Doug Van Pelt

Maturity Gives Up Its Freedoms

1 Corinthians 8 discusses meat sacrificed to idols. This is not a scenerio we face in today's time -- not exactly. Some of us, though, have the knowledge that certain types of behavior are okay for a Christian to partake. Some examples might be alcohol, rock music, or even Christian rock music. A weaker brother in Christ, however, might be coming from a perspective of bondage in any of those areas. If they see you doing such and such, they might be "emboldened" to do the same, and thus destroy their faith. The mature believer will actually care about this weaker brother and will alter his or her behavior (that's right -- put self-imposed restrictions on their behavior) so as to not make this weaker brother stumble. Paul the apostle (and author of First and Second Corinthians) knew that eating meat sacrificed to idols was no big deal -- it was just meat. But he said, "if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall." This is an example of someone with knowledge setting aside the freedom they have in order to preserve the faith of a weaker, not so knowledgable brother. That kind of love is mature faith, knowing that such and such is not worth damaging another's walk.

This type of scenerio is not a fun thing to work through, but prioritizing another person over yourself has its own rewards. It helps to know that such and such freedom does not control you, but that you are in control of it. It feels good to help others, and by helping one brother you help the whole body grow. I can imagine a type of abuse being done using this passage, though. It doesn't talk about offending people of weaker faith, it talks about making them stumble. Perhaps some behavior offends someone but doesn't make them prone to partake of the same behavior. In this sort of scenerio, we are dealing with someone whose sense of propriety or piety or their own sense of what is righteous is being disagreed with and offended. Perhaps that brother or sister is not really weak, but just argumentative. If they quote 1 Corinthians 6 to you, odds are they're not very weak in this area, just opinionated. In that case, perhaps another course of action is appropriate. A gentle answer, maybe.