Living Out Christian Freedom Through Love

Introduction

After the Easter break, Jason Procopio returns to the series on 1 Corinthians and arrives at a passage that's burning with relevance today: what should we do when something falls into a "gray area", not morally neutral like marriage or singleness, but a subject on which Christians in the church disagree? Paul answers in 1 Corinthians 8 with a statement that overturns the modern reflex: knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Your true freedom is not being able to do whatever you want, it's being able to give it up out of love for God and for your neighbor.

Sermon Outline

1. Knowledge misused destroys (1 Corinthians 8:1-8)

• In Corinth, pagan temples were everywhere. Business meals, job interviews, family celebrations, and public festivities all ran through a temple where an animal was sacrificed to an idol, before the meat was eaten on site or sold in the markets.
• Some Christians in Corinth didn't want to give up this social life and leaned on a correct argument: there is only one God (verse 6), so idols are nothing. Paul doesn't dispute the knowledge, he disputes how they use it.
• Other brothers, shaped by their former pagan life, had renounced these temples the day Christ saved them. Seeing a "strong" Christian go back there could make them stumble and shake their very understanding of the gospel.
• All this over food that, verse 8 says, gains us nothing: if we eat it, we are no better off; if we don't, we are no worse off. My good knowledge, my enlightened point of view, can cause the downfall of a brother for whom Christ died (verse 11).

2. Genuine, sincere love builds up (1 Corinthians 8:1-3, 9-13)

• The word "builds up" (verse 1) means "constructs", the same Greek word used for building a house. Where misused knowledge turns inward and produces a sense of superiority, love turns outward: toward God's glory, the good of one's neighbor, the building up of the church.
• Love builds up because it makes us truly know God (verse 3). We can know a great deal about God without being born again. Love, on the other hand, brings us into a living relationship, and if God is my supreme good, giving something up out of love for him increases my happiness rather than diminishing it.
• Love builds up because it focuses on what's essential. It doesn't eliminate secondary matters, but it establishes a hierarchy: building up the body of Christ comes before claiming my rights.
• Love redefines my zone of freedom (verse 9). The question is no longer "how far can I go without falling into sin?" (almost like a challenge to get as close as possible to the line), but "how can I best love my neighbor and draw him closer to the gospel?"
• Love builds up because it changes how I see others. It no longer divides the church into the "mature ones who know" and "those who haven't understood anything." It sees us all as sinners saved by grace, people for whom Christ died. Wounding their weak conscience (verse 12) is sinning against Christ.
• Hence Paul's radical conclusion in verse 13: "If food is a snare for my brother, I will never eat meat, so that I do not cause my brother to stumble." Christian freedom is not eliminated, it is voluntarily, temporarily, limited by love.

3. Two extremes to avoid, one single rule

• First extreme: fear of doing anything at all. Living hidden and withdrawn, avoiding all contact so as never to cause anyone to stumble. Paul does not go in this direction.
• Second extreme: despising brothers who hold a different view, seeing them as an obscurantist burden slowing down the church, as spiritually inferior. Paul does not go in this direction either.
• The third way is love. It's not clumsiness that is being condemned, mistakes happen in a church where everyone comes from different backgrounds. What is condemned is claiming a right without considering the other person's weakness.

4. For us today: the gray areas of our lives

• Jason recounts his semester in South Korea, almost ten years ago now, at an American church. The leader of his connect group, who came from a background where total abstinence from alcohol was the norm, was shocked to see him arrive at his house with beer, a friendly, hospitable gesture for someone from Dunkirk, in northern France.
• Conversely, Jason was horrified to see this leader's children reading Harry Potter and to discover him dressed up as a ghost for Halloween, for him, the beginning of an association with the kingdom of darkness, while for the other it was just a bit of folklore.
• The list of gray areas is long: alcohol, tobacco, tattoos, yoga sessions, video games like Call of Duty or GTA, gambling, dark humor, visiting a Buddhist temple in Asia, nightclubs or heavily-drinking student parties, eating garlic-flavored meat, horror films, certain styles of music. There's also the acceptable level of closeness in a friendship between a man and a woman, contraception for married couples, kissing on the mouth for engaged couples, crossing at a red light when there's no car coming, Parisian for us, shocking for a Japanese person.
• The solution is neither to chain ourselves into a legalism that produces judgment and guilt, nor to loudly proclaim that in Christ we are free to do whatever we want without considering others.

Key Takeaways

• Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up: the problem is never knowledge itself, but how we use it.
• My good personal conviction can cause the downfall of a brother for whom Christ died, and wounding his weak conscience is sinning against Christ.
• My freedom does not stop where another's begins, but where another's weakness begins.
• The real question is not "how far can I go?" but "how can I best love my neighbor and draw him closer to the gospel?"
• True Christian freedom is not being able to do everything I want, it's being able to give up something I think I have a right to, out of love for God and for my neighbor.

Personal Application

1. What is the "gray area" I claim most easily in my Christian life, telling myself that no one has shown me a verse that explicitly says it's a sin?
2. Do I see brothers and sisters who hold a different opinion than mine on these subjects as an obscurantist burden, or as people for whom Christ died?
3. When I think about what I do, do I ask myself "how far can I go without sinning?" or "how can I best love my neighbor?"
4. Is there someone in my Christian circle for whom one of my freedoms is an actual snare, and what would Paul say to me about that?
5. If I find it too difficult, or even impossible, to give up something I think I have a right to, what does that reveal about my real freedom and my maturity in Christ?

Verses Cited

• 1 Corinthians 8 (ESV), Food Offered to Idols
• 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 · Knowledge puffs up, love builds up
• 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 · There is only one God, the Father
• 1 Corinthians 8:7-9 · Freedom that becomes a stumbling block for the weak
• 1 Corinthians 8:11-13 · That brother for whom Christ died
• Deuteronomy 4:35 · There is no other God besides the LORD

Further reading

• How to Lead a Bible Discussion
• Church Small Groups: How to Create and Grow Them
• Encouraging participation in small groups

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a "gray area" in the Christian life, and how do you recognize one?

A gray area is a practice that isn't morally neutral like marriage or singleness, but on which opinions in the church can differ: some Christians consider it acceptable in light of their understanding of the Bible, others perceive it as sin. Paul gives the example of meat sacrificed to idols in Corinth. Today, this can involve alcohol, tattoos, certain video games, certain styles of music, yoga, dark humor, contraception for married couples, and many other subjects. It's not the practice itself that decides everything, but how I live it out toward a weaker brother.

Is giving up a Christian freedom the same as falling back into legalism?

No. Paul rejects two extremes: legalism, which multiplies rules and prohibitions to establish one's own righteousness, and the constant claiming of freedom without regard for others. Christian freedom is not eliminated in 1 Corinthians 8 · it is voluntarily, temporarily, limited by love for one's neighbor. Giving something up out of love isn't going backward into slavery; it's moving forward and helping my neighbor move forward toward eternal life in Jesus Christ.

How do I know if my freedom is becoming a snare for a brother or sister?

Paul's criterion is concrete: "Take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak" (verse 9). I have to look at the person next to me. Does he have a background that makes this practice dangerous for his faith? Could he be encouraged to do the same thing against his conscience and fall because of it? If so, love pushes me to hold back, even on what I consider right for myself. The rule remains always the same: seek God's glory and my neighbor's spiritual good before claiming my rights.