After taking some time on the complicated issue of how Christianity relates to Judaism (or how the gospel relates to the Torah), we launched into 1 Corinthians 8. The new issue Paul is addressing is whether or not the Corinthian Christians are free to eat meat sacrificed to idols in the pagan temples.
Surprisingly, Paul does not give a straightforward answer. Elsewhere in the New Testament the Apostles are clear that gentiles are forbidden to eat meat sacrificed to pagan gods (Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:28-29).
Paul comes at the issue from a different angle. There are those in the Corinthian congregation that see themselves as “spiritually elite” because they “possess knowledge.” They think that eating meat sacrificed to idols is not a huge deal because there is only one God and the idols are merely lifeless statues that can neither help or harm them. They also know that eating food cannot bring you closer to or further away from God.
Paul doesn’t fully disagree, but he challenges them on other grounds. He writes, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1). There are others in the congregation who have weaker consciences who could be “destroyed” by those with “knowledge” eating meat sacrificed to idols in the pagan temples.
Paul argues that those with knowledge “do not yet know as they ought to know.” Their knowledge that there is only one true God is right. Their knowledge that food cannot draw them away from the one God is right. But they’ve forgotten the identity of this one true God.
For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. (1 Cor. 8:6)
Effectively, Paul begins to answer their question of whether or not they are free to eat meat by identifying the one true God. Put differently, he discussing the doctrine of the Trinity. He is saying, “Don’t forget who the one true God is! Jesus of Nazareth—the one who is fully God and fully human, the one who ate with tax collectors and sinners, the one who lived his whole life for the sake of others, the one who identifies with the poor and the weak—is God.”
The Corinthians with “knowledge” have started from an abstract idea of who God is. Their information about this God is accurate, but they’ve failed to specifically identify him. Who is Jesus? He is God become human. He is God become your neighbor. And if you are to love this particular God with all you heart, soul, mind, and strength, then you will love your neighbor as yourself!
Loving your “weaker” neighbor is how you love this particular God!
The saying goes: “To know her is to love her.” Paul is saying, “To know this God is to love your neighbor.”
For Paul knowledge/truth are not at odds with love. Real knowledge is always the truth in love because the truth is a person (Jesus), not some abstract bit of data.
This is why the Corinthians who have knowledge “do not yet know how they ought to know.” To know the truth of anything is to know it in and through Jesus—in love. Any way of speaking or acting that keeps us from loving our neighbors, no matter how factually accurate it is, cannot be true. It is sinning against Christ (1 Cor. 8:12). There is no love and so there is no truth.
The Corinthians with “knowledge” may well be right that there are no other gods to worry about and that food doesn’t harm them because it cannot keep them from God. But eating this food in the pagan temples does keep them from their neighbors. When you identify the true God, you find that he cannot be known truly without loving and caring for your neighbors.
To know Him is to love you.
Here is the quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on 1 Corinthians 13 given in London in 1934:
Perfect understanding is perfect love…In order even to be able to see something, we need to love it. If we are indifferent toward a person or a thing, we will never understand it. We will always misunderstand a thing or a person we hate. Only a person whom we love can we fully know. We will know only as much about a person as we love in him or her.
To Know Him Is To Love You: Knowledge Puffs Up