2026.7.12 TFHC – Love Over Knowledge | 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
July 12, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
Transcribed by Beluga AI [https://easycloudai.com/beluga/].
So, 1 Corinthians 8.
> 1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know it. 3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by him. 4 About eating food sacrificed to idols, then, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father. All things are from him, and we exist for him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through him, and we exist through him. 7 However, not everyone has this knowledge. Some have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 Food will not bring us close to God. We are not worse off if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat. 9 But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, won’t his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols? 11 So the weak person, the brother or sister for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge. 12 Now when you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother or sister to fall. (1 Corinthians 8:1-13, CSB)
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength and Redeemer. Amen.
> 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB)
So, Paul is dealing with a series of issues in the Corinthian Church that he planted and spent 18 months there. And so he introduces each issue with these words: “Now about…,” “Now, concerning…”
And so the first issue, if you remember, were divisions in the Church—”I’m of Apollos, I’m of Paul, I’m of Cephas.”
The second has to do with sexual morality and what marriage means and what it means to be husband and wife and marriage and divorce and singleness and all that. The Corinthians were saying first, there were divisions. Second, they were saying, “Since we have liberty in Christ, we can still go to the temple prostitutes and indulge there with the prostitutes. But, you know, we’re free in Christ to do that. We don’t worship those idols anymore. But we still…”
And Paul says, “No, you can’t do that. You can’t join your body, which is joined to Christ, to that of a prostitute. And don’t you know, in God’s ideal of marriage, one man, one woman… It’s found in Genesis… one man, one woman. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, be united to his wife, not his wives, and the two will become one flesh.”
> 5 and he also said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? (Matthew 19:5, CSB)
And that is strongly reinforced then in the New Testament. I know in the Old Testament they practice polygamy. There are reasons for that, historical reasons. There’s reasons God allowed it, mostly for the protection, safety, and care of women. But God’s ideal has always been to represent His covenant love with His people, with the picture of marriage. And so that he reinforces that to the Corinthians.
Now, the third issue he’s bringing up is food offered to idols. And you think, well, if the Bible is ever irrelevant, it’s this. I mean, none of us today are in a quandary over—you know, we went to Safeway, and we were looking in the meat aisle and said, “I don’t know if this food has been offered to idols or not. I don’t know whether I should get it or not.” You know, when I went over to Brian’s house and he would graciously barbecue up for us burgers and brats, I never—my conscience was never smitten with—”I wonder if, you know, Brian dedicated these brats and burgers to idols before he put them on the grill.” I just ate them. They were good, you know, and when Stevin cooks something up, same thing, it’s like, it’s good.
But there are analogies in our modern world. And the basic point Paul is making here is don’t let your Christian liberty, or as he calls it, your knowledge—and he uses that sarcastically with the Corinthians. Oh, your knowledge allows you to do this? Well, does your knowledge allow you to destroy another brother or sister in Christ who has a conscious qualm about this thing? And yes, you think their consciences are weak and you’re strong, but when you wound them, when you hurt them, you’re doing a great disservice.
And so he starts by just being very clear up front. Knowledge puffs up, love builds up. And so this section is about simply this: the primacy of love over knowledge. The primacy of love over what you know or think you know.
And so he deals with that because the Corinthians thought that they had arrived. They were a young church, but they were an arrogant church. They were all that. And later we’ll get to this issue on spiritual pride when he talks to them about spiritual gifts. You know, they use spiritual gifts in the wrong way. They use spiritual gifts to elevate their status. Look, I speak in tongues, you know, a lot… And I prophesy a lot… I’m more spiritual than you… I’m free to eat meat offered to idols… I’m more spiritual than you. And he’s saying, “You’re not spiritual at all. You’re destroying your brothers and sisters. You’re not spiritual at all.”
Knowledge can only lead, he says here, to being puffed up and the sin of pride. Does that mean don’t study? No. The Bible says study to show yourself approved. Does that mean be willfully ignorant? No, don’t be willfully ignorant. But one thing’s true. There are very few areas in human life that are more prone and more dangerous to the sin of pride than intellect.
And I always preach to myself. When I preach, I just don’t preach to you. And this one applies to me, man, because I love, love, love, love to win the argument.
And part of that is… I think part of that is a gift. You know, I think logically, I think reasonably—I think I do—and I think things through, and I can articulate them. And that, I think that helps me be a teacher, but it also can make me a jerk. And I’ve done this.
Now, some people are not offended because when I basically debate somebody theologically—not just theology, by the way, baseball versus sailing, for example, which is kind of a no-brainer—but, you know, I’ll debate people about all sorts of things, and I’m very opinionated. I’m very opinionated. And actually only a handful, not all sorts of things. There’s only a handful of issues I think I know anything about. You know, I would not debate Stevin about horses. Like, you’re the guy. I know nothing about horses. It’s just that they’re big, and I don’t want to get on anything that big. When I have a car, why would I? But I’ll trust you that there’s fun and joy in that. I’ll trust you with that.
You know, I wouldn’t debate Brian about anything to do at all with math or engineering. I easily concede, you know way more than me about all that stuff. You know way more than me about bicycle repair, you know, you know way more than me.
But when it comes to, like, the three or four issues that I think I know something about, you know, there we go. And some people like that interchange, and they’re not offended by it. Other people, when you’re just talking about things and say, “Well, what about this opinion? What about that?” And you think you’re just bringing stuff up, actually they see that as an attack. It took me a long time to learn that. People are like, “Why are you attacking me?” I’m not attacking you. I’m actually helping relieve you of your stupidity and ignorance in my humility and brilliance. I’m your friend here.
Other people are fine with it. Other people are fine. You know, I got in an argument online with Josh D’Intinosanto, who’s our one Calvinist at Firehouse Church, and we were debating online. We were going at it, you know, it was on Facebook. And we had friends—I had friends interject and say, “Now, now boys, be good to each other.”
And neither Josh nor I were the least bit offended. I mean, you know, I called him a gravy-sucking, determinist Calvinist, and he called me a semi-Pelagian, heretic wimp. And we were fine with that. It was like, all in love and so…
But other people get offended by that sort of thing, and so you got to be careful.
And so there was another guy I was debating with online, and the Lord just really—it was during COVID, and he was stating the principle, he’s a Christian man, and he was stating the principle that out of Christian love all Christians should get the vaccine because if you love your brother and your sister, you will get the vaccine so you won’t get and transmit the disease. And I said, “I concede that point if the data showed that the vaccine stopped you from getting and transmitting the disease.” But very quickly after the vaccine got going, the evidence seemed to suggest that the primary benefit of the vaccine was that it prevented people who had comorbidities and got Covid from nearly a serious case of COVID. And I thought, well then great, let my 80-year-old mother-in-law get the vaccine. I’m entirely in favor of it, but I don’t want my, you know, 30-something-year-old pregnant daughter to get it. And I certainly don’t want my grandsons to get it because I’m not sure what this thing does. You know, if you’re 80, 85 and it does something a little cattywampus to your body, yeah, you’re good. You’ll be all right.
So, you know, we started arguing on Facebook over this, and we started going at it, you know. And at one point, you know, the Lord said, “Kevin, you’re not gonna change his mind. He’s not gonna change your mind.” He said, “It’s his page. Let him have the last word.”
And I realized at that point, my pride. It’s like, because he had just said something that I had a perfect comeback to. “No, that point doesn’t make sense because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Touche.
And the Lord said, “I want you to let him have the last word.” I said, “Okay, after I write this paragraph, then he can write the last word.” And it was very clear. The Lord said, “No, you keep that paragraph to yourself. Stop it.”
And there have been several times since then where the Lord has just said to me, “No, you don’t have to have the last word. You don’t have to win the argument.”
I got a feeling when I die and meet Jesus, He’s not going to say to me, “Hey, how many of those Calvinists did you put in their place? Hey, how many of those woke liberals did you show how wrong they were?”
Oh, this is a big one for me. I’m at a baseball game, and some guy behind me is trying to impress his girlfriend, telling her stuff about baseball that is just wrong. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know the rule. He doesn’t know what the play means, you know, but he’s like talking like, “Yeah, baby, I’m a baseball guy.” There’s everything in me that just wants to turn around and nicely say, “Actually, that’s not true. This is what the rule is. This is why this happened.”
And of course, I never do it because the Holy Spirit says, “Nobody cares about your opinions.”
But the real principle is it’s better—being right is the booby prize of eternity. Loving people is the eternal reward. Love builds the body of Christ. Arguments do not. Debate does not.
I’m not saying that truth doesn’t matter. I’m not saying there isn’t a time to stand for truth. But there are many things we divide over and get angry over that are really tertiary issues. And it’s fine to have an opinion, and it’s fine in the right context, with the right people to share those opinions and express those opinions. Like I said, I love that kind of environment. But many times it is wrong. And I love this: If you think you’re smart, if you think you have knowledge, you probably don’t.
And I’ve actually discovered this the more—and anybody who studied any subject deeply has discovered what? The more you know, the more you know you, you don’t know. You know a ton more about farming, Ats, than you did five years ago. And not of her own wishes, so does Aiko. But one of the things you probably realize is, oh my gosh, there’s so much to this. There’s so much about raising pigs I don’t know. You know, there’s just so much, there’s so much stuff about owning, you know, and starting a farm.
The minute you begin to think you know something, the minute you realize, oh my goodness, there’s all sorts of intricacies in this and there’s all sorts of… And so really intelligent people, really well-informed people are often very humble about, you know, the vast amounts of information and knowledge that are available. And that’s a great attitude because God knows so much more than we do about everything. We have such an infinitesimal grasp of reality.
And so Paul says, you know, the more you know, the more you don’t know. And if you think you really know a lot, you’re probably ignorant. Then he says this, which I love. “But if you love God, then you’re known by God.”
I don’t know about you, but the most scary Scripture in the Bible comes from Matthew 7, where Jesus says to those who come before him and say, “Didn’t we cast out demons in your name? Didn’t we prophesy in your name? Didn’t we do miracles in your name?”
> 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ (Matthew 7:22, CSB)
And he says, “Depart from me.” And he doesn’t say, “You never knew me.” What does he say? “I never knew you.”
> 23 Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers! ‘ (Matthew 7:23, CSB)
But here Paul says, “If you love God, you’re known by God.”
Let me tell you something else because the Bible is very clear on this. John is very clear on this, as well as the rest of Scriptures. If you love God, you’ll love your neighbor. Why? Because He does. The most dull, uninteresting, boorish, annoying, obnoxious, mean-spirited person is loved by God.
I saw a great meme. So funny. That’s the one value of social media. It’s not arguing as much as I, you know, would like to indulge. The one great thing about memes is humor. My wife and I always say, “Look at this.” We’ll show each other stuff. “This is a crack up.”
And this one was just hilarious, this little cartoon. And Jesus is speaking, you know, He’s preaching to a bunch of people, like Sermon on the Mount. He says, “Love everybody.” And then the little voice bubble comes from the crowd: “Even Charlie?” Another one: “Yeah, Charlie’s a jerk.” “Yeah. Do we have to love Charlie?”
And Jesus, kind of exasperated, goes, kind of sighs, goes, “That’s what everybody means. Yes, love Charlie.”
Then you see another from a guy standing off on the side, another little bubble says, “That’s right! Suck it, losers.”
And Jesus has got His hand on His head. “Charlie, you’re not making this easier, you know.”
Love everybody. Who’s your neighbor? Whoever you’re in contact with, whoever you have road rage at, or whoever has road rage at you. Whoever is that government employee at the department of licensing who is going through a bunch of ridiculous bureaucratic questions that are just eating your time and life away. And you just have to smile and realize this is their job. This is what they’re trained to do. It’s not their fault, you know. And love them. Be kind. And be kind. Be kind to your wife and be kind to your husband, even at the times they annoy you. And just love the person you’re with. And just be kind and be compassionate and be patient and allow the love that you have for God to fill your soul. And love other people.
God is not going to ask me how many people I won the argument with. I do think He’s going to ask me, “How many people did you love well?”
And this is Paul’s argument. “I don’t care if you know that meat sold in the idol market is okay to eat. If your brother thinks it’s wrong, don’t sit in front of him and say, ‘Well, I have liberty in Christ and you just are a weak brother.’ Just eat something else that night.” Because eating food does not make you spiritual, and it doesn’t make you unspiritual. An idol in and of itself is nothing. A piece of wood, a gold statue. They’re nothing. They’re created things.
Now, there are many impostors. There are spiritual powers that are behind those idols. Paul says, “There’s only one God,” but he says, “Then there are many gods, many lords, smaller case, G and L.”
What’s he talking about? Well, remember when we read Michael Heiser and talked about the supernatural realm, the reality of the watchers, the reality of the principalities and powers and spiritual forces of wickedness? Those are real things and they seek the worship of human beings, and they do that through the presentation of idols. But if you don’t believe that that idol is anything and you know that that power is real, but you acknowledge one God, one Lord, then that thing is powerless over you, and that meat has no power over you.
Listen, demons work the demonic realm. The hellish realm only works through the agreement and invitation of others. In other words, if you believe the lie, the lie has power over you. If you don’t believe the lie, the lie has no power.
There have been times where I’ve been doing a deliverance, and the demon has been kind of hard and snarky and resistant. And I’ll finally just say, “Wait, my boss rose from the dead. And your boss and all of those who work with you, all of hell, could not hold Him in the grave. you. You know that and I know that. And you have no authority here because of that.” See, the power is in knowing and believing the truth.
And so Paul says, “Your knowledge is right. You can eat meat offered that has been offered to the idols and now is being sold at the market.”
That’s what was taking place, by the way. They would offer these sacrifices at these idol temples, these idolatrous temples to these false gods. And then, because there was extra meat left over, they would just sell it at the meat market. And so people would buy it, and people would eat it.
And Paul says, “That’s fine. I don’t care. I don’t care. If they got the best prices on ribeye this week, knock yourself out. But if you’re inviting a brother over to dinner who used to be heavily involved in idol worship, and that’s a stumbling block for him, eat vegetables. Eat vegetables.” Why? Because the principle of love is greater than the principle of knowledge. Those kinds of things, eating or drinking, do not make us more spiritual. But not everybody knows that.
In our culture, it’s a few other things, right? I was an interim pastor at a denomination, and the denomination had a 16-statement statement of faith. And that was a good Christian denomination. I agreed with 14 out of the 16. Well, because I was working for that denomination or at least one of their churches, I never mentioned the two that I didn’t agree with. They were off the table. They’re tertiary issues. They’re not matters of, you know, first-level issues. Did Jesus rise from the dead? Is He our Lord? Is He our King? Did He rise from the dead? We all agreed on those things. We all agreed on the big things.
But they had two things in their statement of faith that I was like, yeah, this is why I’m not that denominated. That’s why I’m not a pastor in that denomination. I couldn’t sign on to those things. And I feel like if you’re going to be a pastor and represent a group and they say, “This is what we believe,” I feel like you got be about 100% there. That’s just one of my scruples.
I have friends who don’t believe that. I have friends in that denomination who actually have at least one, sometimes both, of the disagreements that I had, and they said, “Yeah, I just kind of held my nose and signed the paper.” I have scruples about that, right? That offends me. I can’t do that. But you know what? That’s my business, not theirs.
Anyway, at this church, I didn’t know—it’s not in their statement of faith, but it is in their code of practice—that this church is officially teetotalers. All drinking is wrong.
Now, I just want to confess to you. I’m a teetotaler. My father was an alcoholic. My grandfather was an alcoholic. All my uncles were alcoholics. Clancy family as far as… and on my mother’s side, too, plenty of them. You know, why did God invent whiskey? Why did God allow whiskey to be invented? So the Irish wouldn’t rule the world. All right? And we’re all Irish.
I don’t know if it’s a genetic thing or some cultures are more prone or it’s a cultural thing, but I just grew up culturally just infused with drunkenness, and it was repulsive to me. And so I just didn’t… I remember the last time I took a drink, it was like early 1990s, and my wife and I went out to dinner. She went to the restroom, and I’m watching a ball game on TV, and I order a rum and Coke. It was kind of tasty. It was like, I usually didn’t like alcohol anyway, but like, oh, that’s kind of nice.
And I know from my previous medical experiences of getting, you know, pain shots—you know how some people just hate those and they hate that feeling? I love that feeling. I could so easily be a heroin addict. Like, yeah, take me to the floaty place. And so I knew that that addictive propensity was in me, and I didn’t only know it from that one time. One time, I smoked marijuana… for seven straight years. So I knew. I knew I was prone to addiction. And I thought, I’ve seen this monkey on people’s back. I don’t want it.
And so that night, the first time I really liked what alcohol tastes like, that night, that scared me. And I said, “That’s it. I’m not gonna have another drink.” And I haven’t since like 1992 or whatever it was.
However, I’m not a teetotaler. In principle, if I went to your house and you had a glass of wine or you had a beer, I would not be the least bit offended or upset. If we smoked a cigar… Oh, there’s another one. But if we smoked a cigar out my backyard and you even brought a little bourbon with you, or whiskey because you like to pair it, as long as you didn’t get drunk, I’m good with it. That’s something people do; that’s something people enjoy. It’s fine, go ahead.
Anyway, I preached at that church. I preached my view of alcohol, making sure to tell them I was a—I didn’t know their principal. And oh my gosh, you would have thought I said to at least some of those people, you’d have thought I said, “You know, it’s not really wrong to sacrifice your children to demons.” You know, I had brought up demon drink, and I realized that I offended some.
And so instead of arguing my case when they came in and said that they were hurt by that, offended, I said, “I’m sorry I was ignorant of your denominational stance. Please accept my apology. I should have never preached that.” I was right, in my view of my view. But I was wrong because inadvertently I violated the principle of love. That should have been off the table. I could preach lots of things besides, “Hey, it’s okay to drink.”
There is Christian liberty. Paul says, “Big deal, we all have liberty. But if you feel guilt about it, don’t do it. If you feel guilt about it, don’t do it. If your brother or sister feels guilt about it, don’t do it and tempt them to sin.”
AA, meeting right over there. You know, it would be wrong for us on somebody’s first week of sobriety to say, “Hey, brother, I really… You know, Sunday night, man, it’s great, and it just culminates my week. And before I go home, I just like to go down to this little pub and just grab a beer. Why don’t you join me?” No, no, don’t do it.
Jesus says, “Better that a millstone be casted around your neck and thrown in the depths of the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”
> 6 “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea. (Matthew 18:6, CSB)
Your brother’s well-being, your sister’s well-being is more important than our precious right to Christian liberty, our being right. It’s better to deny your liberty than to cause someone else to stumble. You don’t have to flaunt it. Who cares if you’re right? Who cares if you’re right?
I remember the first time in my life I was humbled. And God has not stopped ever since. I guess I need a lot of humbling. But I remember the first time, I was 3 years old and I had a tricycle. I would ride this tricycle, and I would ride it vigorously. Oh, I would ride it. Adults, trying to be kind and build you up, would overinflate their compliments on my bicycle riding speed. “Oh, Kevin, you’re just the fastest bicycle rider ever.” I took them at their word. “Wow, I’m the fastest bicycle rider ever.”
So we had at a park by our house, in summer, there was a bicycle bicycle festival day. We all decorated our bicycles, got ribbons and streamers. We all did up our bicycles and we showed them off, and they graded that. I didn’t care if I won that competition. I didn’t win that competition. I didn’t care.
But I knew the last competition… oh baby, it was going down. The last competition was a bicycle race. Never dawned on me at 3, 4 years old—this is one of my earliest memories—never dawned on me that 10 or 12-year-old boys with 10 speeds would probably win the race over me and a tricycle because I am the fastest bicycle rider ever. That was deeply ingrained in me. And boy, these, these kids are in for a schooling. They’re going to be so impressed with how fast I go on my tricycle.
So, “On your mark, get set… Go!” Zoom, zoom, zoom.
I think I came in third to the last. Two other small kids… I think one of them was crippled. You know, I was like, I was devastated. I thought I knew something. That day I learned I knew nothing.
Now it’s a shame that God has had to teach me that lesson over again. But I am committed, at 67 and a half years old, I’m committed to being able to stand before Jesus and not get any accolades or how clever I was, how smart I was, however I was, whatever. I don’t think He’s going to be impressed.
My wife’s not impressed, amazingly enough, with how many baseball stats I know. In fact, when I start to bring them up, I get an eye roll. Can you imagine? I spent years accumulating this information. It’s like, “Honey do you want to know what OPS means?” And she’s like, “Never, never.” Oh, man.
That’s on base percentage plus slugging percentage as an indicator of how good a hitter really is versus batting average, which is a way overrated stat. Aren’t you glad I shared that with you now? Aren’t you glad you have that piece of information that will help you with Micah? “Well, Micah, what’s your OPS?” You know, so…
No, what I want when I stand before Jesus, all kidding aside, is I want Him to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant, because you gave a cup of cold water to the homeless person outside of the church in Bremerton. Because you shut up and listened to somebody with an opinion other than yours. And you were kind and you loved them. Because you delighted in traveling halfway around the world to see a group of people who are, by this world’s standards, infinitesimally less blessed than you are. And you were delighted and humbled to be in their presence and to see their delight at handing Bibles to them.”
And your church didn’t really have anything to do with that. But you glommed onto this mission trip, and you were delighted with the pastor and the people of that other church at the good work that their church did, because guess what? That’s my church, too. One church.
I told Peter, I said, “This is a win for City Chapel.” And then I looked and said, “It’s a win for the church of Bremerton.” And it was, Bill. It delights me even now to see, to just remember the light in those people’s eyes as we handed them their Bibles. It humbles me. It humbled me to sit and talk to those pastors and realize these men are facing trials that I never have to deal with. And they’re doing it faithfully and prayerfully, and they probably do not know the ontological arguments for the existence of God. And they’re miles ahead of me at being good pastors.
So, dear ones, love looks out for one another, not just ourselves. It’s as simple as that. What is love? It’s not a gooey feeling. I mean, I remember when Jill and I first started dating. It’s like, oh, my gosh, I couldn’t, you know, just wanted to see her all the time. She wanted to see me all the time. We had that, you know, that infatuation going on.
Nope. Love is—by the way, yesterday, 45 years. Thank you for your applause. Really applaud for her. Applaud for her. That’s why you didn’t clap. You all were thinking, “Wow, Jill’s an amazing person. That’s incredible.”
I’m just saying, in five more years, if I’m still around and still preaching to you guys, I want a big blowout. You know, I want gift certificates for bacon cheeseburgers or something. I want a few cigars. I want something big. So…
Yeah, you should try one before you knock it. Wednesday night, my house. She used to, when she was fun. Yeah, I think it was when, you know, she used to like baseball and cigars when she was in that twitterpated phase and wanted to impress me. And now, 45 years later, like, “That stinks.” We’re happily married, though. She’s a delight.
All right, dear ones, love looks out for one another, not just ourselves.
On the night that He was betrayed, Jesus Christ took bread and He broke it. He said, “This is my body, which is given for you, and this is my blood, which is shed for you.”
> 19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19, CSB)
There is nothing that has ever happened on planet Earth more revolutionary, more transformative than the God of the universe coming to earth in Nazareth as an obscure carpenter in a poor, occupied country and dying the worst, most humiliating form of death because of His great love. Nobody before Jesus and even people after Jesus. This is scandalous. Even today, Muslims think this is scandalous. Scandalous. We just sang, “How great is our God.” A great God would never do that. A great God would come as a conquering king. Guess what? He’s coming back as a conquering king.
But He came first to demonstrate His love as a humble servant. And so with His beloved disciples, He tells them, “Never forget that when you come together, I want to invite you to my table, and I want you to do this and be bonded to one another and be bonded to me in this shared meal.”
Don’t come with your opinions on what it means. You know, me, I have opinions on, you know, the communion debate and what it means. But I love what my hero, C.S. Lewis says. You know, “After all, the command was take and eat, not take and understand.”
I’ll take communion with an Anabaptist who just feels this is just straight symbolism, nothing more, and a Roman Catholic who thinks it’s literally the body and blood of Christ, and me who think it’s spiritually partaking in the body and blood of Christ, but not physically or literally.
And we can, even if we can do it peacefully, we can even sit down after church and talk about what that means. But here, right now, all I care is my King never said going—He never said, “Sing songs every week.” He never said, “Listen to a guy go on and on talking every week.” Though I think those are great exercises.
He did say, “Do this when you gather together.” So, dear ones, what a great privilege that the King of the universe, the humble King who transformed the world with a sacrificial death, not with a sword and bombs and an army—the humble King, now in His great love, invites us to His table. So be nourished tonight. Come and take and eat.
The post 2026.7.12 TFHC – Love Over Knowledge | 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 [https://thefirehousechurch.com/2026/07/16/2026-7-12-tfhc-love-over-knowledge-1-corinthians-81-13/] appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA [https://thefirehousechurch.com].
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