2022_05_27 Insight Post- Emma Keeton
This week’s reading- 1 Corinthians 7-8
Paul shares a key principle with the Corinthians in chapter 8 this week- it’s more important to show love than to be right. A situation had risen among the believers regarding eating food sacrificed to idols. In those times meat that had been offered on pagan altars was divided into 3 portions. One portion was burnt in honor of the god, one was given to the worshipper and the remaining to the priest. If the priest did not eat his portion it was sold at the market for anyone to buy for cheaper price than the other meat. Just like today, people couldn’t resist a bargain!
Paul steps in here with some guidelines for the Corinthians. He does not point out a law to follow but asks the community to consider each other when they are eating sacrificial food. Some of the believers were freely eating this meat, while others were avoiding such foods because of their association. Paul tells the Corinthians that an idol is nothing because there is only one true God; the Corinthians were free to eat meat used in pagan sacrifice. But there is something deeper going on here shared in verses 9-11:
“Be careful however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idols temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died is destroyed by your knowledge.”
There is much for us to learn today from Paul’s lesson of how to build each other up. Being aware of our words and actions as we interact with others may include dropping our need to be right. What movies/TV we watch, whether we drink, what music we listen to could be a ‘stumbling block’ for someone else. We can exercise our rights, but not at the cost of another believer. Here, love is elevated over having our own way.
Jesus gave ultimate demonstration of love when he freely gave his life for us on the cross. Ask God to today help you be more like Jesus and increase in humility and love. Thank him for his incredible sacrifice for us.
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but the interests of others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death-even in a cross!
Emma Keeton
Prayer Team Lead