Good morning. It's great to be back in the teaching chair once again after a short time off. I almost didn't come back up here because I discovered y'all have coffee and food back there. So I like that back there. So let's continue this morning in our study of 1 Corinthians chapter 8. And I'm not going to read all of the chapter just due to time constraints, but I would like to read the beginning of the chapter and the end of the chapter, and then I'll have a few comments on it. I hope this week you had an opportunity to look at 1 Corinthians 8, and so you're familiar with it all right. 1 Corinthians 8, 1 through 13. Now concerning food offered to idols, we know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. And then the end of it. In verse 12, thus sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother stumble. Now, a couple of things I wanna point out about that chapter as we enter into our study. Let's pray and then I'll point out what those things are. Our Father in heaven, we pray that you would meet with us now, that you would do that because you have promised to do so, and that you would be our guide as we study this chapter. In Jesus' name, amen. Two things that I think are important to our interpretation of the chapter and to our gaining the application out of it that we ought to. First of all, notice here that Paul in the ESV, Paul didn't put them there, but the ESV interpreters did. They put quotation marks around some of the phrases there. Now concerning food offered idols, we know that, quote, all of us possess knowledge, end quote. If you look down in verse four, therefore as to eating food offered idols, we know that, quote, an idol has no real existence and that, quote, there is no God but one. So the obvious interpretation that the translators of the ESV had here is that Paul is quoting from the letter that he received from the Corinthians. Now we're in a new section of Corinthians now. You'll remember back in your study of chapter seven that Brendan did. Chapter seven begins with something like, now concerning the matters that you wrote to me in a letter. And now we find here in verse one again, now concerning food offered to idols. Both of them began with now concerning. These are the questions that the Corinthians are asking Paul in a letter, which we don't have, but we can sort of determine what it was they wrote from the answers that Paul gives here. And we'll find that in several other places as we go through Corinthians now concerning. That's your key that he's about to answer another question. but he is quoting their language from their letter. They're the ones who said all of us possess knowledge and they're the ones who wrote an idol has no real existence. Now, they're not necessarily stating fact so much as they are trying to justify their own interpretation of those things, I think. So really, I believe the quotation is maybe misplaced in that first one. He says, all of us possess knowledge. I think probably what they wrote is something more like we possess knowledge. That would be very typical from what we've seen of the Corinthians that they think they're special. And indeed, they are special in some ways. They're very special in their geography, being located where they are and being able to control that land bridge to the continent and the wealth that grew out of that. So they were special compared to other cities around the world. the known world at that time. But it led to conceit on their part and pride and arrogance. So I think these were arrogant statements that they were making. Paul uses them to restate what they are saying to him and then to use those to correct their misinterpretation of them, to correct their arrogance. So I think maybe what they said was, we possess knowledge, and then Paul writes back, all of us possess knowledge, because they thought they had knowledge better than anybody else did. I think we referred to that one time as an over-realized eschatology. They thought what is promised when Christ comes again for all believers was special to them right then. They already had it. So there it had full knowledge. Paul was saying, well, it's not just you. It's all of us. It's all Christians everywhere in every city around the known world. Not every individual Christian. Some of them are young Christians. They don't have a lot of knowledge yet. But everywhere and every place there are those who have spiritual knowledge that is provided to them by their study of God's Word and by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So that's the first thing I want us to notice. The second thing is the layering here. We have a surface meeting. The surface issue that's being addressed here is food offered to idols, sacrifices made to idols, and then that meat being sold in the marketplace. And people buy it, including Christians, they buy that. Well, they're eating food that was sacrificed to an idol. And that's an issue. It was good that they raised that question. The Corinthians thought they had the answer. And Paul was saying, well, you really don't. You misinterpret that. You interpret it in an arrogant way. He says, this knowledge that you have puffs up because it makes you seem special. But love builds up. And love is the guiding principle here about how we ought to act. in that regard. I mean, I don't know anybody who worships idols today. I'm sure they're out there. Maybe getting to be more and more of them. I don't know. But I don't know them and you probably don't either. And I don't think anybody here has much of a problem with eating meat offered to idols. So why don't we just skip over chapter eight? Well, what Paul does here as he layers it. The issue is meat offered to idols. The way in which he addresses it is by spiritual knowledge. It is that spiritual knowledge, the correct understanding of that, that supports that argument about eating food offered to idols, but it also expands it. It broadens it. It makes it so that it really does have application to us. It's the way we ought to act in all matters like this. And so it's very important for us to know that and to see it. This has application to all Christians everywhere and all Christians of all times, of all the centuries in between the first and the 21st. So, and you can see here, I highlighted the word know and knowledge and known You can see that it occurs throughout that chapter. Paul is basing his argument upon not the knowledge they think they have, that they misinterpreted, but basing it upon true knowledge, which he defines in verse three is not knowing, not knowing about God, but God knowing us. We are known by God. That's the thing we should be seeking. We should work toward knowing more about God, but the main thing is the fact that we are known by God. And so Paul uses that knowledge in order to support this argument and to contravene the argument made by the Corinthians. Now, did anybody have a chance to write the summary statement? This is very important because it doesn't take very long to do it, and it makes you think about it. So you really have to think in order to understand the chapter and what it's actually saying. Who would like to give us their summary? If someone eats at a pagan feast, he's likely there worshiping idols. I didn't even think about just it being sold on the market, Arrogance doesn't equal knowledge, but rather pride, assuming he knows all but yet knows nothing. One loves and lives for the one true God. He is known by God, and his conduct reflects God's love. The eating or abstaining of food doesn't commence to the father, but can negatively influence a brother with a weak faith. Abstinence for the love of that brother, for whom Christ also died, Otherwise you sin against the brother in Christ. Okay, great. That's a good summary. Picking up in particular on the main point here is that if we are arrogant about the knowledge that we possess, and that in particular is that there's no such thing as the God represented by the idol. That doesn't exist. There's only one God. And knowing that, What does it matter? The Corinthians were arguing, what does it matter if we eat meat offered to idols? And because there's really no such thing, so it shouldn't matter. And we have this special knowledge. And there are other Christians who are weak, they call them, because they don't have that understanding. And now if that weak Christian sees them eating meat offered to idols, then they are tempted to do the same, even though their conscience tells them that's wrong to do. So love is the guiding principle. How do you behave about this? Now, the fact that it's based upon the true knowledge of God and the true knowledge that God possesses of us, expands that into more categories of things than eating meat, all for dietals, which really isn't that relevant today. But other things are. And it's important for us to know that. Anybody else have a summary statement? Yes. The phrase, now concerned, kind of brought to me When I think of Jesus and the term on the mountain, when I compare that, I think Paul is doing the same thing. Jesus said, he heard it said, that you shall not murder. But I said, if you take your brother in your heart, you have murdered him already. So when I make that comparison, I think Paul With that in mind, the divisions in the church come from a hypocrisy, because we're living to the law but dead to Christ. Okay, and that's a great comparison there. There is some similarity there to the way Paul addresses this and to the Sermon on the Mount. Let me read my statement. The Corinthians claimed knowledge regarding meat offered to idols is arrogance, indicating a lack of true knowledge, knowing God and being known by him. Even though idols do not really exist, and there is only one true God, not everyone understands this, causing them to violate their conscience should they eat of such meat. Believers, when exercising their knowledge and rights, must be careful not to cause weaker Christians to sin, thus sinning themselves. Paul says he will never exercise those rights if it makes other Christians stumble. And so here at the end, I've generalized that. It's not just that particular right, but it's any right that we have because we're not under the law anymore. And we feel like we're free to engage in certain behavior, and hopefully that's a true thing that our conscience is telling us, that we're free to do that. But what about people who have a different understanding? What about those who have not reached that point in their understanding of the scripture? And by doing that and insisting upon our right to do it, we wind up wounding their conscience. We wind up destroying their Christian life because we caused them to sin. And by causing them to sin, then we also sin ourselves. Can you think of any such thing as that? Booze. That's what came to my mind. Drinking. Some people are very, opposed to drinking alcohol and others are not. Scripture says, don't be drunk with wine. It doesn't say don't drink wine. And so a lot of Christians insist upon that statement and they drink wine, but they do it in such a way that it weakens, that it affects a weak brother. And they perhaps partake of wine when they still have a sense that it's wrong. And by having that sense that it's wrong and doing it anyway, they sin. And we would be the ones who caused them to sin by doing that. So, and there are any number of things like that that we can think of. So here's a principle that true knowledge is based upon love And that love is the guiding principle for how we behave toward other believers who don't have the understanding of scripture that perhaps we do. Now, let's go on to the discussion questions. Here's the first one. In 8.1-3, which addresses the question from the Corinthians letter about eating food offered to idols, What is the knowledge they think they have? How does Paul characterize this knowledge? And what does true knowledge look like? So who has an answer to that? Really three questions there, aren't there? What is the knowledge they think they have? And we've talked about that a little bit. Yeah. They're not real. And there's only one God. So it's immaterial that this meat has been offered to idols. Well, maybe it's not so immaterial if someone else thinks it is. And they don't have that understanding by our doing it anyway. And the key here, I think, is in an arrogant way. I can do it because it's my right to do it. It's my Christian right to do this. So we wind up wounding their conscience. They sin by perhaps engaging in it as well. And then thereby we also sin. So that's the knowledge they have. And how does Paul characterize this knowledge? It's arrogance, he says. He says it puffs up. And he contrasts that with love. Love builds up. So what does true knowledge look like? love and self-control, love for our brothers, and not engaging in things that we feel like we are perfectly free, and maybe we are to do that, but their conscience won't let them do it. If anyone imagines in verse two that he knows something, it's interesting there in the original language, it's that he has known something. In other words, the idea there is sort of full and complete knowledge. In other words, you know it. And other people may not know it, but you do. You have had that knowledge. And it's a full and complete knowledge. That's arrogance to think that you know everything you ought to know. So he does not yet know as he ought to know. So if you think you know it, that's pretty good evidence that you don't. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. And that's the thing that's important here is understanding that we are known by God. And I gave you a number of verses to look at, quite a few, about the love of God, and the fact that those verses point to our being known by God. Now, it's one thing, I think, to say that God is omniscient, and he is. He knows everything. But what exactly does that mean that God knows everything about us? What does it look like? What in particular does God know? And so these verses that I asked you to look at give us the answer to that. There are several categories of things. It's not exhaustive. We could go on and add many more verses there about what God's knowledge is. But these were of particular importance, I think, for what we're studying today. If you read and meditated on those, then what does it mean to be known by God? What did you get from those verses? Right. Okay, good. And those verses, I think, clearly indicate that, that there's a special knowledge of God that he has about me. Anybody notice anything else in particular? All of those. I thought Acts 124 pretty much sums it up. The Lord knows the hearts of all. He knows us, doesn't He? He knows everything about us and what we're doing, and He knows what's in our heart. Here are several categories that these verses tell us. First of all, God knows all people. There are several verses there, I'll just read one of them. This is 1 Kings 8, 39. God knows all people and everything about them. God knows his own people in 2 Timothy 2.19. But God's firm foundation stands bearing this seal. The Lord knows those who are his and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. He knows them by name. Isaiah 43.1 and several other verses you found in that list of verses that I gave you. But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine." Now, I think we've seen in our studies over the last few years, if you've been in this class, that name in scripture has a special meaning. It's not just the way we normally use it, meaning the sound that represent, you know, it's curvy, it's the sound of my name. Name in scripture is representative of the entire person. It's everything that person is, and in particular, that's true of God. When the scripture says the name of God, it means much more than just Yahweh. It means who God is and all that God does and his character and his attributes are all packed into that name of God. And that's what we see here. God calls us by our name. He knows us. He knows all of us. He doesn't just know what your verbal name is. He knows everything about you. He knows them individually and intimately. Jeremiah 1.5, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Speaking to Jeremiah. He knows their needs and troubles. Matthew 6 31 32 therefore do not be anxious saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear for the gentiles seek after all these things and your heavenly father knows that you have need of them all. He knows what his people need. He knows their sin, Hebrews 4.13, that no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him with whom we must give an account. This knowledge, specialized knowledge of God also applies to Jesus' knowledge. which says a lot about his deity, doesn't it? That which is true about God and his knowledge is true also about our Savior. The knowledge of Jesus, he knows all people too. John 2.25, and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. He knows them by name also, that is the entire person. To him, the gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Jesus Christ knows their needs and troubles. I know your tribulation, Revelation 2.9, and your poverty, but you are rich, and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Jesus knows his people's sins. Revelation 3, 15, I know your works. You are neither hot nor cold. Would that you were either hot or cold. So because of your lukewarm, you are lukewarm and either hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Jesus knows the past and the future of his people. John 4, Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. And then the response to that on the part of the Samaritans, when she told them about it, Verse 39 says, many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. So there's, I think it means much more to us when we think about the particular things that God knows, rather than just generalizing it saying, this is God's omniscient, he knows all. You know, there's all these things that we've read here. And they're all the verses. I put them up on the screen, so it'll be on the video. And if anybody wants to look them up again, then you can go to sbcgreenville.org and find the video of this class and pause the video to be able to get these verses. Final question, under what obligation does being known by God place us? Now, one of these verses, I gave you the wrong verse. So I'm interested to see if somebody managed to make that wrong verse fit into this. So it's not 2 Timothy 4, 19, it's 2, 19. So what obligation does that place upon us? What did you find? Kirby, a quick little aside on God's omniscience. As a young child and not a believer, I did understand God's omniscience. And when my grandmother died, who I loved dearly, I tried to be good for a while, because I figured your grandma's up in heaven and looking down on me. Now, I did realize God saw everything, but God already knew I was a bum. My grandmother didn't. So that was my unchurched, untheological mind. worrying more about what grandma saw than God. God already knew I was above what my grandma did. Anyway, I smile. Very good. Thank you, Bill. Now, knowing that we are known by God or our grandmother, under what obligation does that place us? You need to act like it. Right, here are the verses, the correct ones. Galatians 4.9 says, but now that you have come to know God or rather be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? So Paul, in writing to the Galatians and chastising them for wanting to go back, says you can't turn back again if you know God and you are known by God. Do you really want to do that? And then the verse that I gave you the wrong one for, which had something to do with greeting somebody. You know, you must greet people. But God's firm foundation stands bearing this seal. The Lord knows those who are his and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. So that's the obligation that we have because God knows us thoroughly and completely. Okay, here's the outline that I have. We just have a couple of minutes left, but let me just quickly go through the points of the outline. There are three. We see the pride of spiritual knowledge in verses one through three. We have a perspective on spiritual knowledge in verses four through seven. And we see the practice of spiritual knowledge in verses eight through 13. Now, in verse one, Paul points out that the kind of knowledge that the Corinthians had is arrogance. It puffs up. And he contrasts that with love in that same verse, but then also in verse two, he says that that's an indication of the absence of true knowledge. If anyone imagines that he knows something, the idea there is they're saying they know it all. He does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. And that's the importance of the real knowledge in verse three. We have a perspective there on spiritual knowledge in verses four through seven. First of all, the reality of idols is mentioned here in verses four and five. They aren't real. The gods behind them don't exist. There is only one true God. And that was the basis for the arrogance by the Corinthians. Since we know that, and some believers haven't reached that understanding that we have reached, then we can sort of throw it in their face that we eat the meat all for night, because we have more knowledge and better knowledge than they do. But the existence of the true God is in verse six. And let me read that. Yet for us, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. This, I think, is one of the more important verses in all of scripture. because it compares God with Christ. And look at it there. As far as God is concerned, God the Father, from him are all things, and for whom we exist. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, and these are in parallel with each other. So there is God, from whom are all things, and there is Jesus Christ, through whom are all things. And there is God, for whom we exist, and there is Jesus Christ, through whom we exist. So those things that are true of God are also true of Jesus Christ. And I think this gives us a powerful indication of the deity of Christ here that we can add into many verses throughout scripture that when we add them all up, it's very clear that the deity of Christ is represented in the scripture. And then there's the defilement of conscience in verse seven. Not all possess this knowledge, but some through former association with idols, eat food is really offered to an idol and their conscience being weak is defiled. Many of these people, perhaps most of them in Corinth, were pagans. And many of those were worshippers of idols. And now they had been converted. So idol worship and sacrifice to idols was a very real thing to them. And they haven't come to the full knowledge that the other Corinthians have, that idols don't exist and it makes no difference. that the food has been sacrificed to them. There's not any other food they can buy, or is that a choice? No, it's just a... If you were going to eat meat back then, you pretty much had to go to the market to get it. And the chief supplier of the market was the temples of idols, where they sacrificed meat. And once they had sacrificed it, they sold it to the marketplace. Well, they were saying that, and I know this is okay for me to do this. And the word is really probably more general than meat. It's food. So, whatever the food is. Maybe it was a grain offering or some other offering. But those things have been offered to idols. And for some people who had actually offered those sacrifices before they were Christians, then their conscience is wounded when they do it now. And the Corinthians were arrogant and insisting on their right to do so by doing that. We have the practice of spiritual knowledge then in 8 through 13. Food is neutral before God. It doesn't matter whether we eat something or we don't eat it. Now, there's some things I wouldn't eat. Sushi. But if I did eat sushi, it wouldn't matter before God. God's perfectly fine with me eating sushi. So if we eat food or if we don't eat food, then that's not a spiritual thing. But the truth can damage the weak. That's a true thing that food is neutral. But if we insist upon our right to treat it that way, then it can damage our weak brothers in verses nine through 12. Take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. And today we have things like the drinking of alcohol and other things that we could think of, I'm sure, where we insist upon our right to do it, but we damage the weak in the process. Now, the weak there doesn't mean they're really weak. It means that's the way the Corinthians characterized them as being weak because they didn't think the same as they did. This isn't all the Corinthians writing the Paul. This is those who think they possess this special knowledge writing. Quick question. Is the alcohol thing, is that a cause of modern fundamentalism or has that issue been recurrent in other times in the church? That's a good question. I'm not sure how that has played out in history. It would be a good thing to look into, Daniel. No, he's just giving the reasoning behind it. And you don't do that, even though he's saying here that food is neutral. And the Corinthians are right to know that there's only one God and idols aren't real. You shouldn't do it because it violates their conscience. And then finally, there's the restraint that will spare the weak in verse 13. Therefore, he says, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother stumble. That's the principle here. And that's probably the principle behind the command not to eat meat offered idle. Because there are those who would be wounded, their conscience would be wounded by that. So we need to be very much aware of the fact that we can insist upon things that we know are true. but in the process damage other believers. And so we need to order our life. The guiding principle is being known by God and therefore exercising love toward fellow believers. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this lesson. I pray that you would help us to take it to heart. I do pray that all of us would be aware of the fact that you know us, that all things are naked and open unto you and to your eyes. You are the one with whom we have to do. And Father, I pray now that you would help us to so order our lives that we do not engage in activity that winds up wounding our brothers. Father, go with us now. For those of us who haven't been in the worship service yet, I pray that you would bless us there, that we may have your presence with us in that worship service. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.