WWUTT 1536 Known By God (1 Corinthians 8:1-3)

1 Corinthians 8 and the Contrast Between Knowledge and Love

You could possess all the world's knowledge, but what's most important is not what you know, but who you know. Even more important than this, it's about who knows you when we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Paul’s Introduction to 1 Corinthians 8 and the Issue of Food Sacrificed to Idols

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 1 Corinthians and we're up to chapter 8 this week. If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there. A little bit shorter chapter, it's just 13 verses here.

So I'm going to start out by reading all of 1 Corinthians 8 out of the Legacy Standard Bible the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. Now concerning things sacrificed to idols. We know that we all have knowledge.

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone thinks that he has known anything, he is not yet known as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he has been known by Him. Therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world and that there is no God but one.

For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we exist through Him.

However, not all men have this knowledge, but some being accustomed to the idol until now eat food as if it were sacrifice to an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled. But food will not commend us to God.

We neither lack if we do not eat nor abound if we do eat. But see to it that this authority of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you who have knowledge, dining in an idol's temple will not his conscience, if he is weak, be built up to eat things sacrificed to idols?

For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And in that way, by sinning against the brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.

Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, ever, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. We have an obvious subject change going on here at the start of chapter 8, for Paul says, now concerning the things, so he's addressing a different matter than we were looking at in chapter 7.

When I started that section in chapter 7, remember I said that Paul was now responding to questions that had come from the Corinthians through Chloe's people to Paul. So he had received questions from this church about certain matters and having rebuked them for their pride, which we had seen really through the first six chapters of the letter, also addressing certain things that the Corinthians needed to take care of.

He then shifted to responding to their questions, but still addressing their pride as an issue. And we see that definitely here in chapter 8. So in chapter 7, we had things concerning marriage. He started that chapter this way.

Now concerning the things about which you wrote. That really begins the whole rest of the section where he's responding to questions from the Corinthians, but we get to a different subject here in chapter 8.

Now he's talking about things sacrificed to idols, and this is really going to take the next three chapters. So chapters 8, 9, and 10 are covering the same subject matter here. He begins it in 8. Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge.

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Now when we started chapter 7, I said one of the complications with the legacy standard Bible, the New American Standard 95 does the same thing, is that there are certain things that Paul is quoting from the Corinthians that they said in exact quotes to Paul, or maybe Chloe's people had reported it to Paul that the Corinthians were speaking in this way.

The legacy standard Bible does not contain those quotes. If you read it in the ESV, you do get those quotes. So let me read it to you. Well, let me go back to chapter 7. So let's start in chapter 7, verse 1, to kind of refresh our memory on the issue there, and then we'll come back to chapter 8, verse 1.

So in 1 Corinthians 7, 1, this is out of the ESV. It says, now concerning the matters about which you wrote, quote, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman, unquote. Now in the LSB, it says, now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman, but that statement is not in quotes.

So Paul is responding to something that the Corinthians have said exactly. I think those quotes are very important there. Now as we had gone through chapter 7, there were ways that the LSB was superior.

In this particular case, I think the ESV has it right. So it's better to put those statements in quotes that we know it comes from the Corinthians and it's not necessarily Paul speaking when he says, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

He's responding to that statement that the Corinthians made. So we get here to chapter 8, where he says, now concerning things sacrificed to idols, the statement regarding we all have knowledge, that comes from the Corinthians.

Here it is in the English standard version. Now concerning food offered to idols, we know that quote, all of us possess knowledge, unquote. And then when you read this knowledge puffs up, but love builds up, that word knowledge is in quotes because it's knowledge as the Corinthians understand it, not as knowledge as Paul is going to give to them.

And this knowledge that the Corinthians believe that they have is rooted in their pride. It is not rooted in the wisdom of God. Once again, going back to chapter 3, verse 1. So now I'm jumping even more chapters back.

This is first Corinthians 3, 1 Paul says, and I brothers was not able to speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to fleshly men, as to infants in Christ. Indeed, they are Christians. They are indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God, but they are very immature in their faith.

So a lot of these things, Paul needs to address them as infants in the faith, certainly not as mature believers. So here in chapter 8, I'm coming back to 8, 1 in the legacy standard Bible again. It says, now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that, and it'd be better to put this in quotes, we all have knowledge, unquote.

And then Paul kind of rebukes that statement by saying knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. So everybody in the Corinthian church is trying to claim we all have knowledge. We all know something. The Holy Spirit is all given this knowledge to us.

Have you ever heard this before? I mean, a person who claims that they know because they have the Holy Spirit of God. So they know just as well as you know. I was visiting with a couple not that long ago.

They were frustrated with some changes that they were seeing happening in their church. This was a different church. It was not a church that I attended. And I was asking them about what was going on.

And as they were explaining what was happening in their church, it became very clear to me that their church was going in a very biblical direction. They were actually seeking plurality eldership, which I believe a church should be under plurality elders.

My previous church in Kansas, we had a plurality eldership. And here at First Baptist in Lindale, Texas, we also have plurality elders. So I saw this as being a great thing as they were explaining what was going on in their church.

They were upset over this, though. And I said, well, what's the problem? What's the struggle with plurality eldership? And they said, well, the elders are going to be overseeing all of the teaching aspects of the church.

And if anybody's going to teach, well, then they need to receive elder approval before they get congregational approval. And I said, yeah, that seems about right. And I said, so what's the problem there?

And they said, well, we want to be able to teach and we don't think that we should have to have approval in order to teach. And here was what they said. They said, don't we have the Holy Spirit, too? So because you have the Holy Spirit of God, suddenly you think that you're just as qualified of the position of an elder as an elder who has the Holy Spirit of God.

And if that's the case, then what's really the point of elders? Why does Paul give a list of qualifications for eldership in First Timothy, Chapter three, and in Titus, Chapter one, plus some other passages that talk about elders?

Why would there need to be qualifications for elders if everybody has this gift because they have the Holy Spirit of God? One of the qualifications of an elder in First Timothy three is that he must be able to teach.

And that is a gifting that not everyone has. The Holy Spirit may give that gift to one person and not to another. And Paul will talk about this when he when he discusses the spiritual gifts when we get to chapter 12.

So just because you have the Holy Spirit of God does not mean you now have all the knowledge of God. Paul has spent a good deal of this letter bringing the Corinthians down, humbling them because they thought way too highly of themselves.

They thought that they knew more than they actually knew. So here is they're making this statement. We all have knowledge. Well, Paul is saying to them, knowledge puffs up. Love builds up. So you are puffing yourself up with your knowledge, quote, unquote, knowledge.

If you were filled with love, it wouldn't be about you. It would be about the church. It would be about exalting Christ and then serving the Lord through his church by being a servant to your brothers and sisters in the Lord.

So love builds up. And that's going to that's that's a theme that's going to carry through even the next several chapters, especially when we get to chapter 13, which we know is being the love chapter.

And Paul rebukes the Corinthians for doing pretty much the opposite of what love requires. So in verse two now, First Corinthians eight to Paul says, if anyone thinks that he has known anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know.

Paul was writing to the church in Rome, which was a church that loved each other at least more maturely than the Corinthians did. And so addressing the Romans in Romans 12, three, Paul says this for by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

And so Paul is sort of saying the same kind of thing here with the Corinthians. If anyone thinks that he's known anything, you think you know it all. I'm telling you, you have not yet come to know as you ought to know.

Although with the Corinthians, Paul needs to tear them down a little bit more than he had to be that way with the Romans. So in verse three, Paul says, but if anyone loves God, he is known by him. If anyone thinks he's known anything, he is not yet known as he ought to know.

But if anyone loves God, he has been known by him. It is more important that you are known by God than it is important that you know any of the things that you claim that you need to know. You can possess all the world's knowledge, Paul is going to say when we get to chapter 13.

And yet if you do not have love, you are nothing. So you could you could know and fathom all the deepest mysteries that there are to fathom. But if you do not have love for God and for one another, all of that knowledge that you have is ultimately going to amount to nothing.

It's not going to save you in the end. There's no eternal value or reward in it. But we need to be humble before God and we need to be loving of each other. And if there's anything that we think we know, may we be humble even in that knowledge that we may continue to love one another.

If anyone loves God, he has been known by him. The apostle Paul said to Timothy in Second Timothy two, 19, the Lord knows those who are his. And that's a statement even that comes from the book of Numbers in John 10, 14.

Jesus said that I know my own and my own know me. They don't follow after a stranger, but they follow after the good shepherd. And what did Jesus say to those who had not done the will of the father? According to Matthew, chapter seven, this is actually more of a future tense sort of a thing.

But standing before Christ in judgment, Jesus will say to those who did not do the will of the father, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. I never knew you. There are some that are going to look like Christians even to our own eyes, but they may actually have hearts that are far from God.

And when they stand before God in judgment, God who knows the minds and hearts of every person, he will know whether that person truly loved Christ or just wanted to look like he loved Christ before everybody else.

And so when Jesus says, I never knew you, it's not I knew you for a season, but then you wandered away. What was up with you? Why did you leave the faith like that? Jesus doesn't say anything like that.

He says, I never knew you. How important it is for us to be known by God. Now, certainly God knows each and every person that is alive on the planet. He knows every single human being who has ever existed.

It is not possible for us to know that, but God knows that. So certainly he has that knowledge. But to be known by God means that he knows us as his children. We're not children of wrath, as it says in Ephesians 2, 3, but rather we are children in his love.

We've been adopted sons and daughters of God by faith in Jesus Christ. Now, first, John, the first letter of John to the churches, this letter, I think more than any other, helps us to understand whether we are truly known by God.

How can I know that I am known by God? We'll go through first John sometime and read that one over and over again. For as John says in chapter five, I have written these things to you that you may know that you have salvation.

Consider first John 2, 1, my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

And by this, we know that we have come to know him. If we keep his commandments, whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word in him, truly the love of God is perfected.

By this, we may know that we are in him. Whoever says that he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked, in which Jesus walked. Let me skip to the beginning of chapter three. So this is first John three, beginning in verse one, see what kind of love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God.

And so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now and what we will be is not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Skipping down to the end of the chapter, verse twenty four, whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and God in him. And by this, we know that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us. Going on to chapter four, beginning in verse one, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.

For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this, you know, the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.

This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them. For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

They are from the world. Therefore, they speak from the world and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this, we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

So is that kind of helpful for you, helping you to understand what it means to be known by God? We truly know God when he truly knows us. He knows us first, as it says in first John four, 10. So later on in verse 10 in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

And even here, coming back to first Corinthians later on in chapter 13, the apostle Paul is going to say this. This is chapter 13, verse 12. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.

It is God who fully knows us, and it is most important that we be known by God. Again, you could have all the world's knowledge, but it means nothing if God does not know you. So let me conclude by reading once again first Corinthians eight verses one through three.

Now concerning things, sacrifice to idols. We know that we all have knowledge, knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone thinks that he has known anything, he is not yet known as he ought to know.

But if anyone loves God, he has been known by him. Heavenly father, we thank you for loving us, sending your son to be the propitiation for our sins that we may know you and become sons and daughters of God.

Thank you for your mercy and your grace and continue to guide us in your love and in knowledge of you today that we may do what pleases the Lord. It's in Jesus name that we pray, amen.

Closing Remarks and Ministry Sign-Off

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