{"id":6532,"date":"2020-06-24T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-24T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/wp\/?p=6532"},"modified":"2020-06-22T11:16:27","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T16:16:27","slug":"1-corinthians-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/?p=6532","title":{"rendered":"1 Corinthians 8"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>8\u00a0<\/strong>Now concerning\u00a0food offered to idols: we know that\u00a0\u201call of us possess knowledge.\u201d This \u201cknowledge\u201d\u00a0puffs up,\u00a0but love builds up.\u00a0<strong><sup>2\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>If anyone imagines that he knows something,\u00a0he does not yet know as he ought to know.\u00a0<strong><sup>3\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>But if anyone loves God,\u00a0he is known by God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><sup>4&nbsp;<\/sup><\/strong>Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that&nbsp;\u201can idol has no real existence,\u201d and that&nbsp;\u201cthere is no God but one.\u201d&nbsp;<strong><sup>5&nbsp;<\/sup><\/strong>For although there may be&nbsp;so-called gods in heaven or on earth\u2014as indeed there are many \u201cgods\u201d and many \u201clords\u201d\u2014<strong><sup>6&nbsp;<\/sup><\/strong>yet&nbsp;for us there is one God, the Father,&nbsp;from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and&nbsp;one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and&nbsp;through whom we exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><sup>7\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>However, not all possess this knowledge. But some,\u00a0through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and\u00a0their conscience, being weak, is defiled.\u00a0<strong><sup>8\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.\u00a0<strong><sup>9\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>But take care\u00a0that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block\u00a0to the weak.\u00a0<strong><sup>10\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating\u00a0in an idol&#8217;s temple, will he not be encouraged,\u00a0if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols?<strong><sup>11\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And so by your knowledge this weak person is\u00a0destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died.<strong><sup>12\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Thus, sinning against your brothers\u00a0and\u00a0wounding their conscience when it is weak,\u00a0you sin against Christ.\u00a0<strong><sup>13\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Therefore,\u00a0if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>An idol is anything you put in front of your relationship with God. Do we struggle with these things? As you read this, look back at your life over the past week. Is there anything that you may have placed as an idol above our Lord? Have the idols in our lives caused others to push away from Christ? Do we have a better relationship with our idols than we do with Jesus? Do other people see that these such things are more important to us than Jesus?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":1168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","filesize_raw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-reading"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6533,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6532\/revisions\/6533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}