[Steve Myers] This is Epistles of Paul. It is good to see you all. Welcome to this next edition. We left off last time just at the very end of 1 Corinthians 7. So we'll pick it up today in 1 Corinthians 8. Now if you remember, Paul is writing to Corinth. The people there definitely have many issues. There were obviously some communications going back and forth between the church and the Apostle Paul. Here he's not only correcting them, dealing with some of the issues that they were having problems with, and he continues to address those different issues as we get into Chapter 8.

So turning the page from Chapter 7, now he's going to get into another topic. This particular topic, I suppose as a general theme, is the idea that love is supreme. Godly love is what's most important. And so he's going to deal with that in the situation of knowledge versus love. And so he does this by dealing with a topic of meat that's offered to idols. And yet, as we talk about that, keep that in the back of your mind, that he's really identifying the fact that Christian love, how we treat each other, how we esteem each other better than another, is so much better than just knowing things. And so let's keep that in the back of our mind as we go to Chapter 8, and we'll pick it up there.

1 Corinthians 8:1 He begins by saying, "Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we have all knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies."

So love builds up. Love is something that's constructive. You think of buildings, you think of construction. Well, love is constructive, but he says, "Knowledge puffs up." Now we've seen that particular word for puffs up before. He's using this same word. Physióō is the word there for puffed up. It can mean, like, swelling. It can mean inflating. Think about that in the connection to knowledge.

You know, if you think you have a knowledge and you're so wise and full of understanding, we'd probably describe your head as swelling, right? You got a big head because you think you know it all. That's why he makes this connection here, this knowledge. Thinking you are a know-it-all inflates your ego. That's what he's getting at. And this idea of knowledge here, the base Greek word is gnosis, to know things, to know things. Just because you think you know a lot of things, don't let that puff you up. Love, Godly love is what really builds up. And so it must have been some of the Corinthians that thought they knew a lot. They really were understanding. So Paul addresses that.

1 Corinthians 8:2 He says, "If anyone thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know."

So if you think you have the definitive understanding, you have this exhaustive knowledge of some subject, if you think you possess that, in reality, nope. You actually don't know the things you need to know on this, especially the things of God. Really, that's what he's getting at. Spiritual things, you don't know anything. And when you begin to think about it, what does mankind know? I mean, in reality, we know a little bit. But when you compare that to God, He's all-knowing, right? God is all-knowing. He is omniscient. He knows everything. So Paul makes that connection. We don't have this definitive knowledge. And because of that, should that lead us to be puffed up, inflated egos, or should we have humility and demonstrate and put into practice Godly love?

And so that's the beginning of dealing with this issue. They thought they knew a lot and maybe some really thought they were spiritually superior to others. We're going to see that idea come up later on in the letter as well. He already talked a lot about it when he talked about the Passover and being puffed up at that time. And he's really getting to the fact that, you know, as human beings, we're sinful men, we're sinful women, in that regard, and we don't know everything, but God does.

1 Corinthians 8:3 He says, "If anyone loves God, this one is known by Him."

So we see knowledge puffs up, love edifies. Knowledge can take you to a place where you think you know more than you really do, and in reality, God's the one that knows. God knows us. God knows everything. So let's relate that then to this idea or this knowledge that some of you Corinthians have when it comes to meat that's offered to idols.

1 Corinthians 8:4 He begins to make this connection. He says, "Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one."

So there's plenty of idols out there. Corinth was packed full of them, temples to Poseidon, temples to Zeus, all kinds of crazy gods. But were they real? Obviously no, they're nothing. They're not real. Even though the pagan world felt they were very real, they weren't. They weren't real. So when you come to that understanding, God opens your minds to that truth, you recognize that's nothing. That is absolutely nothing. It brings us back to the fact that the only God that there is is the one true God. And when you think of that idea, there's no other God but one, any passages come to mind? Maybe you think all the way back to Deuteronomy 6. Deuteronomy 6 is certainly one of those passages that certainly every good Jewish convert would have had this section memorized. They call this the Shema in Deuteronomy 6 because it's certainly one of those reminders that God is one. Sometimes they call it the "Hear, O Israel" passage because it starts like that.

Deuteronomy 6:3-4 It says, "Be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you." This is in verse 3. Then in verse 4, it says, again, "Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!"

The Lord is one. So he intimates Deuteronomy 6:4 by saying there's no other God but one. But you notice if you're still there in Deuteronomy, notice what the very next verse deals with.

Deuteronomy 6:5 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength."

So knowing God and love go hand in hand. And so any of the Jewish converts probably would have had that come to mind. Oh, yeah, that's about loving God. God is one. And there is only one God. We have God the Father, and Jesus Christ. They are both divine, they are both God beings. That would have come to mind as he gets into verse 4. And comparing that to idols, they're not even real. There's one God. There's one God. So verse 5, going back to 1 Corinthians 8 then.

1 Corinthians 8:5-6 He says, "For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords)," certainly in the pagan world that was true, "yet," verse 6, "for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live."

And so now he's beginning to delineate the power and reality of God the Father and Jesus Christ versus these pagan idols, all to make a point about what? Puffed up knowledge. Puffed up knowledge. Yeah, he's going to make that point. Now a couple of interesting things here as we just pause for a minute and take a side trip here for just a moment. Anything missing there in verse 6 for those who believe in a triune God? Oh, wait a second, verse 6, one God the Father, one Lord Jesus Christ. No Holy Spirit mentioned. So Paul obviously wasn't a Trinitarian, and there's not a Trinitarian formula in the Bible in that regard. So once again, you know, as in Paul's letter, he just leaves that out. He leaves that out. And so that's just an interesting point to kind of note as a side point. Also interesting, if you hold your place here, I want to connect this thought that he makes here in comparing the true God with idols and pagan gods. Psalm 115 is one of those passages that comes to my mind that makes an interesting connection here. So if you go to Psalm 115, in verse 3, begins to make that same connection that Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 8.

Psalm 115:3-8 Begins, "Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases." Kind of that idea. He knows everything. He is awesome. We serve an amazing God. "Their idols," now let's compare most of the rest of the world, "their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they don't speak." Imagine being in Corinth with all the idols and the statues of their gods everywhere. Yeah, “they have mouths, they don't speak, they have eyes but they don't see, they have ears but they don't hear, noses but they don't smell. They've got hands, they don't handle, feet they have, but they don't walk, nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them, so everyone who trusts in them.”

Yeah, those that don't understand God, he says, yeah, they're like that, they don't get it. They don't get it. And so that passage is one, I don't know, maybe Paul even had that in mind as he's trying to address this issue between what are pagan gods, what are pagan idols versus the one true God. Of course, the one true God is full of knowledge and wisdom and love and understanding. Idols, zip, nothing. So head back to 1 Corinthians 8 for a moment. And we'll see as Paul gets into this concept of idols versus the true God, he just got done saying an idol is nothing, nothing. But is that all there is to it? Is that all there is to it? Paul begins to show, hang on a second, is an idol nothing whatsoever? Kind of keep that in the back of your mind for a moment and we'll think about that.

1 Corinthians 8:7 He says, "However, there is not in everyone that knowledge." Not everyone gets that. He says, "For some, with consciousness of the idol..." So now some church members who came out of paganism, he says they don't have that complete depth of understanding. They don't understand this. He says, "They have a consciousness of the idol until now eat as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled."

All right, so what's going on here? All right, he's talking about things offered to idols. He's talking about meats that are offered to idols.

1 Corinthians 8:8 He says, "Food doesn't commend us to God; for neither if we eat are we better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse."

And so you can kind of imagine this, are these individuals in Corinth that have been, I don't know, what would you say, longtime converted members of the church? No, generally, they're pretty new. They're pretty new. They haven't been around 10 years, right? They're definitely not 50-year members baptized all those decades ago. No, no. We'd consider these mainly newer converts. Where did most of the Corinthians come out of? Where did they come from? Paganism, right? They came out of paganism. And so they would eat meat offered to idols as an act of worship in paganism. And so it's kind of an interesting aspect when you think about it. These pagans would sacrifice meat, animals, to their pagan gods and they would then eat that meat, not just because they were hungry, they would eat that meat as a part of worship because they felt that by sacrificing this animal to their pagan gods, the god then became a part of the meat. And then if you eat that, then you're like a god. You can be stronger.

And so that interesting significance that was connected to idol worship and idol sacrifices still had an impact on some of those who had been more recently converted. They couldn't get that out of their mind. So eating meat offered to an idol bothered them that it was still like some kind of an act of worship. And so if you can imagine that situation, intellectually, yeah, they probably knew. I know the truth. I know that to be true, but maybe emotionally they still were affected by their former pagan beliefs and their misunderstanding of what the truth really was all about. Can you think of an example that might apply even today in this kind of a situation? Okay, there's probably several examples we could talk about. Imagine someone called into God's church, they become baptized, and yet they came out of, let's say, a Christian church that drank no alcohol whatsoever. Well, is it wrong to have a drink? No, the Bible is pretty clear on that, whether it's drinking wine, whether it's drinking strong drink at the Feast, it says that we could enjoy that. Now we're not to get drunk.

But imagine if you were a teetotaler coming from that perspective, maybe even just a family perspective that never drank anything, and then you come into the church and you go to a social and people are drinking. Would that bother them? Even though they know, they've come to understand, yeah, they came out of this idea that any form of alcohol was wrong and now if they were to drink or have a drink, even that one drink could bother their conscience. Yeah, could happen. I mean, there's groups out there that don't dance. Well, we have dances in the church. Could you see how going ahead and just dancing anyway or having a drink anyway could bother your conscience? Yeah, coming out of that, you could see that.

So here's the Corinthians coming out of paganism. If they were to eat that meat offered to an idol, it still...even though it's nothing. Even though it's nothing, Paul says, when they ate that meat, they just felt wrong about it and couldn't get rid of that idea that this was some kind of an act of pagan worship and it just bothered them. And so it's kind of an interesting difficulty then that church was faced with. So how do you handle that? How do you handle that when some are bothered with eating meat? In fact, a lot of the meat in Corinth would have been in this situation, you know, that most of the meat... Many of the scholars feel most of the meat that ended up in the marketplaces had been offered to idols. And so it ends up there later. And so when that became pretty evident, okay, some were just bothered by that and were still emotionally affected by that.

Now, could you eat that meat? Sure. Paul just got done saying it's nothing. Yes, it shouldn't bother you, but it still does for some. So do I have the freedom to eat that meat as a Christian? Sure, sure, why not? He says it's good meat. We're not talking about unclean foods here. He's saying you can eat that. But wait a second, there are those that are bothered by it. So verse 9, notice what he says in verse 9.

1 Corinthians 8:9 "But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak."

So we see it was a liberty, it was a choice that they could make, right? Sometimes that word there for liberty, exosia is the word there, it's E-X-O-S-I-A, exosia, it can mean a choice. You have permission. It can mean permission. Yes, you've got permission. It's not of itself a sin, but he says you better consider those who are in that situation, who are bothered by that because it could cause them to stumble. So imagine that scenario then. Could that happen if you invited someone over and you served them a drink? Okay, maybe they came out of that background. Okay, that might be a stumbling block. So he says you have to be careful, beware, watch out, be careful.

1 Corinthians 8:10 He says, "If anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols?"

Kind of an interesting scenario here. Now he takes it a step further. He says it's not just the fact that some are eating meat, some are putting a stumbling block in front of other members. And he says what happens.

1 Corinthians 8:11 "Because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?"

So this is a serious thing. Offending a brother, or as he says in verse 10, he may just go ahead and eat it even though it really bothers him, even though he's weak in that sense, he's weak in the faith, he's bothered by this choice. And, in fact, what it seems to be indicating here is what were some of the Corinthians doing. It seems that some were actually going into temples, pagan temples, where they had sacrificed animals and then sat down and had a meal. And oftentimes that would be the case. Many pagan temples were oftentimes connected to, I suppose what we call a dining room, where you can have a meal after because you're here. Now you've just sacrificed these animals, you've got all this meat, what are we going to do with it? Well, let's have a meal.

And so oftentimes those dining halls were connected or right next to the pagan temples, and then normally, they would be open air. So if I'm just strolling down the street and I look over at this pagan temple and right next to it, here's the dining hall and I see my fellow member eating in that place, wow, how would that make you feel? What would that...? Especially if it still bothers you that you still just can't get rid of that connection in your mind between that meat and the pagan God and then you see a fellow brother or sister actually eating at this idol's temple. I could see how that caused a problem, right? And so he says you're putting a stumbling block in front of your brother or your sister. He says that the conscience of him who is weak then is impacted, that they might just go ahead and eat, even though it's going to bother them, even though it's going to affect them. He says you've got to beware of that. And so interesting that he brings up their conscience.

In fact, this is the first occurrence of where that word comes up throughout Corinthians. It will come up a number of times through 1 and 2 Corinthians. And here's the first occurrence of that particular word, conscience. When you think of a conscience, you know, what do you think of? What comes to mind? Yeah, hopefully, what's going on upstairs? It's not like maybe you've seen some of these little cartoons or things where you've got a little devil on this shoulder and you've got an angel on this shoulder and they're talking in your ear. Maybe you've seen cartoons like that, that sort of thing. It's not talking about that type of thing at all because that seems to be outside of our thinking.

When the Greeks would use this particular word, they're talking about being self-aware. So there's a self-awareness. It's something going on inside of us, our rational capacity in that way, that we monitor by our thinking our actions and our attitudes and our thoughts. So this is not the voice of God. This is not the voice of the little angel or the voice of the little devil, you know. No, it's something inside of you, inside of your thinking, your mind, so that you have an awareness of what's going on and you reflect upon situations and your actions in that sense.

It's interesting in the Greek this particular word is translated as conscience, and when you try to connect that to the Old Testament, there's not really a word that is exactly synonymous in the Hebrew. I suppose if you tried to make a connection, the Hebrew word for heart might be one that would be similar, would probably be closest in connecting those two things, you know, that your heart is that. That means we are self-aware. And so when we think about that, it's interesting the way that it's used not only by Paul but by others as well. He talks about the fact that your conscience could be seared. It could be seared. He reminds Timothy, 1 Timothy 4:2, he tells Timothy that there are those who have a seared conscience. Their ability for self-awareness isn't there anymore. Their rational capacity to sort out situations is gone. Yeah, our world today, you think people have their conscience seared? There are some. They have no concepts of discerning what's right and wrong, what's good, what's evil. It's just not there. Their conscience is seared. Interesting that as he writes to Timothy, he says that. He writes to Titus and he tells him that a conscience could be corrupted. Obviously, that's not an outside influence, that's what's going on inside. And it could be corrupted.

In Hebrews, we're told you could have a clear conscience when you make the right choices, when you have that self-awareness to choose the right things, to make those discernments, then you could have a clear conscience. Or in Hebrews, it also says you could have a guilty conscience. And so this idea of the conscience and what it deals with really is an interesting one because when you boil it all down, when we talk about a conscience, it's really, in a sense, for us especially, a God-given capacity to critique ourselves. In fact, all human beings should have that ability to critique themselves by our own self-awareness, which we would associate with a conscience. Interesting when we think about that. We can recognize that the conscience itself isn't like an independent kind of a thing. It is interesting that he points that out. We can make a connection here if you want to turn with me over to Romans 2. If we go back to Romans 2, I think we see an interesting aspect here. We look at verse 14. When we think about this idea of a conscience, it's not an end in itself. Romans 2 brings this out as what Paul is writing also in 1 Corinthians 8. Take a look at verse 14 in Romans 2.

Romans 2:14-15 It says, "When the gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having a law, are a law unto themselves." So do the gentiles have this ability to critique themselves, have an ability for self-aware? Yeah, he's saying, "Yes, they do." It says, "They show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness between themselves, their thoughts accusing or else excusing them."

Kind of this idea of choosing between right and wrong. And in this case, the right choices they made connect with God's law. And that's a very good thing. That's a very good thing. And so what you begin to see, that the conscience isn't like this self-contained thing that's separate from individuals, from human beings. No, that's not the case at all. That it is connected to this idea of self-awareness or self-critique, you might say, this idea of that capacity to have that inner awareness. And so Paul expounds on that a little bit here in Romans.

And so that capacity that God gives us, now if you head back to 1 Corinthians, we'll see something else here that also was kind of implied here in Romans 2. It told us here that the conscience was a witness. Witnessing to them? The conscience is a witness, not as a separate entity or anything like that. And we don't want to think of it as something independent because then you get back to this devil on one side and angel on the other side. No, what does a witness do? I mean, we know witnesses are connected to court cases, right? Well, a witness doesn't create evidence. If they do, they're going to go to jail. Witnesses don't create evidence, but they recognize the evidence that already exists.

And think about that in connection to the conscience. The conscience shouldn't dictate what's right and wrong. You see, that's where society today gets into trouble. They say, "Well, it doesn't bother my conscience, so I can do whatever I want." Wait a second, your conscience isn't giving you the ability to decide for yourself what right and wrong is. No, that's not the way it is. That would be a witness coming up with their own evidence. No, a witness testifies to the evidence that's already there. So a conscience is going to begin to recognize and discern that difference between what's right and what's wrong.

And how is that made? How are those choices made? Well, if you think you can do whatever you want, that's your value system and you're going to have that decision-making process influenced by that. Now I guess you'd say your value system is going to help in that regard, one way or the other. When you think of it in those terms, I think it's important to recognize that your value system better be developed in a godly way. Otherwise, yeah, it's not going to bother your conscience, not going to bother you at all. You come up with your own ideas. And so that becomes important in this discussion of what a conscience is all about is your value system. What have you learned? What governs your life in that regard?

This whole section of 1 Corinthians 8 is pointing out the fact that a weak conscience, an underdeveloped conscience... I'm going to be worried about that meat offered to idols because I haven't deeply come to that understanding. And so because I still feel this connection between the meat offered to idols and pagan worship, I'm going to feel guilty if I eat that. And yeah, he says, okay, we shouldn't be doing that. We shouldn't be doing that.

And so when we recognize that, I think it helps us to, hopefully, put that package together of what exactly Paul is talking about. He talks about the conscience in that regard, that self-awareness can produce guilt, that self-awareness can produce a clear conscience, as we're told in Hebrews. And so that idea of understanding that the conscience is related to our values that we've developed over time certainly becomes important as we think about this idea of meat offered to idols and those who are bothered by it and those who have no problems sitting in an idol's temple and chewing down the meat. And so when you consider that... Head back to 1 Corinthians for a moment. And a couple of things also come into play here as Paul deals with this practice of some of the members of eating the meat offered to idols and then those who were avoiding it or those who ate it anyway and then were bothered by it.

1 Corinthians 8:11 He said, "Because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?"

They're going to feel so bad about this. It's going to throw them off. It'll be a stumbling block, and the implication here is some would leave. Some would be so upset by it that they'd leave. "But I have this liberty," he said. "I have the permission. I have the choice," right? Well, I should have had you hold your place there in Romans 14, over in the Book of Romans. Romans 14 is such a good reminder of that fact as well. Take a look at Romans 14:22.

Romans 14:22 "Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he doesn't eat from faith."

He doesn't eat from faith. So he says whatever is not from faith is sin. Now, it's also interesting that He's telling you don't flaunt the liberty that you have. Go back to verse 21.

Romans 14:21 "It's good neither to eat meat nor drink wine or do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak."

Remember, he's talked about this concept before in Corinthians. You know, are all things lawful? Is it lawful to eat meat? Yeah, it's fine. You can do that. But what did he say back in Chapter 6 verse 12? Well, it may not be helpful, it may not be expedient. In other words, it's not going to be beneficial. Two chapters from now, Chapter 10, he's going to say the exact same thing again in verse 23. He's going to say, "Yeah, all things are lawful but all things are not expedient. They're not all helpful. In fact, this is very hurtful because it could cause your brother to stumble." And so that liberty you have, should we have this idea that I can exercise this freedom that I have because I have freedom, no matter what the circumstances are? Paul said, no, no.

Why do you have liberty? Is it just to have freedom, or should we take into account others as well? It kind of all goes back all the way to the beginning. Am I my brother's keeper? Do I have a personal responsibility for my choices, even if they're good choices? Do I have to consider how a choice would affect a brother or a sister? And Paul's answer is, absolutely. Absolutely. In a sense, we're given the liberty and the freedom to do things, to serve others, to help others. Remember, the whole concept here is love over knowledge. All right, you have the knowledge is freedom. You can do that. But what's the loving thing to do to take into account your brother's perspective? And so look at the level that this rises to. He's saying in verse 12.

1 Corinthians 8:12 "When you thus sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ."

So interesting that he takes this whole scenario from knowledge and freedom and liberty. Yes, this is permissible, this is allowable, this is not a bad thing, and yet we can do it in a way that results in sin. And this sin word is the hamartia word, the missing-the-mark word. We totally miss the target against the brethren. It is sin, and it's sin against Christ. And in a sense, he's saying when we finally recognize the fact that we don't deserve our rights unless we exercise them in the proper way, unless we do it properly, which also then means we've got to be sensitive to everyone else in the church, in the congregation, because it could amount to sin. We will wound others. We'll cause them to stumble if we're not careful. And so he makes that very, very strong point.

1 Corinthians 8:13 And then he says, "If food makes my brother stumble," this is verse 13, "I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble."

Same things he wrote about back there in Romans. So those who are strong in the faith, those who recognize this, realize they have liberty and freedom to do these things, have to exercise caution. You have to be careful about these things. Why? Because of those who aren't as strong in the faith, those who don't have that understanding. And it's interesting in that whole section of the Book of Romans, he makes a similar point here, the supremacy of love over knowledge. That's the base point that he's making. Hold your place here and go back to Romans for just a second. In Romans 13, notice the connection that he makes here in this regard.

Romans 13: 8 He says, "Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law."

Yeah, God's law says you have freedom, you have liberty to do these things, but wait a second, don't owe anyone anything. Well, okay, go back to Corinthians for a minute. Think about that in the context of 1 Corinthians 8. Now in 1 Corinthians 8, what is he saying? The stronger owe the weaker love. Love. And okay, we're talking about a debt. Yes, the stronger owe the weaker. A little bit earlier, what was he talking about in the last Chapter? Husbands owe their wives. Wives owe their husbands. Parents owe their children. Children owe their parents. So you see the connections here. The church owes Paul. Paul said, "I'm your father in the faith." Well, Paul owes the church as well.

So here you have these intricate connections really that all come down to what should we owe each other? Love. That's the debt that we owe each other. That's what it's about. He boils all of this down to that. It's not about whether it's good food to eat or not. It's not whether or not you have permission to do these things. We owe each other love and consideration and compassion. And we have to take those things and make sure they're on our mind in whatever the scenario may be. So even though it's lawful, it's not helpful for some. It might even rise to the level of sin if we're not careful. And so he definitely makes that very strong point.

And in fact, he's already beginning to, I think at the very least, intimate something that really is behind these sacrifices to idols. Yeah, is an idol nothing? Yeah, absolutely. Is it wrong to go to a potluck supper at a Lutheran church? No, not in and of itself. Is it wrong to go to a pagan temple and sit in their dining hall and eat sacrificed meat that was given to idol? No, that's not wrong because it's nothing. But wait a second. Is there anything behind all of that? Paul begins to intimate that. Maybe we could even take a sneak peek ahead. If you go to 1 Corinthians 10, he comes back to conscience and meat offered to idols in that sense, these pagan practices, which he just got done saying, yeah, pagan idols are nothing, zero, zilch. But here he mentions pretty clearly then in verse 19. Take a look at verse 19 in 1 Corinthians 10.

1 Corinthians 10:19 "What am I saying? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything?" No, it's nothing, right? That's what he said back in Chapter 8. But hang on a second. "Rather," he says, "that the things which the gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I don't want you to have fellowship with demons."

All right, even though an idol is nothing, even though I have the freedom to eat that meat, wait a second, that also had a power behind it. Yeah, their Zeus, their Minerva, all their pagan gods that they worship are nothing. They don't exist. But wait a second, where does that whole system come from? Comes from Satan in the demonic realm. So this pagan worship has demonic influence behind it. So don't be ignorant. This is the power behind it. And so if you're not careful, you could fellowship with demons. And Paul says be careful about that. Be careful about that.

Flaunting your knowledge could lead you to trouble. That's the point that he makes here. And so be careful. Be careful about... This is a serious thing. No wonder some could fall and stumble, be tripped up by that. And so don't forget the power behind idol worship. It's nothing in that regard because it's all influenced by the demonic realm. And so he makes that point very, very strongly.

Okay, so head back to the end of Chapter 8 here, and we begin to see the power behind the idol worship. And so love triumphs over knowledge. We may know a lot of things, but what we really owe each other is love. And so that becomes supreme, and he makes that point very strongly. He'll continue that as we get into Chapter 9, but that's probably a good place to go ahead and take a break for the moment. And next time, then we'll pick it up in Chapter 9.