1 Corinthians 8:1-7, 11-13
The church in Corinth was a small island of Christianity in a sea of sophisticated paganism; some of its members were ex-pagans and were finding it difficult to make a clean break from the attitudes of the past. Most of the meat sold in the shops had first been offered to idols. For the new converts, eating such meat compromised their Christian faith – for them it implied participation in idol worship. The more mature members of the church took the view that as there was only one God, the pagan idols had no real existence, therefore the meat was not spiritually contaminated and they felt free to eat it. Both sides were entirely sure of their position and the resulting tensions were such as to allow an opening for legalism and a potentially crippling judgemental stance.
Paul puts the matter in its true perspective by pointing out that knowledge, even the precious knowledge of divine things, can become a source of self-righteousness that merely inflates our hungry egos; what both sides were missing was the mutual love that leads to the unity and strength of the whole community.
Although Paul favours the case of the mature members, he chastises them for permitting the freedom granted by faith to injure the less-developed faith of their weaker brethren and, in effect, warns them that Christian freedom must be subordinated to Christian self-control. A Christian has constantly to remember that the pursuit of knowledge must always be done within the context of God’s blessing.
Jesus taught that love of God and of our neighbour summarized all the commandments (John 13:34-35).
‘I bind to myself today
the strong virtue of the invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
the Creator of the Universe.
I bind to myself today
the virtue of the incarnation of Christ with his baptism,
the virtue of his crucifixion with his burial,
the virtue of his resurrection with his ascension,
The virtue of his coming on the Judgement Day.’
(St Patrick)
1 Corinthians 8:1-7, 11-13
Psalm 138(139):1-3, 13-14, 23-24 • Luke 6:27-38
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