Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
This is one of those verses that, by itself, provides some encouragement going into your day. It's one of those verses that can be a mantra you want to have—this all-encompassing idea that at every turn, with everything I do, I'm doing it with God in mind.
I want to live in such a way that when people look at my life, my life will reflect His glory. I want Him to receive all honor from anything I put my hands to. Just that by itself is super encouraging and we can honestly probably stop there and leave that as the encouraging word for the day. What I love is that this verse is actually more rich in meaning when you get the full context of what's surrounding this idea.
Causing Our Flesh to Stumble
"Whatever you eat or drink" is an interesting first premise. Why would they talk about this? In the context of everything that's here in the Scripture, Paul is writing to remind the reader that there are things that we can do that we may feel okay about, but it might be causing one of our brothers or sisters to struggle, or another word you may be familiar with is stumble. In other words, there might be something that is of no problem to you, that has no fear of abuse or fear of mismanagement in your life. But for somebody else, it might actually be quite challenging to overcome or navigate in their own story.
What Paul was saying during this time, where there were different types of worship happening in the Corinthian church, was that these people had come to faith in Jesus, but their faith in Jesus was a new idea relative to all that was happening in the culture. There were ways of understanding about worship, where you ate, and what you practiced on a day-to-day basis that were informed by their experience in culture. They just continued doing whatever they did before they met Jesus. Some of those things continued on even after people became Christians.
We all know that as you study the Scriptures and you follow the teaching of Jesus, there are things that are drawn out of us, each one individually, that we realize we need to lay down because they're causing our flesh to stumble.
Community Over Personal Freedom
There were people who were finding that this was important in their lives, and they were laying certain things down. But then there were other people who may have been practicing different things in their worship, or how they ate, or how they drank, that maybe would have caused those people to question their decision. It might have been a temptation for those who were trying to lay something down in the situation where maybe other people felt completely okay.
What Paul was saying is the issue isn't what you eat or what you drink. The issue is, what is your heart for the people you're in community with? This is something that he was very, very focused on in his teaching. We are a part of one body with a lot of different parts and we work together. When he says, whatever you eat or drink, whatever you're doing in the middle of your lifestyle, make sure you know that you're doing it for God's glory, not your own satisfaction.
This is important because for us, even today, there are certain situations where we're in settings where the best decision might be to defer for the sake of our brother or sister. It's a different kind of mindset. It's not one that's seeking our own comfort, but ultimately it's for His glory and for others' good in the name of Jesus.
