1 Corinthians 7:39-40 + 8:1-13 | Episode #989

July 24, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

1 Corinthians 7:39-40 + 8:1-13

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope.

Applying God's word to your daily life.

As we finish Faithful Finance, we want to produce our winter Bible study done at Lake Community Church on First Corinthians.

It'll be a fairly long Bible study.

We will break it up into different parts.

And so you will get a really good, really fast study through the book of First Corinthians before we move on to the book of Joshua.

A wife is bound by laws as long as her husband lives,

but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. Meaning,

look, if your husband dies, you're free to get married to somebody else, but only marry a Christian.

So what he's saying,

but she is happier. She remains as she is. Meaning you're probably going to be better off not getting involved in that.

And there's a lot of widowers who can. They can stay by themselves. And if they can, he's saying, you're probably going to be better off according to my judgment. And I think also have the.

And I think I also have the spirit of God. What he's saying is, I think I understand this.

And I'm just telling you that's the way it is.

Hour and a half and we have finished three chapters.

Amazing, isn't it?

Last chapter is not very long, so it ought to be a lot of fun.

And he is going to talk about your conscience toward others,

Remember? And as we go to this passage, I want to lay it out again because we've talked about it tonight several times. I think it's real important.

Remember, in the New Testament, we're under the three commandments of the Spirit, the law of the Spirit.

We're under the law of Christ. Okay? We're under the heart of Christ. And what are those laws? What is the law of Christ? What's the law of the Spirit?

Well, it is three in one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Okay? So you love God with everything.

You love your neighbor as you would want to be loved.

Okay. Whatever standard that is,

you give to them.

Okay? Now we're to love each other, other believers, self sacrificially.

So we're to love our. Love each other as Christ loved us.

All right? And that would obviously be our spouse, too. Okay. Our spouse would even be more because of that, because of that covenant relationship we have with each other.

So a relationship with a spouse has to be 100%. 100%. I give everything I have to you, you give everything you have to me. It's a self, self sacrificial relationship.

He says. Now, concerning things offered to idols,

we know that we all have knowledge,

meaning we know things.

Knowledge puffs up,

but love edifies.

Just because you know something doesn't mean that it's helpful,

okay?

Love,

Love and knowledge are two different things.

Knowledge is important and we've got it,

but love is life.

And so because you believe something or you say you know something,

if it's separate from love,

it has no value.

Truth and love,

God is truth. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth and life.

God is love.

And love and truth are not separable,

okay? They can't be.

If anyone thinks he knows anything,

he knows nothing yet, as he ought to know.

But if anyone loves God,

this one is known by him.

What he's saying is, if you're going to have anything, first and foremost you need to have love.

It's the essence of the character of God.

It's the essence of the commandments of God. It's the essence of the nature of God.

And so you can, you can have all the other stuff and you not have love and you're nothing. And by the way, we're going to get to that in chapter 13.

What he's saying is love is the primary desire that you ought to have love for God and love for each other.

Therefore, concerning the eating things offered to idols,

now this is the problem,

he says. Now, concerning things offered to idols, what happened? Well,

they had a lot of. Well, they had a lot of.

I guess the best way to say it is they had a lot of pagan temples and there were a lot of idolatry going on and there were a lot of sacrifice into idols.

And one of the ways the pagan priests could make money is they would take the sacrifices that were made at the pagan temples and they would sell them in the meat markets,

okay? And so he says, he says that we shouldn't, we shouldn't.

Eating food sacrifice to idols is, is a problem, and it was a problem in the church.

Now I use the whole idea of drinking alcohol because it fits better in our context, okay?

And it teaches you the same lesson by using the same idea, okay?

Now if you want to stay with eating food sacrifice to idols, that's fine. If you want to talk about drinking alcohol,

that would be fine too, because it's going to teach you the same points.

He says, therefore, concerning the eating of things offered idols,

we know that an idol is nothing in the world.

And there's no other God but one. Meaning if the reason you're not eating food, sacrificed idols is because it was sacrificed to some idol,

you know, it sacrificed to something evil.

He's saying, we know that they don't have any, they got no power over us.

So, you know, a ham hock sacrificed to an idol or a ham hock that is just being sold in the market by a farmer, there's no difference between the two.

He's also saying that alcohol,

we know that drinking alcohol in innately of itself is not wrong.

In fact, Jesus made alcohol.

He. He made alcohol as his first miracle in the wedding feast of Cana.

In fact, he not only made alcohol, he made some really good wine,

the best.

And so, so we know that drinking alcohol is not bad in and of itself.

For even if they were so called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods, many lords, what he's saying is, even if they're sacrificed to fallen angels, these gods of the world,

who cares?

Yet for us there is one God, the Father and whom all things,

and we for him,

the one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things and through whom we all live.

However,

that is not in everyone, that knowledge, meaning not everyone understands that,

okay? Not everyone gets it,

not everyone gets.

Some people do, some people don't. Some people understand that if I eat this food sacrifice to this idol, or if I eat this food, that's the same food and it's not sacrificed to idol, it doesn't really matter.

They're the same thing. Some people don't get it.

Some people think that I can drink Coca Cola, but I can't drink,

you know,

Michelob Ultra or something like that. And they don't understand that, you know,

it's okay,

I can drink alcohol.

Some people think you can't drink alcohol.

He says, for some with conscious of the idol until now, eat it as a thing offered to an idol and their conscience being weak is defiled. What he's saying is they have a weak conscience.

They don't. They, they, they have a weak knowledge, they have a weak understanding.

They don't understand that, that, that you're not under the law anymore, we're not under worldly rules anymore.

And so they think if you eat that food sacrifice to idol, you're involved in a sin.

He says, but food does not commend us to God,

meaning what you eat and drink does not commend us, make us okay with God.

You not eating that food sacrifice to idol doesn't make you any better with God.

It's just food for neither if we eat,

are we the better, nor if we don't eat, are we the worse. He's saying if you eat it and you don't eat it, it doesn't matter.

Now, with alcohol, there is a little bit of an issue. You're not supposed to be drunk with much wine.

You're not supposed to be filled with the spirits of the world, but you're supposed to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

So we do know that you can drink, too. Drunkenness is strictly forbidden in scripture,

but the drinking of alcohol isn't. But there are those who believe that if you drink any alcohol, you're a sinner.

Okay?

He says those who think that way,

their conscience is weak.

And so if they drink alcohol, they feel like they're defiled.

They do.

He says, but beware less someone.

Somehow this liberty of yours becomes a stumbling block to those who are weak.

What is he saying there?

What he's saying is, is that there were these people who thought that eating this food sacrifice to idol was wrong. And you and I know that it's not.

But they think it's a sin and it's a sin for them. If they think it's a sin, it's a sin for them.

So if you're with them, don't. Don't eat food. Sacrifice to idols.

The same conversation can be had about alcohol. Okay?

He says there are some who think that drinking alcohol is evil.

And so if they think drinking alcohol is evil, don't drink alcohol with them.

For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple will not the conscience of him who is weak being boldened to eat those things offered to idols?

What he's saying is they're going to think you're indulged in sin. And when they indulge in it, they're going to be indulging in sin because they think that sin's okay.

It's a good argument.

It's a great argument. What he's saying is we need to live by the law of love.

And so if somebody's got a stumbling block, something that somebody is weak in their conscience, meaning they, they don't have the knowledge of God. They don't have a full understanding of how to walk in faith and walk in grace.

And they don't. They. They have, they. They've been taught something that's a law unto themselves. It might be a tradition.

And you don't follow that tradition. When you're with them,

then,

then you're being Wrong toward them, you're not loving them,

you're not being self sacrificial toward them.

Look, there's a lot of things that churches do and a lot of things that people do that I don't believe is right,

okay?

I don't think it's wrong.

I just don't think it's right. I don't think that they're to, what's so important to them has any biblical value at all.

Okay?

But when I go and hang out with them and they get him, they, and they want to do that,

whatever that is,

I'm gonna do it with them.

And if they think something's wrong and sinful,

even if I know it's not, well then at that point in time, I'm not gonna indulge them. I'm not gonna use my freedom and I'm free to do all that is okay with God,

all that is scriptural.

Okay, I have a freedom in Christ, but I'm not going to use that freedom to become a stumbling block to them.

That's what Paul is telling us here.

He says, because your knowledge, you shall weak,

you shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died. What you're saying is you're destroying them by using your freedom. And your freedom in Christ is not, should not be used for destruction.

Why?

Because the law of love says that you're to love your neighbor as yourself.

So let's not use our freedom to destroy others.

He says, but when you thus sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.

So if you're in a room with a group of people that for religious reasons think alcohol is wrong,

just don't order a Michelob Ultra.

Just don't. It's okay.

Doesn't mean that you're sinning to their ignorance.

You're not, you're just not becoming a stumbling block to your brother.

Therefore,

if food makes my brother stumble,

I will never eat,

I'll never eat again. Meat, he says, I'm not going to eat, I'm never again going to eat meat if it's going to be a stumbling block to them, lest I make my brother stumble.

What he's saying is, love your neighbor, love your brother self sacrificially.

If they think eating meat's wrong, don't eat it. They think drinking alcohol is wrong, don't drink it.

They think going to this place or doing these things is wrong.

Well, when you're with them, don't do it.

Don't do it. Why?

Because you love them and you don't want to be a stumbling block to them.

Now, I can tell you this because of my experiences and because I was placed under the law a whole lot in, in my younger years about certain things.

And I was locked up to things that I now know were not.

Were not biblical. They were not godly. They were not knowledge in Christ.

They were just rules that people put me under and then didn't live by them themselves.

I can't, I cannot, I cannot overemphasize that.

I was in a situation where I was teaching a whole group of young people that, you know, drinking alcohol was bad and,

and, you know, half their parents were leaderships in the church. And then I,

when I, three or four years down the road, I realized, you know what? All of them were drinking alcohol and they were telling their children that it was evil.

Well, why would you do that? Why would you tell your children and drinking alcohol is evil and then you drink in front of them?

It didn't make any sense to me and I broke loose from it because I realized I'm not under the law and I'm not going to walk under the law.

But that being said, if I'm dealing with a brother and we're in a. In. In a place where he's got a conscience about something,

even if I know that there's, that there's nothing wrong with it, I'm going to indulge my brother in that and I'm going to love him through it and I'm going to help them and I'm not going to beat them up over it.

So I don't drink that much alcohol anyway.

It's not like I got to have it.

So if I don't drink it with someone who believes this is in, it's not hurting me.

If I sit down at the table for a meal and somebody believes that eating meat is wrong.

Well,

I mean, I can eat a salad. I'm not going to like it, but I can eat one.

And you know what? It'd be better off for me to love them and eat the salad than to indulge my freedom and hurt them.

And you know, that principle fits in a whole lot of situations, doesn't it?

Help your brother,

love your neighbor,

be Christ to the lost in sense of hope,

and be Christ to the redeemed in a sense of love and faithfulness and fidelity toward each other.

And that's what we go today. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today.

In Jesus name.