What Would You Give Up For Your Brother?
“Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? 11 And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. 12 Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.” – 1 Corinthians 8:8-13
There are some great insights in 1 Corinthians 8 for how we interact with other believers. The paragraph I quoted above is certainly confusing by itself. For starters, the first verse is not saying that we can pick or choose whether to eat food. We need to eat food (in moderation [preaching to myself there!]). In this passage, Paul is writing to some of the more mature believers in the church at Corinth about how to handle some very sensitive situations concerning their younger, “weaker” brothers and sisters in the faith. Being a pagan city, Corinth had plenty of idol worship, and probably most of the believers in the church came from that background. And even if they were converted Jews, they were still extremely familiar with that background.
What is Paul Talking About?
There was a group in the church that could regularly, without sinning against their own conscience, eat meat that had been “sacrificed” to the idols. Why could they do this? Well, they knew the idols were fake, they knew they didn’t represent real deities, they had no spiritual ties or temptations to worship those idols, and to them it was just meat sold on the second-hand market (the idols must not have been hungry enough to eat it). But there were apparently new believers, new followers of Jesus in the Corinthian church, who not only came out of the background of idol worship, but who still didn’t understand that the idols were no gods at all. They had come to terms with who Jesus was, they had answered the call to follow Him (as they are called brothers), but they were still very much in confusion about the idols they used to worship. In that case, going back into idol worship would be a very real temptation, and they were in danger of “going back” and slipping into idolatry once again.
Well, do you see the problem? The stronger believers, who knew that the idols were fake and this whole meat thing was nothing more than a way for the meat to be sold again, had no problem eating that meat. But when these weaker (in the faith) brothers saw them eating that meat, they would begin to question. “Weren’t we taught to avoid idolatry? Shouldn’t we stay away from these practices? Aren’t we to avoid the idols and the things associated with them?” Do you see the confusion that could happen? If the weaker brother saw his stronger brother, maybe a mentor in the faith, going into the temple and purchasing the meat like it was nothing, then perhaps he would be tempted to associate again with his idolatrous background, and in that temptation no doubt some turned away and back into the worship of the false gods. What was, to the stronger brother, no temptation at all, was to, the weaker brother, an invitation to apostasy, and a temptation to turn back again.
Does This Matter To Us?
This is all very cultural, so there is some nuance in applying it. We don’t have that many idol-worshiping pagan temples in our area. But what Paul concludes with is helpful for us to utilize his teaching. He says at the end of the chapter, “If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.” Paul is using hyperbole here. There is no reason to believe that he actually never ate meat again. And it wasn’t simply food that caused his brother to stumble, it was a particular kind. But to make the point, Paul says, in essence, “I will give up anything unnecessary and superfluous for the sake of not tempting my brother to walk away from the faith.”
Now, the question for us is not “what is the meat offered to idols in our culture?” And the question for us is not even “what is it that we should avoid that might appear sinful?” The real question for us is do we care enough about our brothers and sisters in Christ to give up anything necessary to help them in their walk with Christ? Do we love our brother enough to sacrifice for them, to empathize with them, to consider their weaknesses, and to reach out in selflessness to help them? Paul certainly expressed that sentiment here, and he also went further with the idea in the next chapter. Speaking of the sacrifices and adaptations he was willing to make to minister to others, he said “To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” And previous to that, speaking about how he didn’t want to be a financial burden to the churches he ministered to, he explained that scripturally, he had the right to be well compensated for his ministry, but he said “Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.”
Is that how we think? Do we think in terms of always preserving our spiritual rights, our spiritual freedoms, or do we think in terms of using our freedom to minister in love to others, and to help the growth and stability of out brothers and sisters? Now, recently these concepts have been applied in many ways to issues like masks, vaccines, social distancing, government overreach, etc. There is certainly a way to apply these principles to political freedoms, but those are not the freedoms that Paul is referring to specifically. He was addressing the idea of Christian liberty. For the Corinthian Christians, they were absolutely free to eat that meat sacrificed to idols. It was not a sin. But, if they did it in ignorance and opposition to their weaker brothers, or if in doing so they knowingly tempted their fellow believers to go against their conscience, then Paul said, “in sinning against your brothers… you sin against Christ.”
In the case of the Corinthians, the temptation was for the weaker brother to go back into idolatry. Maybe the temptation for your weaker brother or sister is to go back into drug addiction, alcoholism, or sexual sin. Maybe the temptation is for them to seek an abortion out of fear or panic, or to return to that unrighteous relationship. It could be anything, it really doesn’t matter. What matters ultimately is the same thing that mattered for us, and that is the fact that Christ died to pay for that sin just like He died to pay for your sin. And like Paul said in another place, if our brother is overtaken in a fault, we who are spiritual are to restore him in a spirit of meekness. (Galatians 6:1).
So What?
Do we place that much value on the edification and spiritual health of our brothers and sisters? Do we even place that much value on spiritual health at all? Those are challenging thoughts, and I am by no means an example of one who has arrived. But I ask the simple question: what would you give up for your brother? What would you give up for your sister? Would you give up a spare bed in your home to help them get away from temptation? Would you give up some of your time or money to help them avoid unrighteous means of gain? Would you give up your comfort to have difficult and involved conversations? Would you give up your weekend to help them move? Would you give up your sleep to rescue them from a dangerous situation in the night? Would you give up your personal autonomy to go into a relationship of accountability with them? Would you give up your “reputation” by associating with the outcasts like Jesus was known for? Would you weep with them and rejoice with them? Would you invite them into your comfortable family unit? Would you answer the same questions over and over again, and reiterate the same truths in grace and humility for the 10th time?
What would you give up for your brother? We cannot pay for our brother’s sin; Christ has already done that. We cannot secure their redemption; Christ is the one who promises that if they trust Him. We cannot remove all their temptations; the Holy Spirit alone can renew the mind and help them grow by grace. But we can be with them on their journey, and if there is something we can do to help, just like others have helped us, are we willing.? By the grace of Christ, may we seek the strength and edification of our brothers and sisters.
In Christ,
Pastor Aaron Frost
February 1, 2022
