The Knowledge of Love

Would please take your Bibles
and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 8. We press on into this great
epistle. And as we turn the page in this
epistle to chapter 8, we are brought in by the Apostle Paul
to a new subject. We know this because he once
again uses this familiar device, now concerning. He does this
to highlight the change in subject matter, and these were likely
questions that were posed to him specifically by the Corinthian
church. But while the subject is new,
we are immediately reminded that this is the same troubled church
They are still immersed in the same heathen society by which
they are so heavily impacted. They are still replete with the
same clumsy and immature manner of dealing with issues. And yet as dismal as all of that
might sound, it’s the same church that troubled as they were, knew
not only that they needed counsel and wisdom, but they knew right
where to get it. And so they turned to the Apostle
Paul to ask yet another question. Once again, they pen their perplexing
questions out for their friend Paul’s consideration. It’s been
said that The only dumb question is one that is not asked, and
such is the case here, because here was yet another vexing issue
for this unsettled body of believers, and there was real uncertainty
and a great disparity of opinion as to yet another subject. They seemed to be divided because
there seemed to be two ways of looking at this problem. And
therein lay the difficulty. So for them, not to ask the question
would have been itself dumb, foolhardy. It was an issue. It was producing a real problem
in their midst. The only reasonable thing to
do was to ask the advice of their friend, the Apostle Paul, and
ask they did. And here in chapter 8, Paul provides
his response. If you would, let’s take the
entirety of the chapter 8, 1 through 13. Now concerning things sacrificed
to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes
arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows
anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know. But if anyone
loves God, he is known by him. Therefore, concerning the eating
of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such
thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but
one. For even if there are so-called
gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many
gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the
Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him, and one
Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through
Him. However, not all men have this
knowledge. But some, being accustomed to
the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an
idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. But food will
not commend us to God. We are neither the worse if we
do not eat, nor the better if we do eat. But take care that
this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block
to the weak. For if someone sees you who have
knowledge dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience,
if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through your knowledge, he
who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And
so by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience
when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food causes
my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that
I will not cause my brother to stumble. It should not surprise us that
the heathen world was given over to idolatry. The Roman and Greek
cultures were well practiced at the art of worshiping false
gods. As a matter of fact, they were
well practiced even in inventing gods to worship, as well as manners
and methods of worshiping them. Romans and Greeks plagiarized
each other’s gods as well, renaming them to make them their own.
Why, they had a god of the sea, Neptune, or Poseidon, as he was
known to the Greeks. Apollo, the god of the sun. Mars,
or Aries, to the Greeks, was the god of war. Venus, Aphrodite,
to the Greeks, was the goddess of love, with the most ungodly
practices for worship. And over them all was the king
of the gods, Jupiter, as he was known to the Romans, or Zeus,
to the Greeks. And there were gods or goddesses
of earth, gods or goddesses of time, and flowers, and love. It kind of sounds like the 60s,
right? One historian quipped that among the Greeks and the
Romans, there were more gods than people. Well, all of this
was due to their insane rejection of the true God. As Paul lays
out in Romans 1, professing to be wise, they became fools and
exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form
of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and
crawling creatures. Well, You will recall that as
Paul ambled about the city of Athens, glutted with temples
and statues and their deities, that he even found a statue dedicated
to the unknown God, just in case they missed one. Paul seizes
upon that foolish idea to take opportunity to tell all who would
listen about that God. He is God, He’s the living God,
and so far from being a man-made statue, He is the God who made
the world and everything in it. He does not need, He does not
dwell in temples made with hands, nor does God need anything, nor
is He served by human hands, sacrifices and offerings and
such. Instead, He is the benevolent
one who gives to all life and breath and all things. He’s the
creator of mankind, not mankind, the creator of God. He is the
one who made every nation from one man, that is Adam. And so
Paul concludes there that it is patently wrong to think that
the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, that you
could carve out an image and fall down and worship it. All of that is bound up and set
forth, limited completely by the creativity of the human mind.
And that is the root of idolatry. that we want a visible representation
of God, whether it’s in the form of a calf, or the statue of Mary,
or an alleged painting of Jesus. Show us the Father, was the cry
of the Jews of Christ’s day. And it’s precisely that mindset
that led John Calvin to this statement. John Calvin said,
man’s nature is a perpetual factory of idols. Man’s mind, full as
it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a God according
to its own capacity. To these evils, a new wickedness
joins itself that man tries to express in his work the sort
of God he has inwardly conceived. Therefore, the mind begets an
idol, the hand gives it birth. daily experience teaches us that
flesh is always uneasy until it has obtained some figment
like itself in which it may fondly find solace as an image of God. So this is the context in which
the Corinthian church lived, the land of idols, And idolatrous
influences were not limited to the sphere of the idol’s temple.
Idolatry and its practices were everywhere in the city, tainting
almost every facet of life, the marketplace, the public square,
social events, everything. Christians then would be under
a constant barrage of the worship of these false gods with all
of its trappings. The daily impact and the influence
of the cults and false religions were powerful and they were far
reaching. It was almost impossible to ignore
or avoid. People, even Christians who had
escaped from these false religions were inundated by their practices. And one very significant example
of that day-to-day impact was with regard of meat offered to
idols. Now that in and of itself sounds
strange to our ears, so let me explain for a moment. The Jews
were not the only ones who practiced sacrifice. animal sacrifice. Many of these religions that
worshiped false gods practiced sacrifice as well. At the heart
of their idolatrous worship was the sacrifice. And a Christian
would not even think to be in attendance paying homage to a
false god. But not unlike the Jewish sacrifices,
not all of the sacrifice was consumed by the fire. Some of
it was dedicated to the person or persons offering the sacrifice. Some of it was dedicated to the
priest or the religious official conducting the offering. And if either of those parties
were unable or unwilling to eat the meat, it could be donated
or usually sold in the marketplace. And there begins the problem,
because inevitably such meat would find its way to various
meals, banquets, feasts, and therein lie the problem for believers.
they would find themselves invited to some unbelieving relative
or friend’s house where such meat was prepared and served
to their invited guests. And that presented a big problem.
How could a Christian, especially one saved out of heathen religious
cult, how could he eat meat sacrificed to a false god. It was a puzzling
situation that presented a great challenge. There were opposing
responses, two opposing responses to be particular. One group,
much more scrupulous than the other, having perhaps even been
saved out of such idolatry, would not even think of eating meat
offered up to an idol. unthinkable. Just as they had
forsaken these idolatrous worship services and feasts, they would
never purchase or eat such meat that had been offered. That would be to support the
cult, to honor the so-called deity. Couldn’t do it. And such meat, they believed,
was inherently tainted by presentation to the false god. A person so
concerned might even be fearful of slipping back into that heathen
lifestyle. To them, eating such meat was
sinful, pure and simple. But that wasn’t the only response.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, their much freer friend, a believer
who knew in his heart of hearts that there was no such thing
as an idol, just dumb man-made statues. and that meat offered
up to a false god cannot literally be tainted by that which does
not exist. Meat is meat, in their opinion. Now you may be sitting here thinking
to yourself, didn’t the early church deal with this situation?
Didn’t they think through and provide counsel for this question? They did, and Luke records it
in Acts 15. You’re familiar with it. You
know the setting. Paul has come back from a great
harvest of Gentile believers. Peter, too, has had his own dramatic
experience, which passage we just read, where he had come
to realize God’s plan for the Gentiles. And so Peter, too,
is prepared to receive the Gentiles into the church. But there is
a problem. And Paul brings this question back to Jerusalem, back
to the council of the elders. The question was what to do about
circumcision. And you remember the conundrum.
The leaders of the church meet in Jerusalem. Ultimately, they
render their decision. The Lord’s brother, James, delivers
the conclusion and it goes like this. It is my judgment that
we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the
Gentiles, that is, trouble them by burdening them with the right
of circumcision, R-I-T-E. But, he resumes, that we write
to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols
and from fornication and so forth. Well, That solves the problem
facing the Corinthians right there, doesn’t it? Abstain from
things contaminated by idols. Don’t eat that meat. Open and
shut case. And yet, as we will soon see,
Paul’s advice here to the Corinthians is very different than that of
the Jerusalem council. And Paul was there. Had he forgotten
this advice, this stipulation, Was he disregarding the council’s
decision? No. The only reasonable explanation
is that the council’s directive there in Acts 15 was for churches
largely made up of Jewish converts to Christianity. Their admonition was not intended
to be universal or perpetual down to our day. They were speaking
to an immediate situation, very special circumstances. As Gentiles
were first being brought into the fold of the church, it was
a temporary fix, and it was isolated to those churches directly affected. Antioch, Syria, Cilicia, all
of those churches were made up primarily of Jewish converts. But when Paul writes to the church
of Corinth, the situation is now entirely different. And we’re
now many years removed from that Jerusalem council. So Paul provides
very different advice. And so as you sit here this morning,
you have to be wondering, what do we do with this? Because I
can’t even remember Pastor, the last time, if ever, that I was
faced with the dilemma of meat offered to idols. It just isn’t
a scenario that we face in 21st century America. But I will caution
you that though we do not face the same question of meat offered
to idols, we do frequently, even daily, face questions about matters
of conscience. gray areas, we call them, questions
that pertain to Christian liberty, matters that are not so cut and
dried, not so black and white, matters about which scripture
seems itself to be indifferent. The use of tobacco, the moderate
enjoyment of alcohol, the playing of cards or games, secular music
and dancing, Those kinds of questions still linger for Christians in
our day. We face these gray area questions
every day. I’ve cited this quote many times.
Where the Bible speaks, we speak. Where the Bible is silent, we
too are silent. Just good general advice on how
to live. And so, Paul’s advice while provided
to the question of meat offered to idols, is really universal
and timeless. It will touch those gray areas
of our day. It’s applicable to these undefined
issues of our day or of any day in the history of the church.
You see, the tendency is when two or more people bump up against
one another on a gray area issue, a matter where there’s a difference
of opinion regarding how believers are to manage it, the tendency
is to break off into one of those camps. One camp is the camp of rigid
legalism. These are the ones who see everything
in black and white, even the white spaces of scripture. They
take a hard and fast position, and they scorn any who would
dare to exercise their Christian liberty in that area. The other
camp, the other extreme, is that of what I would call careless
licentiousness. Just free, and who cares what
anybody thinks about it? They believe that they are free
to do thus and such, and they almost take it as a duty, not
only to exercise their God-given liberty, but even to flaunt it. Well, Paul says that the answer
to all of this is knowledge, but a particular kind of knowledge
as he unfolds for us. We want to look at the scope
of knowledge this morning. The scope of knowledge, and there
are four facets to it. First of all, the expectedness
of knowledge. We find it in verse one, now
concerning things sacrificed to idols. We know that we all
have knowledge. The first piece of advice that
Paul provides here is that knowledge is a given. We all have knowledge,
he says. Most commentators here believe
that Paul was likely quoting the Corinthians own words here. We don’t know this definitively,
but the suggestion is that in quoting them, Paul was kind of
being ironic, almost light sarcasm. It’s a matter of fact admission.
Yes, we all have knowledge. And I would say that it’s likely
so that he’s quoting their words, and if so, such words really
could have come from either side of the argument. From the more
permissive side, it may have read like this. This is the person
that believes that they are free to do whatever. This is what it might have sounded
like. Paul, look, really, we are mature Christians. We have
read our Bibles, why you yourself have taught us. We know that
there is only one God. We know that there is no such
thing as an idol. We know that anything offered
up to an idol cannot be spiritually tainted. Paul, we also know Jesus’
teaching about this, that it is not what enters into the mouth
that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth. We
have knowledge. These fellow believers of ours
are being ridiculous. And tell me you haven’t heard
those kinds of words before. But as I said, the argument could
also have been lodged from the other side. The more scrupulous
side, the black and white side. Theirs might read like this.
Paul, look, I know this cult. I know what it means because
I was raised in it. I know all about their worship
and their sacrifices. Why, you are the very one that
shared the gospel with me and led me out of this heathen cult. And because of that, I know the
Savior. These fellow believers are being
insensitive to us by eating this meat. Well, something like that. We don’t know exactly what. Either
side could have touted their knowledge, and it really doesn’t
matter whose side it may have come from. The argument is the
same. We know. We know. And there’s a certain measure
of pride, smugness in this claim to knowledge. Knowledge adds
something to the person, but it does not necessarily improve
one’s character. And so Paul peacefully acknowledges,
yes, we all know. We all have knowledge. And he
says that knowledge is a given. Knowledge is not a gift given
to few. All people gain a certain measure
of knowledge over time. All believers add to this remarkably
by being remarkably instructed by God, by God’s word, by God’s
spirit. They’re trained and taught. They
have knowledge. A certain level of knowledge
is inevitable. And given the context, Even that
which is stated in this verse, the knowledge here pertains to
things sacrificed to idols. Paul says that everyone who is
very much aware, knowledgeable about the cultural challenge
of idolatry and its rituals, but this basic level of knowledge
is just that, it’s basic. If you begin to exhibit a heart
of pride in what you know, It is sure proof that you know very
little. And merely being aware of an
issue or even having an opinion on an issue is not beneficial
to the church. Something more is needed. And
Paul uncovers that in the latter part of verse one. not only the
expectedness of knowledge, but secondly, the consequences or
the product of knowledge. What does knowledge produce?
And he just says it so simply, knowledge makes arrogant, but
love edifies. Knowledge is not a bad thing.
It can be a good and beneficial thing, but not if it’s alone. Without a moral compass, knowledge
is dangerous. It would be as disastrous as
a speedboat full throttle without a rudder. Such knowledge, unattended
by a guiding principle, not only fails to navigate the difficult
questions about life, such as meat offered to idols, worse
yet, it produces pride, or as Paul says it here, arrogance. It’s the same word that Paul
used three times back in chapter four, once again in chapter five,
remember? It literally means puffed up.
And the fact that he uses this word in all of his writings,
six out of the seven times here in his letter to the Corinthians
strongly suggests that pride was a sinful struggle with this
church. You see, one who is proud, puffed
up, arrogant about their particular position on a matter soon becomes
harsh and judgmental of all of those who have not obtained their
supreme level of knowledge. Paul’s grave concern here is
that those who believe themselves to be knowledgeable would soon
become arrogant and abusive toward their less enlightened brothers. Thankfully, there is a guiding
principle. A quality that coupled with knowledge
produces a positive benefit to a body of believers. And that
quality is the spirit bestowed virtue of love. Love subdues
the arrogance that knowledge inevitably produces. Love takes into account a brother,
a brother’s feelings, a brother’s weaknesses, a brother’s varied
life experience. As Paul will go on to exhort
this same church in chapter 13, love is patient. Love is kind
and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not
arrogant. I pause and I tell people all
the time, this is not a wedding verse. It’s not wrong to use
it at a wedding, but it’s a Christianity verse. It’s a church verse. Love
does not brag and is not arrogant. It does not act unbecomingly.
It does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into
account a wrong suffered. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness,
but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things. May I show you the outworking
of this kind of love with regards to questions about gray areas?
Please turn to Romans chapter 14. Romans chapter 14. And I’m gonna skip through, just
show you some of the peaks of this incredible chapter. They
were facing some of the same questions and they had some of
the same challenges. They had people at both spectrums. You had the weaker brother and
you had the so-called stronger brother. who refused to relent
on his so-called Christian freedom. And Paul says, he calls them
really to a knowledge of love, a knowledge that is emanating
from a heart of love for your brother. Look at verse one. Now,
accept the one who is weak in faith. That’s an act of love.
to be accepting, to be receiving a brother who is weak, but not
for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. It’s not like
you treat him as a second class citizen. Oh, someday you’ll come
along. Someday you’ll have knowledge
like I have knowledge. Look at verse three. Let not
him who eats regard with contempt him who does not eat. That’s
a love, that’s an act of love on his part. And let him who
does not eat, judge him who eats. That too is an act of love. Jump
down to verse 10 if you would. But why do you judge your brother?
Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt, the
very opposite of love? Why do you look down your nose
at your brother? For we shall all stand before
the judgment seat of God. Let God judge. Jump down to verse
13. Therefore, let us not judge one
another anymore, but rather determine this, not to put an obstacle
or stumbling block in a brother’s way. That is an act of love. Look at verse 14 as we glide
into another section. I know and I’m convinced in the
Lord that nothing is unclean in itself, but to him who thinks
anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. for if because
of food your brother is hurt you are no longer walking according
to love do not destroy with your food him for whom christ died
skip down to verse 19 so then let us pursue the things which
make for peace and the building up of one another Do not tear
down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed
are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives
offense. And then Paul prays for them.
Look at verse five of the next chapter. Chapter 15, verse five,
now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to
be of the same mind toward one another. That is love. It’s an
act of love. The same mind with one another
according to Christ Jesus that with one accord you may with
one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s how you show love to a brother of a differing opinion. back
if you would to first Corinthians. So love overcomes and overrules
the natural tendency toward arrogance generated by simple knowledge. But in addition to that, love
does something else. It produces something. Love edifies,
even as you heard in Romans 14, Paul says, knowledge guided by
love exhibits a tender consideration for others, for the less informed,
for the less knowledgeable, for those whom Paul calls, in Romans
14, the weaker brother. It is not self-focused, this
knowledge, it is other-oriented. Listen to the way one creative
writer describes the difference of our pursuit of knowledge.
This is just so excellent. To desire to know for the purpose
of knowing is curiosity. Nothing wrong with that. To desire
knowledge that you may be known is vanity. To desire knowledge that you
may sell your knowledge is greedy trading, he calls it. To desire that you may be edified
is prudence, wisdom. But to desire it, to desire knowledge
that you may edify others is love. You see, knowledge resides
only in the head of the individual. Love directs that knowledge out
towards others. It takes into account the needs
and the circumstances of others. And in that consideration, the
church, Paul says, is edified, it’s built up. This word edified is one of Paul’s
favorite metaphors, you know, in his epistles. And it’s borrowed
from the world of construction, the manufacturing of structures,
houses or buildings. Paul might well have borrowed
this metaphor from the Lord himself. Jesus himself said, I will build
my church. Paul uses this metaphor frequently
in his epistles. He admonishes the Thessalonians
to build up one another. He cautions the Corinthians,
all things are lawful, not all things edify. He encourages the
Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20, I commend you to God and
to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up. And
to the Ephesians themselves, chapter four, he reminds that
Christ has given gifts to the church to equip people for service,
for the building up of the body of Christ. Without the guiding factor of
love, Knowledge is just garbled information, unintelligible data,
meaningless facts, but with love. Knowledge does an amazing thing
in the church. It builds up the church by building
the individual. And so there are limitations,
Paul says, to knowledge, and he discusses that in more detail
in verse two. And so we come not only to the
expectedness of knowledge and the consequences of knowledge,
but the limitations of knowledge. Look, if you would, at verse
two, if anyone supposes that he knows anything, he is not
yet known as he ought to know. Knowledge has its limitations. And Paul drives that point home
here. Knowledge is not worthless, but
it is humbling because it is so incomplete. And if you begin to exhibit a
heart of pride in what you know, it is sure proof that you know
very little. That is basically what Paul means when he says
here, if anyone supposes that he knows anything, he is not
yet known as he ought to know. You learn something. You know
something well and good. There’s nothing wrong with that
necessarily, but that’s only the beginning. This is the wise man’s discovery
in life, isn’t it? Even after years of diligent
and arduous study, one finds that they have only just begun.
That there are far more questions that he will be able to discover
in 10 lifetimes. We can spend our entire lifetime
on a subject all the while realizing that we will never fully know
anything. We begin the process of learning
and begin to focus on some particular discipline. And even when we
master that discipline, we discover that this is only one body of
knowledge, one discipline. And in the process of learning
it, we discovered that along the way, we’ve forgotten more
than we retained. And that new methods of learning
have come, new discoveries have been made, new theories advanced,
new and unexplored tangents off of this body of knowledge. But
when Paul brings this up, this sobering principle here, he has
something even more basic in mind. He asserts that while indeed
we may learn, we may know, our so-called knowledge is terrifically
incomplete. It’s finite. And it’s hardly worth the arrogance
that accompanies it. It was a big problem for the
Corinthians on both sides of this question. Those experienced
with the lifestyle, the heathen cult, knew all about the worship
of a so-called God. Those who had achieved some level
of Christian education knew the truth about God and worship,
but both groups’ knowledge was incomplete because it failed to employ the
virtue of love. They did not know as they ought
to know. Their pride was a sure sign of their ignorance because
they cannot even acknowledge their information gap. A man
who sees and knows his own lack of knowledge, his own lack of
understanding will naturally be a humble man. This is an almost
universal experience among Christians, isn’t it? I know it’s my experience. By God’s grace, you wake up one
day and you find yourself saved. You’re now a Christian, and that
part of it is amazing. Then also by God’s grace, you
begin to grow and learn, right? And almost inevitably, you run
ahead of yourself, and you run ahead of God, and you begin to
take stands, or you make statements, or you deliver speeches, or you
write letters that one day make you cringe, right? because they
lacked graciousness. These letters, these speeches,
they lacked tact, they lacked wisdom. And that’s because you
did not know as you ought to know. Aren’t we all thankful for God’s
patience with us, even if our unsaved friends are not so patient? God knew, we didn’t, just how
ignorant we were That’s the natural tendency of
the neophyte believer. With just enough learning to
make a big enough mistake to dish out for himself a heaping
helping of humble pie, right? That’s how we learn. It’s commonplace. It was for me. A proud man in
his thoughts shows himself to be ignorant. Whatever knowledge
he possesses will never bear the wholesome fruit of edification,
a benefit to the church. Knowledge alone is exceedingly
limited, but it’s not worthless. It’s a starting point of usefulness
for God’s kingdom. As Paul highlights in his final
observation of the scope of knowledge, look at verse three. not only
the expectedness and the consequences and the limitations of knowledge,
but finally, the beginning of knowledge. If anyone loves God, he is known
by him. Knowledge is limited, but it’s
not worthless. Love, as Paul’s shown, is the key to making knowledge
productive. This is the case not only on
a human level, but it is so with God as well. Paul says that if
anyone loves God, he is known by him. Love makes knowledge
productive. When we are led to love the Lord,
he has said to know us with a new spiritual intimacy. We know that
with regard to salvation, God moves first, right? God always
moves first. In 1st John 4.10, it echoes this
same principle. In this is love, not that we
loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son for the propitiation
of our sins. God moved first. He loved us
first. And to abide here with Paul’s
thought, he knew us first. Paul uses this exact language
in his epistle to the Galatians. He speaks to those believers
as having come to know God, but then he quickly pivots and adds,
or rather, to be known by God. He does this in order to capture
the fullness of the picture of salvation. Later on in this epistle, chapter
13, as I mentioned, Paul speaks of the master principle again,
love. And speaking of eternal things,
he says, now we see in a mirror dimly, but then that is one day
in glory face to face. Now, he adds, I know in part. But then I will know just as
also I have been fully known. He knows me, Paul says. It is of inestimable comfort
that the child of God is known. As Paul presents it to Timothy,
the Lord knows those who are his. It’s an echo of Psalm 1
6. The Lord knows the righteous.
To Jeremiah, the Lord said, before I formed you in the womb, Jeremiah,
I knew you. This is an overwhelming and deeply
humbling thought to the Christian. Do we know God? Yes, indeed we
do. But when all is said and done,
the more profound truth is that God knows us. This highlights the very simple
dichotomy between the godless and the Christian. The worldly
man desires to know, desires to know things. He desires to
accumulate knowledge. The Christian longs to be known. To know that you are known and
loved by God is the greatest knowledge of all. And far beyond
contentment with our puny measure of knowledge, there is awareness
of being known by God himself. Such person could be known by
none greater. This is the knowledge that generates
not pride, but a love for God. And how could we not love him? And if we are known by and love
God, we will love our brothers as God loves them. With regard
to meat offered to idols or any other such question or gray area,
the final answer was not to be found in sterile knowledge, but
a knowledge guided by love, which begins with love for God and
ends with love for one’s brother. No earthly preference, no gray
area, no Christian liberty can ever stand in the way of that.
As the Apostle John said it, beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God. And everyone
who loves is born of God and knows God. Would you humble yourself
before him?