Puffed Up Or Built Up Series

Puffed Up or Built Up

Text: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Now it’s been a little while since we’ve been in 1st Corinthians, and that’s because I wanted us to see what Habakkuk had to say about faith, and I felt that was important considering our worlds current situation… but this morning we’re going to go back to this letter from Paul to the Corinthians because all of Scripture, being inspired by the Holy Spirit, ties together and builds off of itself, and the books of 1st and 2nd Corinthians have so much that is helpful to the Church today. So let’s go to our text this morning and let’s pray that the Lord will speak to us through this study of His Word.

(READ TEXT 1 Cor. 8:1-13)

Now as I was reading through that you may have been thinking, “How in the world is this relevant to me at all? I don’t know a single person who offers up their meat to idols.” But this passage is talking about more than just that. It’s talking about our Christian liberty, and how far does that go? How far does our freedom in Christ go, especially in those areas where the Bible doesn’t really address something?

I bet, that if we took a poll of all the Christians in a 50 mile radius and asked them questions like, “Is it ok to go to the movies?” Or, “Is it ok to go to a dance and cut a little rug every once in a while?” Or what about this one, “Is it ok to listen to heavy metal music or rap music?” And here’s a great one, “Is it ok as a Christian to go eat food at a bar? Or play cards? Or for a woman to wear jeans?” “Should a Christian business owner have his business open on Sunday?” These are kind of the same vein of questions that Paul is dealing with here in our text. And if we did take a poll I think we’d get a variety of answers to those questions… for some folks they’d say yes to some of those and no to others… some might say yes to all of them with reservations, some might say no to all of them. And this may sound crazy… but sometimes those simple little things can cause serious arguments amongst Christians. They shouldn’t – but they do.

And the reason they do is because the Bible doesn’t speak explicitly about such things. It’s not like the clear commandments we read in the Scriptures… things like, “Do not commit murder.” “Do not steal”, “Do not commit adultery.” Or even the New Testament commands like, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel”, or the command to regularly partake in the Lord’s Supper which we’ll be doing after the service. We know we’re supposed to do those things – they are clearly commanded, but the Bible doesn’t say anything explicitly about going to the movies or going out dancing…

And so basically what we tend to see are three reactions to these kinds of things, and only one of those three is the correct one. The first kind of reaction is what we call legalism. And let me just tell you what legalism is – it’s a list of extra-Biblical rules – do this, don’t do this. It’s like what the Pharisees did… They added 600+ rules or laws to God’s Word and then equated those rules with God’s Word. And usually; legalism comes from a desire to want to be obedient and faithful to God, but then over time, it morphs into something else… and it’s not good. It becomes all outward… do this, don’t do that – over time it begins to weigh down, and eventually crush the believer under the list of rules, and it becomes the test for whether or not someone is faithful, or even a real believer. Legalism is bad, and that’s why we see Jesus condemn the Pharisees repeatedly in the Gospels.

Now on the other hand is the idea of Licentiousness. Now what is that?

Well in a nut shell, Licentiousness is lacking all restraint. In other words, people like this will say, “Hey, if it’s not explicitly forbidden in Scripture, it’s free game. Because I’m free in Christ.”

So here’s how the Apostle Paul address this dilemma… Look back at our text and look at verses 1, 2, and 3 again (READ).

So he begins this by saying, “We know that all of us possess knowledge…”. And what is that knowledge that the Corinthians have? Well in the context here it has to do with the knowledge that an idol is just a carved lump of wood, or clay, or gold… it’s an inanimate object… and it’s not actually some rival deity opposed to God. The belief might be rival to the Christian faith – YES that is true… but the idol itself is just a lump of something that has been carved or shaped to look like something else. It has no power in and of itself. It would be no different than if a person took a red brick and set it on their mantle and then said, “I’m offering this meal to that little red brick on my mantle.” And if we were to see someone do that we might say, “Man that’s really dumb. That brick has no power. That brick can’t provide for you, or help you in any way… it’s just a brick.” That’s the knowledge they have of these carved images.