important to us versus the salvation of another person's soul.

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