This week Pastor Sonny begins a new mini-series exploring 1 Corinthians 8 and the delicate balance between Christian knowledge and love. He examines how the believers in Corinth prioritized their intellectual freedom to eat food offered to idols, while Paul cautioned that true spiritual maturity is measured by a willingness to lay down one’s rights to protect the faith of others. Ultimately, the sermon challenges us to consider whether our actions and freedoms serve to strengthen our community or inadvertently create stumbling blocks for those around us.
1 Corinthians 8:1–6
8:1 Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.
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.” 5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.