1 Corinthians 8:4-13 / Our Rights
We live in a culture that highly values personal rights and freedoms. If Americans get a whiff of those rights being restricted, things can get heated very, very quickly. Many of these rights we hold are healthy and good – but do any of our cultural rights supersede our Christian calling?
In 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul was writing to a church that was in the middle of a cultural moment. The Gospel had come into some of the darkest places and gripped the hearts of those who for centuries had been worshipping idols of all kinds. In the young Corinthian church, an issue arose about the meat that was offered to those idols. Should they eat meat that had been a part of idol worship or abstain? Paul said this:
4 Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.”
Basically, don’t worry about eating the meat offered to gods who don’t really exist in the first place. There is only one God; focus on Him. Simple enough, but for those who had grown up within that idol worship – getting over the fact that the meat had been sacrificed to their previous gods was hard to do. So, Paul went on:
7 However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? 11 And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. 12 Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
Paul pointed out that there were some who were able to mature in their faith and recognize the meat for what it was, and some who had lingering guilt from their former beliefs that made it hard to eat meat with a clear conscience.
So, what does Paul say? “But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block…”
Yes, we have rights. Yes, some of them are healthy and fall within biblical standards. But should any of them be more valuable to us than a brother or sister in Christ? Are they worth causing one of them to stumble? What is more important to you?
Christians, as we live out our faith in a very politicized culture where rights are often held above kindness and compassion, let’s not lose sight of what is truly important. Ultimately, there are few things that we should value above the life of a brother or sister “for whom Christ died.”
So, if drinking coffee instead of alcohol helps your friend who is recovering, drink that coffee.
If your “free speech” is going to hurt, not help, those around you, maybe consider a different way to say it.
If that movie doesn’t affect you, but it brings up past trauma for a friend, watch something different.
And if you aren’t sure what to do, a few good questions to ask are:
“Does this right hold eternal significance?”
“If I lay this right down, is it going to hinder my walk, hurt my witness, or cause me to stumble?”
If the answer to these questions is “no” then lay that right down, and love the person God has placed in your life for a reason, remembering our greatest example:
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Blessings,
Pastor Dave
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