March 16: Concerning Knowledge and Eating Meat
1 Corinthians 8:1–13
It’s easy to equate knowledge with faith and then look down on new believers. Although we might not voice it, those who are less knowledgeable in their faith than we are can seem weak. And sometimes, instead of practicing patience, showing love, and speaking carefully about the hope within us, we enroll them in Bible boot camp for dummies.
This is a sterile faith devoid of love, and Paul calls us out on it: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone thinks he knows anything, he has not yet known as it is necessary to know” (1 Cor. 8:1–2). In reality, the opposite of what we believe is true: anyone who practices this type of relationship is lacking in faith (1 Cor. 8:3).
Paul had to teach this lesson to the believers at Corinth because there were some in the community who thought that eating food sacrificed to idols defiled them, and they considered those who did so to be weak in their faith. Although the “knowledgeable” Corinthians were technically correct—“there is one God, the Father … and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 8:6)—they weren't concerned with how they treated those who had yet to understand. For Paul, meat is meat; buying from the marketplace at the temple wasn’t much different than killing your own cow, unless it kept people from coming to faith or growing in Christ. It was a non-issue—that is, until freedom becomes a stumbling block to those who were weak.
Rather than knowledge, it’s love that defines our relationship with God and with each other. Christ died for both the knowledgeable and the weak, and both are caught up in His sacrifice (1 Cor. 8:11). God has love and patience for the people whose own search for knowledge led us away from Him. And this should give us all the more love and patience for each other.
How can you practice humility and love with those who haven’t been in the faith as long as you?
REBECCA KRUYSWIJK
John D. Barry and Rebecca Kruyswijk, Connect the Testaments: A Daily Devotional (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2012).
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