Sermon Direct Link
11/5/23
Rev. Clint Smith
Christians instinctively know that idolatry is folly. (Isaiah 44:9-20) The Apostle Paul addressed the Corinthian Churches ego over their religious “knowledge.” Some of the Christians in Corinth were hurting their brothers and sisters by being “puffed up” with knowledge they had acquired by their learning, efforts, and their experiences. They were not unified.
Paul acknowledged that the Christians at Corinth had knowledge concerning meats sacrificed to idols. His issue was with their self-righteous arrogance and their lack of unselfish love for others. Knowledge without love amounts to little.
God desires for His Church to build one another up and encourage one another to grow in wisdom. We cannot know what we ought to know pertaining to divine matters without love.
If we love God with awe-filled reverence, obedience, and gratitude we will be greatly loved by Him and be known as His very own! 2 Timothy 2:14-19
There is no God but the God of the Bible! Idols have no real existence, they are manmade. For the Corinthian believer, eating meat sacrificed to idols was not a big deal, unless it was.
Paul declared this truth, “there is but one God, the Father, who is the source of all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things that have been created, and we believers exist and have life and have been redeemed through Him.” John 1:1-3
In the Church in Corinth, not all believers had a proper knowledge of God. Before Christ, some of the Corinthians had been accustomed to worshipping idols as real and living. After salvation, their consciences still were weak and they felt guilty and ashamed when they experienced the idol meat market.
“Ever since Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, mere knowledge has been a snare to the human race.”
