In the novel, Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, ( Nobel laureate) portrays a marriage that disintegrates over a bar of soap. It was the wife’s job to keep the house in order, including household provisions like soap in the bathroom. One day she forgot to replace the soap, an oversight that her husband mentioned in an exaggerated way ("I’ve been bathing for almost a week without any soap"), and that she vigorously denied. Although it turned out that she had indeed forgotten, her pride was at stake and she would not back down. For the next seven months they slept in separate rooms and ate in silence.

"Even when they were old and placid, " writes Marquez, "they were very careful about bringing it up, for the barely healed wounds could begin to bleed again as if they had been inflicted only yesterday." How can a bar of soap ruin a marriage? Because neither partner would say, "Stop. This cannot go on. I’m sorry. Forgive me."

Pride, self centeredness, are probably the hardest of all sins to overcome. The most disturbed and disrupted church in the New Testament was the Corinthian church. They were torn apart by many issues including the use of spiritual gifts, immorality, false doctrine and disrespect for authority.

The Church had sent Paul a series of questions and he answers them in I Corinthians. Among them was a question about eating meat offered to idols. When we first read this, nothing could seem more remote and distant to us than this question. Who cares? But, I believe that there is an important principle in these verses and God’s church needs to learn the lesson.

Corinth was a pagan town full of pagan temples. And, as was common in those days, sacrifices of various kinds were carried out daily in the temples. Most of those sacrifices were animal sacrifices. Part of the sacrifice was given back to the worshiper and part was kept by the priest. Well, there was far more food in a given day than the priest and his family could eat, so much of it was sold in the market. In fact, probably the best steaks to be found were those that had been offered to idols.

What’s the problem? It was common to be invited by a friend or neighbor to go down to the local Temple and to eat a sacrificial meal with them. In some ways, the temples were the restaurants of their day. As a Christian, you would quickly say there is but one God. And all of these idols are nothing but pieces of wood and stone. What’s wrong with eating the meat? But, some may think you are condoning the worship of those gods.

Furthermore, Some were concerned with ritual purity. When the early Church met at Jerusalem to discuss the status of gentile believers, they determined that gentiles do not have to become Jews. But they did request that they refrain from eating meat that had been strangled because it violated Old Testament laws about eating blood. They believed that life was in the blood and that we should respect life by not eating blood in improperly killed meat. How were they to know if the pagan sacrifice had been properly killed?

Now, do you see their dilemma? On the one hand, the best and sometimes the cheapest meat was that sold on the market after it had been offered to idols. On the other hand, should one eat meat that had been improperly slaughtered or that had been offered to idols as an act of worship?

Paul says we all know that there are no other gods. He said we all have knowledge about these things. While knowing certain things is important. Our knowledge, our understanding, he says, makes us arrogant or puffed up. Self importance, arrogance, pride are the product of one who places their confidence in knowledge."If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know." If we think we have mastered the Christian life, if we think we are experts and everyone should listen to us, then we really don’t know as we should. It is the sin of presumption. Why does he say this here? Because some folk’s knowledge was causing division and strife in the Church. It was the liberty party verses the traditionalists. We are free and we can do as we want verses those who say that it is not the way we do it and it should not be done that way. Paul says that if your knowledge causes strife within the church, then you really don’t know much.

Some kinds of thinking can get you in trouble. During the Battle of the Wilderness in the Civil War, Union general John Sedgwick was inspecting his troops. At one point he came to a rampart, over which he gazed out in the direction of the enemy. His officers suggested that this was unwise and perhaps he ought to duck while passing by. "Nonsense," snapped the general. "They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist—." He fell to the ground, fatally wounded. (Today in the Word, August 30, 1993) Thinking you know something when you don’t can be dangerous.

But, if anyone loves God, then he is known by him. Being known by God is far better than knowing, even though knowing is important. But what is of utmost importance here is to realize that to love is the response that true knowledge produces. Knowledge puffs up, love looks out for the best interests of the other. And you know that you are growing in the grace of God when you would rather look out for your brother than too win an argument. J. I. Packer says, "The focus of health in the soul is humility, while the root of inward corruption is pride. In the spiritual life, nothing stands still. If we are not constantly growing downward into humility, we shall be steadily swelling up and running to seed under the influence of pride." (Rediscovering Holiness, Christianity Today, November 9, 1992,. 37)

Once Paul established the principle, he moves onto the problem. Some of us are weak in our walk, we are not yet mature. In fact, as your read this, you will not be able to tell who is the stronger and who is the weaker in this argument. We all know that eating meat offered to idols is no big deal. But for some it is. Will you destroy your brother over a piece of meat? Will you destroy a brother for whom Christ died over your knowledge and your pride? Eating meat offered to idols, if it is an offense to a weaker brother, does harm to his soul.

But, we are to be about the business of soul craft, of building up the soul. Paul said elsewhere, "with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others." That is the principle that we are to live by. And he said that if my eating meat should cause my brother to stumble, then I will never eat meat again.

When was the last time you looked at your brother or sister in Christ with that kind of grace? The fact is, we are all the weaker brother. Not one of us is in the advanced Christian life course. We are still struggling as beginners. We must be careful about imposing on others our pride lest we simply end up expressing our sin. Your weakness may be the sin of racism or pride or gossip or judgmentalism, or you may be a liar or a thief or some other sin. Or you may simply think you know it all. Without grace, grace upon grace, your weakness will cause another, who is weak, to stumble. We are to treat each other as God has treated us If God dealt with us according to justice, then he would destroy us all. But, God has loved us and his love is patient, and kind, and is not jealous; it does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. His Love never fails.

When one takes a libertarian stand on alcohol saying I can drink, it does not bother me and I enjoy it, you may feel justified. But if it causes your brother to sin, if it causes your brother to lose respect for you or causes your brother to fall off the wagon, then what have you done? When we argue about music are we being careful as with a weaker brother? When we talk about the future and take strong stands, are we in danger of causing a brother to stumble? When someone has a new idea and you don’t like and won’t participate, who is causing who to stumble? When you think you know, and you rise up in anger to protect your idea, your knowledge, are you destroying your brother, your sister? There are certain beliefs that we cannot forfeit. We must protect our biblical doctrines. But rarely are our divisions over biblical doctrines but over opinions, preferences, personal knowledge. Those who are seeking Christ together will put aside anything that divides and seek to know God or to be known by God. The proper response to each other is grace upon grace and love, deep godly love.

God has always treated us with his grace. Three thousand years ago, God in his grace and love set the captive Israelite free. Three million poor slaves, healthy young men and sick old women, teenage boys and tired old men, people capable of running a marathon and young mothers with nursing babies. They were carrying their possessions on rickety old carts and driving their meager flocks. They could go no faster than the slowest child, the slowest old man and woman. And, Pharaoh and his army in fast moving chariots were in hot pursuit. How did they ever escape? It was by God’s grace!

We can move no faster than the weakest brother or sister among us and we are all the weak brother! We will complete the journey by grace, God’s grace to us and our grace to each other Grace upon Grace!