Knowledge or Love?

We base our actions on several different factors. Sometimes, we act based on facts that we know. Other times we act on our convictions about God's Word. One other factor that comes into our actions is love. We do what we perceive to be the loving thing. Which of these is the most important factor? I believe we need to consider what the Bible says about this. It will help us please God in our actions, which is very important. (I Corinthians 8:1) The Lord inspired Paul to address a problem with the actions of the Christians in Corinth which had to do with eating food offered to idols. He knew that they all felt that they had knowledge about this subject. However, he warned them that knowledge puffs us up, but love builds up others through us. That is a great principle to direct our actions.

When we base our actions on our knowledge, we could act out of pride or a feeling of being superior to another person who doesn't have the same knowledge we have. Of course, those feelings are sinful, and they lead us to sin by not caring for the other person. We can justify out action by saying it is based on good knowledge, but does that really help the person we are interacting with? I don't think so, and the Lord told Paul to tell us that in this passage. Instead, we should act in love for the purpose of building up the other person. We can always do that in a way that lines up with our convictions about God's Word. Love is what matters to God. Even if we are right in our knowledge, and we hurt someone else, our action is wrong. We should care more for the other person than ourselves, so we can minister to them in a way that makes them a better person or a better Christian. We should not care about eating, drinking or doing anything else so much that we do it and harm others by our action. We can do without, if it will help others.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read I Corinthians 9-11.