1 Corinthians 8

This evening I am sitting in Legge Towers looking carefully through the previous minutes of the PCC, DCC and Standing Committee in order to find out when we last discussed the whole thorny subject of food sacrificed to idols! Of course I jest, this issue simply isn’t around today, however at the time Paul was writing his letter it was a theological hot potato, and naturally as with all hot potatoes we want someone in authority to come along, to blow on the potato, to cool it down and to give us a straight, no nonsense, definitive reply so that we can continue our Christian lives in relative peace!

And how does Paul respond to this issue? He tells the Corinthian Christians that if their consciences under Christ permit them to eat this food then that’s fine, however they also have a larger responsibility to other believers whose faith might be damaged by what they see the meat eaters doing.

We might not have the same issue with food as the Corinthians had, however we all as Christians have a responsibility to one another to ensure that nothing we say or do (even if the issue is OK in and of itself) could cause others to sin or to damage their faith. And I think that in order to be able to do this we need to be open and honest with one another. As we get to know our fellow Christians we discover what makes them who they are so that we can better ensure that we build up the body not with stones that have been damaged by our behaviour but with living stones that comprises the church at its strongest.

Revd Robert Legge