I will never again…

For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols? And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. – 1 Corinthians 8.10-13

You have to love Paul's spirit. You have to love His love. You have to love the way he treats his brothers in Christ.

As mentioned before the topic at hand was eating meat sacrificed to idols. It could just as well be any number of issues that the scriptures do not talk about. For fear of causing offence I am not even going to list possible examples. We can all think of our own situations. We feel strongly about them. We have brothers in Christ who don't agree. And they feel just as strongly about their position as we feel about ours. If we are not careful we can begin to draw lines of division. When that happens the cause of Christ is hurt, often because neither side will 'give in.' 

Anyway, back to the dispute of Paul's day. Was it or was it not okay to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols. To Paul the matter was simple. The idols are nothing and it makes no difference if the meat had been sacrificed to them. It was still meat; don't let it go to waste. Just eat it.

And Paul would have been justified in taking a stand there. He had every right in the world.

But Paul wasn’t too worried about his rights. He was more concerned about others. He willingly laid aside his right to eat meat.

But I like the way he words it. ‘If food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother to stumble.’

Too often in today’s church it seems to be an exercise in getting my rights no matter how my brother feels about. ‘Liberty in Christ’ instead of ‘Love my brother’ seems to be the clarion call of the modern church.

Oh for a heart  like Paul’s that says ‘if it is going to cause my brother to stumble, I’ll never do it again.’

That’s love.