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Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that \u201cWe all possess knowledge.\u201d But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God. (1 Corinthians 8:1-3)

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If we are to be the sorts of people that can engage our changing world with the wisdom and grace of God, we need to be the sorts of people formed into the likeness of God, namely that of Christ Jesus.\xa0 This is the \u201cgrowth to maturity\u201d as Christians that Paul talks about elsewhere.\xa0 It is the formation of Christian character.

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In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul shows us how this works with the character trait of love.\xa0 \u201cKnowledge puffs up while love builds up,\u201d he says.

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Now, among the clear stances of scripture is the well-deliberated and discerned opinion of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 that Gentile believers were to, \u201cabstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.\u201d

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Paul, upon receiving a question from the Corinthians about food sacrificed to idols then, could have simply reiterated this position of the council, stated \u201cit\u2019s clear,\u201d and told the Corinthians to obey or else.\xa0 But he doesn\u2019t.\xa0 It is not the principles of knowledge and obedience that are to be the primary drivers of action in the Corinthian community, but love.

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Paul offers a case study.\xa0 He begins by stating, in effect, that the decision of the Jerusalem Council was wrong when it comes to the capital \u201cT\u201d \u201cTruth\u201d about God.\xa0 \u201cWe know,\u201d he says, that an idol is nothing and that there is no God but one. \xa0So: \u201cwe are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.\u201d\xa0

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But, he continues, \u201cif someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol\u2019s temple\u2026 this brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.\u201d \xa0This, he says, is a sin against Christ.\xa0 Now Paul is back in alignment with the Council, and the reason is that Love demands something different than Truth here.\xa0 And the demand of love is what wins.\xa0

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Knowledge on its own\u2014even the knowledge of the deepest and truest articles of orthodox Christian belief\u2014leads to pride and the tearing down and \u201cdestruction\u201d of many things, including the faith of \u201cweaker brothers and sisters\u201d (vv. 9-11).\xa0 Knowledge on its own is an \u201cimmature\u201d knowledge.\xa0 A knowledge that does not yet know as it ought.

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Love, however, takes a different path and starts in a different place.\xa0 Love begins with relationship\u2014a love of God.\xa0 One can know all sorts of things about God without really loving God or having a relationship with him, which is why knowledge is not sufficient.\xa0 \xa0

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When someone loves God, it is evidence to them that they are known by God.\xa0 Their love for God only comes because they have received his prior love for them in Christ.\xa0 There is a natural humility that arises from this awareness.\xa0 I only love because God first loved me, a sinner.\xa0 I am only saved because God has saved me.\xa0 All Christians stand on this same foundation: not that we know God or have somehow learned enough about him, grabbed hold of him, or acted well enough in response to him, but rather that God has known, loved, and grabbed hold of us\u2014sinners though we (still) are.

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The primary driver of action in the maturing community of Christ then, is a love modeled on God\u2019s own.\xa0 We are to lovingly honour the sister and brother for whom Christ died not just as a fellow image-bearer worthy of dignity, but as a family member intimately known and loved by the same God who loves us.\xa0 To do this is to know God (1 John 4:7-21) in the intimate relationship sort of knowing the Hebrew scriptures speak of.\xa0 This is a mature knowing\u2014a knowing as we ought.

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Truth can only be spoken in a love like this, and indeed as this case in Corinthians shows\u2014sometimes Love determines that some greater Truths of God\u2019s Sovereignty are left unsaid and unshown for the sake of building another up in faith and not tearing them down.\xa0 This quite clearly takes much maturity to apply well.

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So, try it out.\xa0 Practice Christ\u2019s love today.\xa0 How might you lovingly build one another up in Christian faith, rather than tear down?\xa0

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