Food and rights
Day 592, Thursday, Mar. 26
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Paul turns now to discussing eating food sacrificed to idols. This sounds like he’s turning away from the topic of marriage and situation and returning to the dietary rules he talked about earlier. It’s not as much of a shift as it sounds like, though.
Think back to Monday’s reading when Paul instructed husbands and wives to yield authority over their own bodies to one another. Authority was something to be given, not something to be taken.
Paul strives to reconcile the freedom from the law that the resurrection has provided us with the need to yield to one another. Obedience to the law, for Paul, is not based on following external rules, but on freely and lovingly considering the needs of others above our own freedom. “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak,” he said.
As we seek to live this out as the church we need to avoid the temptation to turn it into a backdoor legalism by which we shame people into giving up their freedom. The gift must be given, not demanded.
In today’s meditation we read, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.” That should also be the model we follow in our own lives.
-Rev. Mark Fleming
Thursday meditation
Psalms 103:6-18
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children—with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.
Prayer focus
Thank you, Lord, for freeing us from the law, from sin and from death. May we use our freedom to bring your freedom to others.