THE BOOK OF 1 CORINTHIANS: Liberty Within the Limits of Love
Nicholas Anderson
Transcribed by PulpitAI (with edits)
Background
So, since we are about halfway through the book of 1 Corinthians, I thought it would be a good idea to kind of do a little bit of a recap, a little bit of background, before we dive in. And today, my message is entitled, “Liberty Within the Limits of Love.”
So back in 146 or so BC, Roman General Lucius, he actually burned Corinth to the ground. All right? So, the city of Corinth that Paul knew was actually a rebuilt city by the emperor—well, actually Julius Caesar—in 44 or so BC. And after Julius Caesar rebuilt it, it was an instantly wealthy city because of where it was located.
And so you—I should have had a map, but, you know, I forgot to get a map. But Greece, you’ve got Greece; you’ve got the mainland; and then you’ve got like this big island, except it’s not an island. It’s connected by this thing called an isthmus. Can we all say “isthmus?” That’s a weird word, but that’s what it is, right? And that’s where Corinth is located. And so you’ve got this port city that’s just completely instantly wealthy.
And Rome had an overpopulation problem. And so Julius Caesar, again, he sent a whole bunch of freed slaves to Corinth. And so, think of Corinth as kind of a young New York city, where 1880s to 1920s or so, that’s kind of the culture of Corinth—where you as an immigrant went there, and you could get wealthy despite what your class was, because it’s a brand new city, it’s brand new rules, new money, like you can just go and get rich in Corinth.
And so Paul, on his second missionary journey, he goes to Corinth, and he stays there for about 1.5 years, teaching in the synagogues, preaching to Jews and Gentiles, and a church is made. And so think about like a New York City or a Las Vegas that doesn’t have any Christian influence, and all of a sudden, you have this small little church that’s made. And the people who are in this church, they have grown up in their culture. They have grown up worshiping, you know, pagan idols and other things, and then all of a sudden, they become a Christian. And it’s kind of a hard switch to make, to be like, “Okay, Jesus is the only way,” but they’ve got the pull from their culture. They’ve got the pull from how they grew up. And so, new Christians in an immoral city, it’s a hard switch to just make like that.
So after one and a half years or so, Paul, he leaves Corinth, and he’s, you know, traveling to other places around the Mediterranean, and he starts to hear of some interesting things happening in the city of Corinth, in the churches of Corinth. And so he sends them a letter, and he says, “Hey guys, I love you, and I’m hearing some weird things,” and so he addresses some of those things.
And so the churches of Corinth, they actually send him a letter back saying, “Who are you to tell us what to do?” And they actually kind of defend themselves.
Overview of 1 Corinthians
And so the letter of 1 Corinthians is actually Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. Kind of confusing, but that’s just the way it is. And this is Paul’s second letter to them saying, “Okay, we have to address these things, and yeah, you need to listen to what I have to say.”
So think of the book of 1 Corinthians kind of like an email chain in our modern day, right? Where, like, especially in a business setting where you have, you know, X, Y, and Z that you need to talk about, and so then someone responds, and then by the time you get down that email chain a little bit, you’re jumping from one topic to the next topic to the next topic. And sometimes when we look at the book of 1 Corinthians, we’re like, “Paul’s jumping from this to that, and…” But if you have the context, it makes sense that he’s, you know, addressing this, that, and the other thing.
So in chapters 1–4, he teaches about divisions in the church. Chapters 5–7, he teaches about sexual integrity. 8–10, he talks about food issues, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. 11–14, he talks about the gathering of believers. And in chapter 15, he talks about the resurrection of the dead and how the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the new lens on which we see everything.
Jesus rising from the dead opens up a new reality in which we view everything. You’ve heard that illustration of, you know, rose-colored glasses, where when you put a rose-colored glasses on, you see the world differently. That’s what the gospel is for us. We see the world in a completely different way.
So let’s do just a little bit of recap. 1 Corinthians 8:1 says:
But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church.
Love is key.
In chapter 8, verse 9, it says:
You must be careful so that your freedom does not cause others with weaker conscience to stumble.
Be aware of others.
In chapter 10, verse 31, it says:
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
So whatever you do, make Jesus’s reputation awesome!
Chapter 8 starts off, it says:
Now regarding your questions about food…
And to sum up that chapter, it basically says, “Don’t cause your brothers and sisters to sin by violating their conscience.”
And in chapter 9—Steven talked about this last week—it talks about giving up your rights as a believer, as a Christian, to love others well.
And so with that, let’s get into chapter 10.
Examples of Liberty Gone Wrong
And so chapter 10, verses 1–13, I think it talks about examples of liberty gone wrong. And so Paul is whipping through story after story in a very very small, condensed, paragraph or so, talking about Israel’s mistakes. And so let’s start in verse 1.
I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses.
So if you recall, the nation of Israel was enslaved for four hundred years in Egypt. So once again, you’ve got about four generations of Israelites who learned the different cultural things of Egypt. And then all of a sudden they were liberated. They were freed from Egypt. And through the cloud that moved with them and the pillar of fire, God’s personal presence was with them. They were never outside of his presence in their whole forty years of wandering.
In verses 3 and 4:
All of them ate the same spiritual food, and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
So Paul is talking about manna, and then he’s talking about how Joshua and Caleb were the only two people of that entire generation that actually got to go into the Promised Land. The ten spies that went into Israel, they came back with a poor report, saying, “Ah, I don’t think so.” But Joshua and Caleb, instead of looking at those giants, they put their trust in their giant God.
In verses 6-7, it says:
These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.”
So this is the story of the golden calf, where Moses was up on the mountain talking with God and receiving the commandments from God, and then unfortunately the people of Israel were doing some crazy partying down on the mountain.
And so in verse 8, it says:
We must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.
This is the story from Numbers 22–24, Balaam and Balak. Balaam was supposed to curse Israel, but he couldn’t. The only thing he could do was bless them. But in Numbers 31, Balaam advises a way to lead Israel astray. And unfortunately, it worked.
And in verse 9, it says:
Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites.
And this is the story where Israel started to hate—they actually say, “We hate this horrible manna,” and they desired to eat the meat of Egypt. And this is the bronze serpent story, where Moses had to create this bronze serpent, and then anyone who looks at that bronze serpent was cured.
Why Tell Stories?
And so all of these stories—but why? Why is Paul going through all of these stories? And in verse 11, it says:
These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.
So there’s three different types of knowledge. There’s propositional, procedural, and experimental, or explicit, implicit, and tacit.
So explicit knowledge are things like books, owner’s manuals, and, you know, how-to guides—things like that, where it’s written down. Or even, you know, me on this stage speaking to you—that’s explicit knowledge.
And then implicit knowledge is when you then take those things and you put them into practice. So if you, you know, get an Ikea… I don’t know, couch or something like that, explicit knowledge is the instruction manual. (And men, just read the instructions, okay? It’s very helpful.) And then implicit knowledge is when you actually take that manual and then you start doing it.
And then tacit knowledge is kind of the lived experience. It’s a little bit harder to put into words. You can’t necessarily write down what tacit knowledge is. It’s like a master woodworker who makes a paddle, and they know exactly when they’re sanding it, that’s enough sanding. It’s hard necessarily to write that down, other than you’ve just done it over and over and over again.
And so in verse 11, it says:
These things happened to them as examples for us.
Our culture, after we do like high school and then college, our culture kind of forgets that explicit and implicit knowledge exists, and we kind of have that, like, tacit knowledge is the only thing that our culture says is worth anything. I mean, have you heard of like in movies or things like that, where it’s like, “Hey, go make your own mistakes.” Like, “Go live your life, make your own mistakes, and you’ll figure it out.” Like, and that’s not a super great way to live and to learn things. We don’t have to make mistakes to learn things. We are able, as humans, to learn things from books and practice explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge.
A lot of times in culture, I also hear things where people say like, “Look, I don’t want to tell you how to live your life, but…” and then they kind of tell you how to live your life. Right? And it is kind of that funny thing, but it’s like, “Tell me how to live my life!” Okay? If you’ve done something in your life that you regret, please tell me, because I want to learn from your mistakes. I don’t want to have to go through the hard things that maybe you went through.
And parents, we do this all the time to our kids, right? Like, “Hey, I know because I’ve made this mistake, so please listen to me. Don’t do that.”
Resisting Temptation
So in verse 12, it says:
If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.
Proverbs 16:18 says:
Pride goes before destruction,
and haughtiness before a fall.
Self-confidence is a trap, and it’s also an idol in and of itself. And so if you think you are standing, be careful not to fall.
And so this—what I’m about to say now, this active versus passive temptation resistance—this is something that I’ve just kind of come up with. It’s not necessarily something like found in culture or anything like that. But what I have learned in my life is that you have this active temptation resistance, and then you have passive temptation resistance. And what happens is, you have active temptation resistance are things like, you know, putting blockers on your phone, deleting apps, making it so I can’t download, you know, something onto my phone. It’s very intentional. It’s something that I am doing. But oftentimes what happens is that active resistance eventually becomes passive, where you’re not thinking about it anymore, it’s not something that you’re actively doing. It’s just like, “Eh, it’s happening.” And whenever in my life active resistance flips over into passive resistance, that’s when things go wrong for me.
And so if you think you are standing strong—and I think Paul here is saying like, if you have kind of this passivity towards resisting temptation, be careful not to fall, because you’re probably about to fall.
When Satan knocks at the door, ask Jesus to answer it for you.
In verse 13, it says (Where are we?):
The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 says,
History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.
The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. That is such a comforting verse, because I think a lot of times what we can do is, we have this mentality, this individualism, right? Us Western civilization, we’re really good at doing that, where I’m the only one who’s ever experienced anything like this. But that’s not true. We have all experienced different types of things, and a lot of us experience very similar things.
But,
God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.
I love this promise of scripture. Like, this is one of those promises that always happens. It’s not just a “sometimes it happens.” This is like, this is an always promise.
Working Through Temptation
And so in terms of how then—if this is true, where God will give you a way out, how can we see that way out? And so, I like to… the four P’s is something that I came up with. It used to be the three P’s, but I added a new one. But it’s Pause, Pray, Perceive, and then Proceed. And so when you are tempted—and temptation in itself is not a sin—but when you feel you’re either emotionally, spiritually, or even physically, when you feel temptation—because a lot of times I feel temptation, and I just feel off somehow, right? I feel just weird, and that should be an alert to me to just pause. I just need to just pause for a second, and after I pause, I need to start praying, and just praying and asking God, like, “What’s going on within me? What’s happening? Please help me.” And then taking a moment to perceive, like, “Where is the Lord leading me in this moment?”
And with this “perceive” one, the thing that I’ve been more and more convinced of is that I don’t believe that there is—there is a way out, but God, I believe, is more concerned that you are trying to listen to him, and then you follow in faith. It’s not necessarily like, “Oh, did I choose the one right answer that God gave me?” I don’t think it’s necessarily that God is trying to give you one and only right answer, and if you don’t hear correctly, and that’s the way of escape, ah, well then that, you know, too bad. I think God is more concerned that you are trying to put your faith in listening to him, and then just taking that step of obedience, and then, you know, perceiving what he’s telling you, and then going in that direction.
And then proceed. Just proceed in faith that that is what you’re supposed to do.
And this has been very helpful in my life, but it doesn’t necessarily matter if it’s like “the four P’s.” So another one that I saw was just the STOP method, where you Stop your mind and actions, Talk to God, Observe his leading, and then Proceed in faith. So you don’t necessarily have to do one of the ones that I have come up with. Anything that works for you, that’s what I want you to do.
The last one that I have is “sending up a flare.” This has been super helpful in my life where I’ve got my accountability group, my accountability partners, and I’m, you know, in a situation where I’m feeling temptation, or I know that I’m about to go do something that’s gonna kind of put me in a weird, you know, situation—I’m gonna send up a flare. And all it is, is just, you know, find the fireball emoji or something like that, and then just send it out, because then what happens is, instantly, you’re not alone. You’re not alone anymore in your temptation. And that I think truly is what breaks the power of temptation. Because a lot of times with temptation, it’s like you’re alone in how you’re being tempted, right? And so, yeah, sending up a flare, because I know, either an hour from now or the next day, I’m gonna have guys calling me and being like, “Okay, how are you? How did you do? How did that temptation go?” And then I can answer them. So it breaks that power of temptation. And for me, this has been my way of escape many, many times, and it’s been great.
So find something that’s going to work for you, and actually do it. Like, when God provides a way of escape, it’s up to us to actually take that way of escape.
Extreme Actions
In Matthew 5:29, it says—Jesus says:
“So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”
And I think Jesus is speaking in hyperbole here, but the concept is, “What extreme action will you take?” And a lot of times an extreme action can be very inconvenient. I don’t have Internet access on my phone. I just, I don’t do that. It’s too much of a temptation for me, and it’s really, really inconvenient. There are a lot of times where someone’s like, “Oh yeah, just use, you know, check it out.”
And I’m like, “I can’t. I can’t actually do that. So, sorry.”
Do you need to take a different route home for any reason? Do you need to change the channel? Do you need to stop talking to that person? Do you need to get rid of your credit cards, even if it hurts your credit score? Like, who cares if your credit score goes down a bit? Like, what extreme action do you need to take in order to follow Jesus?
And a lot of times that action is a physical reaction to a spiritual battle. I think sometimes we can kind of get into this mode of, “If I just pray, and if I just have the right mindset about it, then the temptation will just go away.” But sometimes we just need to walk away. We need to physically move our body and just go do something else, and that is going to be our way of escape.
And these two verses also, a lot of times when we look at them, we have a very individualistic mentality when it comes to that.
If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. The temptations […] are no different from what others experience. […] God is faithful. […] When you are tempted, he will show you a way out…
But in the context of chapters 8, 9, and 10, this is very much a—the context isn’t necessarily individual. It is communal effects, right? In chapter 8, as he’s talking about giving up your rights to not eat meat so that others will not be, you know, their consciousness won’t be seared, I think we should also look at these verses and say, “When I’m tempted, how is it also going to affect my brothers and sisters in Christ?” It’s not just an individual thing where like, this is just between me and God and I’m going to figure it out, but it’s like, if you sin, how is it going to affect all of us? So I think we need to keep that in mind as well.
Loving Others by Limiting Yourself
So then moving on, verses 14–30, this is where Paul kind of brings up the topic of food again, and he talks about it a little bit differently. So in verse 14, it says:
So, my dear friends…
Which is a really, really great thing for Paul to say, because the Corinthians were not the easiest people to love, especially when they wrote them that letter back to him saying, “Who are you, Paul? What authority do you have?”
And Paul still says, “My dear friends.”
So he says:
So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. You are reasonable people. Decide for yourselves if what I am saying is true. When we bless the cup at the Lord’s Table, aren’t we sharing in the blood of Christ? And when we break the bread, aren’t we sharing in the body of Christ? And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body. Think about the people of Israel. Weren’t they united by eating the sacrifices at the altar?
So Paul has two examples here. The first one is the Lord’s Supper, and the second one is Israel and the Temple. And what he’s trying to communicate through this is that when we eat together, when we are participating in community together, we’re united, and we have community. So then when he goes on in verse 19, he’s trying to make you understand, by eating together in the Lord’s Table, we have community. So if I’m going to be eating at a pagan temple, what does that actually say? You have community, then, with the people there and with demons.
So in verse 19, it says:
What am I trying to say? Am I saying that food offered to idols has some significance, or that idols are real gods? No, not at all. I am saying that these sacrifices are offered to demons, not to God. And I don’t want you to participate with demons. You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and from the cup of demons, too. You cannot eat at the Lord’s Table and at the table of demons, too. What? Do we dare to rouse the Lord’s jealousy? Do you think we are stronger than he is?
So what Paul is trying to say here is, “Don’t go to the pagan temples to eat meat.” And actually what happens, the Corinths actually believed that demons would attach themselves to meat, and so those Corinthians would say, “Okay, I have this meat and it’s got a demon attached to it. So I’m gonna go to the temple, and I’m gonna offer this meat to my god, and my god is going to get rid of the demons. So then I’m good to eat it.” So that like, in a sense, they were trying to do the right thing, but because we know that there’s only one true God, all of the other religions—behind the curtain of all of the other religions, I believe, are demons, for the purpose of distracting humans from the one true God. And so even though the Corinthians thought that, “Hey, I’m gonna go bring my food to this temple and have it sacrificed so that it’s purified and everything,” I think in some sense, it was kind of doing the opposite thing. But Paul, you know, says that, “Well, you know, they’re not really real gods, but I don’t want you to participate with demons.”
In verse 23, it says,
You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is beneficial. Don’t be concerned for your own good but for the good of others.
So Paul is kind of quoting them back to themselves, right? When they say, “I’m allowed to do anything,” that most likely is from their letter back to him. And he also says this in chapter 6:
You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything.
And so there’s three principles to live by from Skip Heitzig, and this is in concern for the gray areas of our Christian life, where, if it’s not necessarily something that is written down in the Bible in terms of something that I want to participate in, these are three really good things that we can think through based off of chapter 6, verses 12 and 13, and chapter 10. And the three things are: the Test of Utility—is it good for me? Will it help me in my Christian walk? The Test of Authority—can I control it or will it control me? And the Test of Charity—will it bless other people or hinder other people? But when we run up into a gray area where we don’t exactly know what we should do, just ask yourself, “Is it good for me? Can I control it, or will it control me? And will it bless or hinder other people?”
Moving on into verse 25, it says:
So you may eat any meat that is sold in the marketplace without raising questions of conscience. For “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”
So then very specifically, he talks about the marketplace versus eating food at a pagan temple, ‘cause most likely, those pagan temples, you were able to go inside and eat almost kind of like at a restaurant, but then they had such an abundance of meat you could actually then just go out to the marketplace, like, and then, you know, buy meat there. And so Paul is saying, “If you’re just going and getting some meat, just go get some meat, because the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” But again, kind of that community and uniting yourself—if you go into the pagan temple, that’s where things start to be an issue.
But in verse 27, it says:
If someone who isn’t a believer asks you home for dinner, accept the invitation if you want to. Eat whatever is offered to you without raising questions of conscience.
And I’m going to skip down to verse 29, the second half:
For why should my freedom be limited by what someone else thinks? If I can thank God for the food and enjoy it, why should I be condemned for eating it?
And then back up to verse 28, it says:
(But suppose someone tells you, “This meat was offered to an idol.” Don’t eat it, out of consideration for the conscience of the one who told you. It might not be a matter of conscience for you, but it is for the other person.)
So with this one, it’s—the conscience is what matters here, where if someone who isn’t a believer asks you to dinner, just go for it. Accept it. Have a good time with them. Enjoy. But then if they say, “Yeah, but this food was offered to an idol…” So again, thinking about how new Christians in an immoral city, it’s kind of a hard switch, where if someone who isn’t a believer offers you food and says, “Hey, this was sacrificed to an idol,” they’re going to be kind of like confused, where it’s like, “Okay, so you can worship Jesus, and you can worship other gods?”
And so because of that, Paul says, “Okay, well at that point, let’s just not.” So giving up your liberty—because you have every right to eat that, but giving up your liberty for the love of the other person.
And so Paul here is following in the footsteps of Jesus. And so after the gospels, all of these letters that we have are going to kind of flesh out how do we follow Jesus? And so in Mark 10:45, it says:
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others…
And then in Philippians 2:6–8, it says:
Though he [Jesus] was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Application
And so I was trying to think of like, what are the modern day equivalents to this? Because I’ve just spent a lot of time talking about meat and meat offered to idols, and we don’t really have that issue much here in the States or Western civilization in general. There are some cultures and some countries in the world that still very much have to deal with this, and these passages are very helpful to them in that way. But, you know, possibly us going to a Buddhist or a Hindu temple, or playing with like New Age crystal things, like those could be some modern day equivalents. But what we’re supposed to do is we’re supposed to take the principle, which is limiting yourself to love others well, right, and then apply that to our lives now. And in James 1:5 it says:
If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.
Give Glory to God
And so I think the last couple of verses of this chapter kind of gives us our conclusion. In verse 31 it says:
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Don’t give offense to Jews or Gentiles or the church of God. I, too, try to please everyone in everything I do. I don’t just do what is best for me; I do what is best for others so that many may be saved.
And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.
So do it all for the glory of God. So “glory” in the Hebrew is kavod, and it brings together the idea of “weight,” and “glory” in the Greek is doxa, and it has the idea of “reputation.” And the best example that I’ve heard about kind of how can we understand “glory,”—because it is just kind of a big concept—but is the example of a teenager and their bedroom. When a kid gets his bedroom, and they’re not sharing it with someone else or anything like that, and they have enough money to be able to go buy posters and this, that, and the other thing, they make it their own place. Right? “This is my bedroom.” So they open up the door, and they say, “Hey, check out my kavod. This is me. This is how I’m represented.”
And so, you know, stereotypically, I don’t know, like, guys, if you have a bachelor room or a basement, that’s kind of like your kavod, right? And so I think then, God, when he wants to open up the door to the bedroom to show us, “This is my glory,” I think oftentimes with glory, we kind of get, again, this individualistic idea of, like, if I just play the guitar really well, “All glory to God.” Or if I play the piano, you know, and I do a really great solo, “All for the glory of God.” And I think oftentimes we only think vertically about glory to God—and I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong. I do think that there is, like, okay, glory to God is a vertical thing. But I think oftentimes what we need to think is that the horizontal—so how we treat one another—actually then points us upwards. And so rather than it just being like a, “Oh, I’m really good at playing the guitar for church, all glory to God,” how is my relationship with Steven? And that horizontal aspect is really what’s going to then drive the vertical aspect of giving glory to God.
And so when God opens up the door to show us his glory, if the church is, you know, backstabbing each other, and there’s tension between a brother and sister in Christ, and we’re not dealing with that, that’s going to diminish God’s glory. And so whatever you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Love for Others
Chapter 8, verse 13, it says:
So if what I eat causes another believer to sin, I will never eat meat again as long as I live—for I don’t want to cause another believer to stumble.
That is quite a statement. “I will never eat meat again.” He has every right to eat meat. But if it’s gonna make another believer stumble, he is going to just say, “Nope, it’s not for me. Never again am I…” And that type of giving up of oneself is intense. It’s really incredible. But it’s out of love for everyone else.
Chapter 8, verse 1 says:
But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church.
So the only two things that come, you know, through this life into the next, are God and people. And there might, you know—the earth and New Jerusalem and everything like that. But the only thing that really matters in life are God and people. And so my question to you is: what things might God be calling you to give up for the sake of God and people?
And John 13:34–35 says:
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
So liberty within the limits of love. How can we be loving each other?
