When to Put the Cup Down
1st Corinthians Series
CCCAG 10-5-2025
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 8:1–13
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Introduction — The Mug on My Shelf
Years ago, I was working on a medical team for a Renaissance Fair when one of the vendors had a severe medical emergency.
We sprinted out to her tent- it was a glass blower who made very intricate and stylized gothic bowls, glasses, and figurines.
By God’s grace, I was able to save her life.
A few weeks later, she showed up in the medical tent with a gift — a handblown cylinder glass cup with intricate carvings etched all over it. It had raised vines, a couple of gargoyle faces, and some flames on it.
This was something that in 1995 she would have sold for over $100, so it was an incredible gift, and right up my alley as I love the middle ages, it’s art, and it’s talk of knighthood and chivalry.
In fact at our church, we had a ministry focused around knighthood and chivalry to teach teenage young men how to be men of honor.
I brought it to church that Sunday to show that group what one of the chalices of that time might look like.
Now, I was a very new Christian at the time. I thought this glass was a beautiful example of renaissance art.
But when I showed it to some of the people at church, a woman there recoiled saying, “That’s filled with witchcraft symbols! You should smash it immediately!”
She had been into Wicca prior to becoming a Christian, so for her- it was practically the cup of Satan itself.
For me, it was just a reminder of saving a life.
I had no ping of conscience about it at all, but to her it was spiritually dangerous, and I was asked by an elder in the church to go and put it in the car and not to bring it back into the church just to keep the peace.
And right there, you have the same problem Paul was addressing in Corinth. It wasn’t about the glass, or the meat, or idols. The issue was what it meant to people’s consciences.
That’s what we are going to be exploring today. We’ve hinted at this throughout our 1st Corinthians study, but today will go into more depth about this issue- Christian liberty versus individual convictions.
Let’s read about in in chapter 8
1 Corinthians 8
8 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know it. 3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by him.
4 About eating food sacrificed to idols, then, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”—6 yet for us there is one God, the Father. All things are from him, and we exist for him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through him, and we exist through him.
7 However, not everyone has this knowledge. Some have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 Food will not bring us close to God. We are not worse off if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat. 9 But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.
10 For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, won’t his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols? 11 So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died, is ruined, by your knowledge. 12 Now when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother or sister to fall.
Prayer
Background-
In the city of Corinth — as in many Gentile cities — there was a thriving industry built around supplying animals to pagan temples for worship. Most of those rituals involved burnt offerings, but they weren’t reducing the sacrifices to ashes. They were, in effect, barbecuing the meat.
Afterward, that meat was sold to vendors, who resold it in the marketplace for profit. It was a lucrative business — but it created a major controversy in the first-century church.
Most Gentile believers in Corinth had come to Christ directly out of idol worship. They knew exactly where that meat came from, and they asked: “How can I eat something that was sacrificed to a pagan god while I worship Christ?”
These new believers were deeply shaped by a culture of superstition and idolatry. In their minds, eating that meat could reopen doors to the demonic that might spiritually destroy them.
Now, none of us today are worried about meat offered to idols — so it’s fair to ask, what does this have to do with us in 2025?
Let’s modernize it:
Some believers wrestle with whether they can, in good conscience, use a smartphone — knowing the cobalt in the battery might have been mined by children, or the phones assembled by slave labor in China. Others think about clothing made in sweatshops, or land taken from indigenous peoples.
For some Christians, those things weigh heavily on their conscience. For others, they barely register. And that’s exactly the tension Paul is addressing here: how do we navigate a world where one believer’s freedom is another believer’s stumbling block?
Before we go further, let’s lay a foundation.
The word conscience comes from the Latin con-scientia, a compound word:
• Con meaning “with” or “together,”
• and science meaning “knowledge.”
In its biblical sense, it refers to the connection between the human spirit and the Holy Spirit, which illuminates moral truth
In other words, the Holy Spirit influences the human spirit with a knowledge of right and wrong.
That’s why people apart from Christ can commit grievous sins without remorse: their spirit isn’t connected to the Holy Spirit. Their actions operate purely on a utilitarian level — whatever works in the moment, whatever makes them feel good, and God is not a part of that decision.
Now that we’ve put down that foundations, let’s look at this a little more closely, so that we can live in a way that not only glorifies Jesus but protects our brothers and sisters from being offended or falling away because we may have a maturity or freedom they don’t.
The first principle we are taught here in the bible is
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Point 1 — Be Careful What You Give Power To (vv. 1–6)
In EMS or the medical field, we have our own superstitions (these are meant to be humorous by the way)-
We fear the full moon
We believe unspeakable evil will fall upon us if we say the words, “Slow”, “Quiet”, or “bored”.
Or speaking the name of a dedicated patient, which is our new politically correct way of saying, “super annoying frequent flyer patient” will cause that patient to suddenly appear.
Most of this is dark humor, but it also shows that even 21st century educated people can have silly beliefs they sometimes give power or credence to.
Paul begins by reminding the Corinthians: “We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one.” (v.4)
This meat that was sacrificed to idols didn’t come with some dark magic curse imbedded into it.
Just like my cup with carvings wasn’t cursed, and even if this pagan glassblower had pronounced a curse over it, Christ is my shield and strength, what do I have to fear?
The danger isn’t in the object — it’s in what power we assign to it.
That’s where over spiritualization creeps in.
I once walked into Aldi’s and noticed a woman I knew from a charismatic prayer group I used to go to on Friday nights. She was standing frozen at the entrance with her cart. After I finished half my shopping, she was still there. I was a little concerned, so I circled back and asked if she was okay.
She said: “I’m waiting for God to tell me what I should buy.”
There are some people that are so “spiritually minded” that they are frozen in how they live in reality because they have the wrong view on God’s sovereignty in our lives.
Now listen, God can certainly guide us. But He doesn’t need to give you a prophetic word about whether to get generic pasta or name-brand cereal. That’s not maturity — that’s giving spiritual weight to things God has already declared neutral.
Of course the flip side of that is living in such a way as to never assign spiritual or sacred significance to anything at all.
That’s just as dangerous because it causes us to live a very sloppy life before unbelievers where they can’t even see Jesus living within us because we look, act, and sound just like them.
That’s the tension we all live with.
Paul says knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Real maturity isn’t about knowing idols are powerless — it’s about using that knowledge in a way that builds others up. True spiritually sensitivity is seen by using the guardrails of scripture to keep us on the correct path without veering off into the ditches of hyper spirituality on one side or indifference on the other.
Another way we can apply these ideas to our lives is understanding that-
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Point 2 — Your Freedom Isn’t Just About You (vv. 7–12)
When I was in the army, we ruck marched a lot. That meant you carried your footlocker on your back in a rucksack. Now rucking is going to make your feet hurt, your back hurt, and your shoulders ache from carrying 50-70 pounds in your rucksack. We accepted that.
But what we really hated was wearing our Kevlar helmets. They trapped heat, they were heavy, they gave you headaches and neck aches, and some people would tie them off to their ruck sacks and wear a boonie cap instead.
The problem is- Kevlar can deflect bullets, or keep shrapnel from embedding into your head. A boonie cap will do neither.
Some would argue, “It’s my head, let me take the risk!”
The problem is- if you get hit-
Now the team is down a man.
Now we have to dedicate people to take care of you
Now we have to figure out how to get you to the rear for treatment.
And, we are down several rifles because of all of the above.
Now, it’s not even a matter of good order and discipline, but survival and mission success for the rest of the team.
This is an example of what was happening in the early church.
Some were eating the meat and calling those whose conscience wouldn’t allow it to be weak Christians. They were insisting on using their freedom despite it hurting others.
Just like that woman in my church having a visceral reaction to seeing a mug that reminded her of her past, many in the church at Cornith had the same reaction to fellow believers eating meats sourced from the pagan temples.
That’s where my glass comes back in. It wasn’t sin for me to keep it — but if I set it on the table, or brought it to a church fellowship and drank my soda from it insisting on my rights while wounding their conscience, I sin against them.
My freedom wasn’t just about me. Just like your sensitivity isn’t just about you but we have to show love in all circumstances.
That applies to everything in our world.
Some people might use tobacco, others call it the devils weed.
Some people might drink alcohol. Some people follow the Assembly of God’s belief that it should be avoided.
Some people might enjoy dancing with their spouses, while other believe it’s tiptoeing into hell.
Here is the point-
Application: You may have the right to do something. You may have the knowledge that it’s harmless. But if exercising that right damages another believer’s walk, love calls you to set it aside.
Let’s look at this a little more closely-
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Point 3 — Love Chooses to Put the Cup Down (v. 13)
Paul concludes with one of the strongest statements in the chapter when it comes to Christian liberty: “If food causes my brother to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother to fall.”
That’s the correct view.
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
In the exercise of our freedom, are will willing to destroy the faith of one of our brothers and sisters in Christ?
Parents protect the spiritually immature every day.
As an adult parent, you might like certain music, certain movies, certain words — but when kids are in the house, you lay those aside because their little hearts are more important than your rights. That’s not weakness, that’s love.
In the exercise of our freedom, are will willing to risk our bothers and sisters backsliding into a condition that Jesus saved them out of?
1 Cor 8:12
12 Now when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother or sister to fall.
If you think differently, you are not living in Christian love, but you are actually acting in selfishness, and that’s your fallen nature, once controlled by the devil.
Paul said I’ll go full on vegan if it keeps one person from backsliding or losing their salvation.
That’s love. Not insisting on your rights, but willingly laying them down for someone else’s good.
Up until we moved up here, I still had that glass. It got broken during the move up here, but it it hadn’t, it would be on a shelf in my office because it reminds me of the day God let me be part of saving a life, in fact one of the first lives I had ever actually saved.
But, if I knew a Christian friend who was sensitive about things that looked occultic or might be associated with witchcraft were coming to visit, I’d put it away.
Not because it has power over me — but because love has power over me.
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Conclusion — Undivided Devotion
1 Corinthians 8 isn’t really about meat, or mugs, or Aldi’s pasta aisles. It’s about love. It’s about being so devoted to Christ that you refuse to let your freedom become a stumbling block to someone else.
Some of us might think, well does hiding certain parts about our lives make us a hypocrite?
No, a parent isn’t a hypocrite because they don’t do adult things in front of young children- they are protecting them from things they aren’t ready to experience.
Paul’s heart in 1 Corinthians 8 isn’t just about meat or idols — it’s about how we live together as the body of Christ when our consciences differ.
The Church throughout the ages has summed it up with this simple saying, often attributed to St Augustine:
In essential things, fidelity.
In doubtful things, liberty.
In all things, love.
If we live this out, then our knowledge won’t puff us up — our love will build others up. And that’s how the world will see Christ in us.
All rise
So here’s the challenge for us today:
• Where are you clinging to your rights at the expense of others?
• Where do you need to say, “I’m free — but I’ll gladly lay that freedom aside, because I love my brother or sister in Christ more than my liberty”?
That’s when your devotion is undivided — when it’s not about objects, or rights, or freedoms — but about Christ and His people.
In essential things, fidelity.
In doubtful things, liberty.
In all things, love.
Prayer
