Knowledge and Love

by: Chic Broersma

It helps in understanding today’s passage to know that most of the meat available for sale in a city like Corinth came from the city’s pagan temples. It was surplus flesh from animal sacrifices. Paul’s concern here is to help the new believer. In the past, this person sat at table, eating food earlier offered to idols as a part of worship. This young Christian now knows that the only real God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of all things, who has declared all foods clean. Yet when he eats food that had previously been offered in pagan worship, he might very well suffer pangs of conscience. What to do? The answer: If eating violates your sensitive conscience, don’t do it. Whatever others may do, if the activity seems wrong to you, don’t do it.

What if my conscience is clear in what I do, yet when my friend follows suit he experiences a guilty conscience? In such circumstances, we’ll want to imitate the apostle’s example: “If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble” (v. 13). There’s a principle here. When faced with a choice, for example, having a social drink, we should act out of loving concern for the one who is with us. We should not insist upon our freedom to do as we please. Building up a fellow believer should be our prime concern.