This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

We're going to be looking together at 1 Corinthians chapter 8 beginning today.
We're going to just focus on one verse today, verse 1. It is a verse that sort
of outlines what's going to happen for this entire chapter, in fact, several
chapters.

1 Corinthians 8 is like a fine diamond. You have to look closely to see its real
beauty. At first glance, it seems to be all about a first century problem with
meat and temples and idols, but you look closer, you look more deeply, and this
chapter is really about how to get along with people, about how to love in
life's sticky situations.

It's about how to continue to love when you're backed into a corner. Let me read
for you how this chapter begins. 1 Corinthians 8, verse 1, the first phrase is,
"Now, about food sacrificed to idols.

" So you know from the very beginning, from this first phrase, that idols and
meat sacrificed in those idols' temples, it forms the background of this
chapter. In fact, this is such an important issue in the Corinthian church, Paul
takes three chapters, in one sense, to talk about this problem. In chapter 8, he
tells us that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

In chapter 9, he tells us that real freedom is giving your rights away. In
chapter 10, he talks to us about the dangers of temptation and practical
directions for this problem. The problem, you and I don't live in the first
century in Corinth, so it's not a familiar problem to us.

The problem was, could a Christian eat meat that had been sacrificed in an
idol's temple, to an idol? Could they do that in social situations? You see, in
that day, banquets were often held in an idol's temple.

Sometimes it was honoring of a false god that was done there, but sometimes it
was just a community kind of banquet. Knowing at that banquet that the meat that
you ate probably had been sacrificed to the idol, and then taken into a back
room after that had been happened, and somehow cooked up, could you eat that
meat? Could you do it in a friend's house?

You go over to a friend's house, and they say to you, "Hey, I got this meat for
half off. I bought it at the butcher's right near the idol's temple. " Yeah,
they sacrificed it to an idol first, and they brought it over to the butcher.

This was done in that day, and this meat is half off. It was a great deal. Could
you eat that meat?

If it was a meal that somehow, a meat that had been previously offered to an
idol, could you eat it? Could you buy it? Could you go and buy it for half off
at that butcher's place?

Much of the meat that was offered to an idol was sold. That's where the best
deals were. Almost always in that day, the meat that you would buy had been
offered in Corinth, had been dedicated to some god before it was slaughtered.

So could you eat any meat that you hadn't somehow butchered yourself? Paul has
an answer for this. What to them was a confusing and also a conflicting
situation.

It was causing conflict between them. His answer is to begin by talking about
relationships rather than meat. In so doing, as we walk through this chapter, he
gives us four powerful principles about how to love people in the midst of
disagreement, in the midst of difficulty.

When you see things differently, when you're coming at things from different
angles, how do you continue to love people? These four principles, the first one
is at the center of everything we're going to talk about. The first principle is
you let love lead the way.

First Corinthians 8. 1, that entire verse says, "Now, about food sacrificed to
idols, we know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love
builds up.

" What a great, great picture. What do you call putting on pounds without
gaining any muscle? You call that fat.

And that's what happens, Paul is saying here, when we think we can attain or
gain anything in our lives without an increase in love. He's telling us here
that you and I live with a constant choice for what we're going to base our
actions on, our responses to other people, our actions in our own lives. We live
with this constant choice.

What am I going to base this action on? What is going to be the motivation for
this action? And Paul is telling us here that the two of the strongest
motivators in our lives for the ways that we act are knowledge and love.

And he says if you use knowledge as your only motivator, you're going down the
wrong road. Love has to lead the way. In fact, he makes it very clear.

He says knowledge by itself, it puffs up. Love builds up. He's building a
contrast between love and knowledge here.

Knowledge are the facts, the concept, the ideas that you've learned in your
life, even that you've learned as a Christian, about your Christian life, about
following Jesus from Bible studies, from sermons, from seminars, and your own
personal study. It's the facts that you know about the Bible, about what you're
supposed to do, how you're supposed to act. But the truth of the matter is just
knowledge is not enough.

We need knowledge. No doubt about that. We're going to look at that during this
week, how important knowledge is.

But just knowledge is not enough. All of us know people who relate to others
simply on a know-it-all level. If you want to get along with other people, if
you want to make a difference in other people's lives, you have to act based on
the love of Christ and not the knowledge in your head.

So Paul says it's love that builds up. You need knowledge, but knowledge without
love is nothing. Anything without love is nothing.

Love he's talking about here is agape love, God's kind of love, the love that
sacrifices in order to meet somebody else's need. Paul says love, it builds up.
Knowledge by itself puffs up.

Now you need both. You have to know some things, but then you have to love
everyone. So how do you balance both?

How do you balance knowledge and love? Because the truth of the matter is
knowledge is not the problem here. The problem was the lack of love.

How do you balance the two? Let me tell you a story, a story from the Bible,
from Jesus. It was required in Jesus' day that you take care of your aging
parents, even if that were a financial burden.

But there was a group of religious men called the Pharisees in that day who
found a way around that. They used their knowledge to get around that. They
would call a portion of their income or their wealth dedicated to God.

They had a word for that korban, it was dedicated to God. And since God was more
important than their parents, they told themselves, then they didn't have to
spend that portion on their family. Now of course, since these Pharisees were
serving God with their whole life, that meant the whole of what they had didn't
have to be spent on their aging parents.

They'd found a way through their knowledge around love. When you hear that
story, something that was happening in Jesus' day, how does that make you feel?
You might be thinking, "I would never act like that.

" Well remember, knowledge puffs up. Knowledge by itself makes you prideful. If
instead you're able to think, "Lord, show me.

Show me how I could use what I know as an excuse not to love. " We all can do
that. When you and I get that attitude, we're on our way towards the attitude
that Jesus wants us to have.

Why do you think the New Testament is so filled with stories about judgmental
Pharisees? Not so that you and I can feel morally superior to them. God put
those stories in the Scripture because you and I have the same struggles as
those Pharisees.

We can let knowledge lead the way rather than letting love lead the way. And
there's some warning signs to look for in your life of this. If you have a life
that's being led by knowledge instead of love, that knowledge is going to lead
to an intolerance of others.

Then your growth in knowledge is going to lead to a growth in pride. When you
see intolerance towards others, when you see pride growing in your life, that is
a danger sign. Your Christian knowledge could be something that keeps your
closest friends and your relatives from coming to Christ.

As scary as that sounds, it could be true. What's more important to you, showing
the love of Christ or proving yourself right? If every conversation you're
having with those who are not believers is an argument, then you're probably
being led by knowledge rather than love.

Now, they may be very argumentative. I may not understand the situation you're
in. I'm saying you probably are.

Because I don't know. I don't know your situation. But let God's Spirit speak to
you.

Your knowledge could be something that's keeping you from giving love to a
fellow believer when they're most hurting. You know that they're wrong, but
you're holding them at arm's length because they don't seem to know that they're
wrong like you need them to know that they're wrong. Right now they don't need
your knowledge.

They need your love. In fact, they need someone like you who knows the wrong in
their life to keep on loving them so they can be pulled out of that wrong to the
righteous place that God wants them to be, living in his love again. Knowledge
puffs up.

Love builds up. Now, I'm a teacher. I love to teach God's Word, and I love
knowledge.

I love knowing God's Word. So for me personally, this verse is one that I've had
to return to again and again and again. "Lord, am I acting out of my knowledge
now, what I know, or am I acting out of your love now?

Let my motivation be love. Let knowledge give me wisdom. Let knowledge show me
where to be and who to be with, but let the motivation, let love lead the way.

" If you're like me, you need Jesus' strength to do that. Let's ask for it
today. Pray with me, would you?

Jesus, I need your strength. We need your strength. Give us the strength today
to love.

Thank you for what we know. Thank you for what we know about salvation, for what
we know about this world, for what we know about hope. Thank you for what we
know.

I pray that that knowledge would strengthen our love rather than weaken our
love. Lord, show us who to love today. Show us how to love today, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow we're going to look at how to have a knowledge
that doesn't overshadow your love.