1 Corinthians 8:1 Now as touching things offered to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies.… There is a great difference between being "puffed up" and being "built up." The one implies something pretentious and plausible, but hollow and unreal. It means show without substance, size without solidity, inflation without real enlargement. The other implies the gradual accumulation of substantial materials, on a firm basis, to some useful and enduring result. Now, the apostle would have the Corinthian Christians determine the question of personal duty concerning attendance at feasts in honour of idols, or eating of meat offered in sacrifice, on far other ground. than any supposed sagacity of their own. All, no doubt, had "knowledge." But there is a higher criterion of judgment than this. Love is a better guide in such matters than knowledge. In all these things let it be that delicate regard for the feelings and interests of others which love implies, rather than any abstract ideas about their own liberty, that determines their conduct. Hence the broad principle, "Knowledge puffeth up, love edifieth." Consider - I. THE KNOWLEDGE THAT PUFFETH UP. The case contemplated is one in which the purely intellectual element in the determination of moral questions is divorced from right feeling. It is a knowledge ideal and speculative, not vital and spiritual The knowledge of the theologian, the logician, the casuist; not that of the man whose reason and conscience and heart are alike alive unto God. The characteristic of this knowledge is that it makes men vain, conceited, self asserting, "thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to think." A true knowledge of the things of God has no such tendency as this. "If a man thinketh that he knoweth anything," etc. (ver. 2). Real knowledge in the spiritual sphere is beyond the reach of one who is destitute of humility and love. Even in the realm of purely secular science, true knowledge does not make men vain. The lives of such men as Newton, Herschel, Faraday, etc., illustrate the truth of this. They were men of lowly, childlike spirit. They stood reverently, as with bared head and unsandalled feet, before the infinite mystery of the universe. It is the novice, the mere tyro in learning, the man of shallow thought and narrow view, who is proud of his attainments, dogmatic and self asserting. How much more will it be so in matters purely spiritual, belonging to a region into which our science cannot climb! Take St. Paul himself as an example. While he moved within the narrow circle of Jewish tradition and prejudice, he was probably the very type of personal vanity. His Pharisaic pride was not only that of legal blamelessness, but of theological culture. Had he not sat at the feet of Gamaliel? Who could teach him what he did not know? It is a portrait of himself that he paints in those half sarcastic words: "If thou bearest the name of a Jew, and restest upon the Law," etc. (Romans 2:17-20). But when the light from heaven shone upon him, how was the loftiness of his pride laid low! He "became a fool that he might be wise." Moreover, this mere theoretic knowledge is as profitless in its effect on others as it is to one's self. It becomes disputatious, "gendering strifes about words," etc. There is no "edifying" quality in it. It does not make men one whit the nobler, purer, more gracious in heart and life. It in no way promotes the reign of those Divine principles of "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," in which the kingdom of God consists. II. THE LOVE THAT BUILDETH UP. Take love here in the highest and broadest sense, as including love to God and love to man. These are but two sides and aspects of the same affection. It is an essentially religious affection. There are tender sensibilities and generous sentiments which give a natural grace to human character quite apart from all religious thought and feeling. They may prepare the way for the awakening of this Divine affection, but are not to be confounded with it. Only by personal fellowship with Christ can we rise into the atmosphere of a pure, unselfish, all embracing love like his. Love builds up the temple of God. The separate personality of every Christian, and the complex, many membered personality of the whole redeemed Church, are the dwelling place of God, prepared by gradual enlargement and adornment to be the fitting shrine of his glory; and it is the office of love to promote this process. It is the effective power in the development and perfecting of personal Christian character and social Christian life. In confirmation of this, think of it: 1. As the essential spirit of all other graces. It gives them their highest, richest quality. It is the life, the beauty, the strength, the very soul, of them all. Consider the position love occupies in the circle of the Divine attributes. Truth, justice, purity, goodness, etc., are attributes of the Divine character; but "God is love." A similar position does love occupy in the ideal character of his true children. We are such poor, fragmentary, distorted reflections of the Divine beauty that even in the best of us this truth is too often obscured. Personal Christianity assumes many forms - the gentle and the severe, the reserved and the demonstrative, the meditative and the practical, the punctilious and the free; but this is the essential spirit of all its forms. It is true to the Divine ideal only so far as this spirit breathes through all its moods. 2. As the bond of Christian unity. Keenness of spiritual insight, zeal for truth, fidelity to conscience, may of themselves have a separating effect; but love draws and cements men together in a real fellowship of life. Differences in opinion, modes of thought, ecclesiastical usage, etc., become of comparatively small account, "so love at heart prevail." 3. As an incentive to all real Christian activity. It is the distinction of Christianity as a Divine method of moral culture that it bases practical and social virtue on this foundation, casts it freely on the prompting and sustaining power of love. "Love is the end of the commandment, the fulfilling of the Law." Get your soul filled with love, and you will never want for an effectual motive to all noble living. As the materials of the building arrange themselves and rise into their finished form in obedience to the thought and will of the architect; as the notes fall, as if by an instinct of their own, into their due place according to the inspiration of the musician; as the words flow in rhythmic cadence in answer to the mood of the poet's genius; as the grass and the flowers and the corn grow by the spontaneous energy of the creative and formative mind that animates them all; - so will you rear for yourself the structure of a beautiful and useful Christian life, if your heart is filled with love. 4. As the mightiest of all instruments of blessing to others. By the sweet constraint of his love Christ wins the hearts of those for whom he died. By the almightiness of his love he will ultimately conquer the world and build up that glorious temple to his praise - a redeemed humanity, a creation ransomed from the curse. Let his love be the inspiration of our life, and we wield a moral force akin to his; we share his work, his triumph, and his joy. - W. Parallel Verses KJV: Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. |
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