Freed to Love

“For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled…”

Acts 15: 28-29

This passage has baffled me for years.

If Jesus perfectly fulfilled the Law, and God declared to Peter, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” (Acts 10:15), why are the first century believers again asked to refrain from certain eating habits?

If Paul said, “for freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1), how can it be that the Holy Spirit is now asking believers to add an extra burden?

As I wrestled with these two seemingly contradicting commands and searched through Scripture, I finally found the answer in 1 Corinthians 8:

“Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up…However, not all of us possess this knowledge…Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.”

When we read Acts 15 through the lens of 1 Corinthians 8, it becomes clear that these new instructions are not really about the food, but about loving the people who will be eating the food.

In that first century church, both Gentiles and Jews would be sitting around the same table sharing a meal as a new family. By the blood of Jesus, all had been freed to eat whatever they liked, but not all would be comfortable with it.

So, the “stronger” believers had a choice:

They could choose to cling to the freedom that was their right, even at the expense of their new, “weaker” brothers and sisters.

 OR

They could lovingly, willingly lay down their rights in order to create unity, keep loved ones from sin, and build up the body.

I could be wrong, but I think it’s safe to say that at The Bridge, there is no one in our church family who struggles with eating food that has been offered up to idols! But this “The Law of Love” principle still very much applies to us today. We all, from varying degrees, have “weaker/stronger” issues of conscience:

clothing, beverage choices, health choices,

viewing entertainment, music, recreation, political opinions

All of these rights are ours, and through Christ we have been set free. We will not gain salvation by doing these things, nor will God smile on us more if we refrain. But let’s not cling to our freedoms so tightly that we forget to love our neighbor.

I read a quote recently that said, “Anything you can’t fast from you are a slave to.”

Ouch.

While we have the right to do (or not do) many things, are we willing to put others first and live without them for a time? We must not allow our freedoms to enslave us.

Yes, we have been freed to live. But better still, we have been freed to love.

-Becky Groppel