“For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And so, by sinning against the brethren 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, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.”

Christians argue over many things. But to Paul, eating food offered to idols is simply not a big deal, in and of itself. We should simply moderate our freedom for the sake of those who are weak in conscience.

Nowhere in our passage is room found for the legalists, the “Christian Pharisees.” They have turned NT teaching into a Christianized version of law, a sort of weapon against Christians who participate in activities that do not fit into their moral grid. They try to manipulate and control other Christians’ activities through their strained “spiritual” arguments and judgments. Those people are in the crosshairs of Paul’s focus in Colossians 2:21–23 (among other places in his writings). For those people, Paul’s message is, “Grow up. Understand what it means, Christ and Him crucified!”

Here we are concerned about those tempted to violate their own weak consciences. They are the ones who simply cannot escape in their minds that eating temple food is wrong—if they see you do it, they may also be led to do it, but in their conscience feel guilty about it. There is certainly a place for teaching Christians about the freedoms we have in Christ (as Paul has been doing with the Corinthians), but not all Christians are there yet. People don’t often become instantly free in conscience. To blatantly flaunt our freedom at the expense of someone else’s weak conscience is to “sin against Christ,” for He was crucified for that brother or sister. Our choices in life should be conditioned by our love for those for whom Christ died.

So being motivated by the grace and love of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 13), though I am free to enjoy certain activities with a clear conscience, I will at times refrain. My conscience is clear inwardly, so my choice is not a legalism but rather a choice of love and grace. Does this mean we are straitjacketed by the collective weaknesses of all Christians? No, of course not. We are, however, straitjacketed by the love of Christ to help those weaker in faith. I may enjoy something in privacy but not flaunt it publicly. My greater concern, though, is to live not for myself, but for Christ and those for whom He was crucified.

Lord, help me to make the sacrifice of love for the sake of others.