First Corinthians 8:1-4 Shall we eat the meat of an idol?
1 Corinthians 8:1-4 · Roger Henderson · Dec 27, 2020
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 38
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261921233835

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. Nice to have folks here, too, and folks online. Yeah, that's great. Well, Merry Christmas again. So we're going to start a new chapter today. We're going to start, and this is a play on words. Chester McCauley used this and I decided to use it too. Shall we eat idle meat? So you can take that for what you think. Bonnie said, should we make it idles meat? And so you'll say, we'll get into that.

You're going to wonder, why in the world is Paul going to spend a whole chapter of God's Word talking about meat sacrifice to idols. But there's really an underlying principle that we're going to see, actually multiple principles. So don't be kind of scared off by saying, well, what do I care about that way back in Corinth there? Why do I care about the, you know, they still were hung up with idols, idol meat, idols meat.

So we'll see about that. So as usual, I like to use Chester McCauley's, let me just put it all up here, Chester McCauley's outline. So basically the verse 1A is going to kind of introduce the topic. And actually it's really, the key part is what is their attitude? And what is our attitude to things that we find our brothers and sisters involved in? If they're involved in something that that takes our focus off Christ, how do we approach them? Do we come to them and say, brother and sister, you're on the wrong track, you got, you know, get busy and get this done, or do we come within love?

And we're gonna see that love, knowledge and love go hand in hand. So there's, we're gonna cover down through verse four today. We're gonna see a lot about the doctrine of there's one God and three persons. We're gonna talk about that a bit. let's just move on to the so actually as I pointed out before in a previous message there's kind of a little key if you will in the scriptures here this idea of saying now concerning Paul used that in several beginning of his books he used that in chapter 7 where he says now concerning the things about which I wrote to you and he's going to use it again here Now concerning the things that were sacrificed to idols, and so on, and then we're gonna see it in chapter 12 again, the same phrase, the same words in the Greek. So it's kind of neat that God's word, as we know many times, divides itself up for us, the Lord has provided that for us. So that's kind of a cool thing to see. So here are the four verses that we're gonna talk about today.

So we start off, now concerning the things sacrificed to idols, We know that we have all knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he is not yet known as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. Therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in this world and there is no God but one.

There's really some neat things just in these first four verses just some really cool things about knowledge. You know man and knowledge I mean in our age if you're you know the your education, your knowledge is reigned supreme. And you can be, depending on what school you graduate from, it's just amazing. You don't have to have any abilities, but I graduated from Umptibon, or whatever it is, and oh, you must be really knowledgeable, you're really smart.

Well, God's word says, you know, knowledge can have a problem. It can make you arrogant, and that's a problem. That's a problem, that knowledge making you arrogant, especially in the body of Christ. Because that arrogance is not, it's not Christ's love, that's not Christ's life. So we're going to see that as we go through here. Okay, so let's just kind of jump into it here. So now concerning the thing sacrificed to idols, we know that we have all knowledge. So that's a pretty bold statement. So let's look at this.

I like to do this, and I'm thankful that I have the, and if you're interested in diagramming sentences, I can't really instruct you too well. I learned enough to read the diagrams, but there are some cool aids out there that you can look at the sentence diagram of scripture. You have to translate the Greek to English, but that's pretty easy, that's a lookup. You know, you look at the Greek word, there's the English word, and you write the English word in the diagram. But you can look at this, and it's really helpful. And our brother Hal loved it, right? I mean, he wanted to have something off in the overheads, right? And he loved it. And I got to love it, too. But I couldn't do what Hal did. I can read a diagram. I can't necessarily create it.

So the verb here, and here's the thing, one thing you know in the Greek, or you understand is in the Greek, the subject sometimes is with the verb. So in this case, we know. is a verb and the direct object that we are all having knowledge and the modifier concerning the thing sacrificed to idols. So this helps just immediately because you get confused with this verse. You say, well, what is he trying to tell us? He's trying to tell us that we know that we have all knowledge concerning a particular thing, the thing sacrificed to idols.

So we know is oida in the Greek, is to have or perceive, to know something, and it's a present tense. So the Corinthian believers, I'm sorry, it's in the perfect tense, the Corinthian believers knew about things, sacrifice, idols in the past, and they continue to know about up into the present. So I was thinking in the present jargon, we would say, we got it.

If you really understand something, I got that, I got that, our grandkids. I got that. Don't tell me anymore, I got that. Don't help me, I got that. So they said they got that. Well, they did get that, but they didn't have love. That's the problem. They got it, but they didn't have love.

It says we all have knowledge, and from the context it's about things sacrificed to idols. concerning things sacrificed to idols. So here's a short little blurb, if you will. I'm not going to spend a lot of time today. Next week we'll do more. But right now here's just some of the highlights of the issue. Apparently in Corinth, you could not live in Corinth. There was a place where they sacrificed idols. You couldn't live there and not know about that or be engaged in that. And maybe even you weren't involved in that, you became a believer.

And that's where the issue comes in that Paul's talking about here. So meat sacrifice to idols was portioned out. One of the portions went to the idol. He got, you know, this thing, got a portion of the meat. Okay? Not too useful there. They thought it was useful. But another portion went to the priest. He thought that was pretty cool. You got a porterhouse or a T-bone, right? He probably thought that was pretty cool. And then, here's where the rub came. The rub came when it went into the marketplace.

And apparently, it also, there were apparently facilities around the temple where you could have, like restaurants, if you will, or gathering places, and they would serve this meat. So I guess it wasn't uncommon if you were, quote, a parishioner of the temple, you would go out there and chow down on some meat, and that would be the meat that was sacrificed to idols.

So actually, the remainder of this chapter is going to talk about that issue, but we've got to kind of keep our heads kind of in the game. We've got to think about, well, that meat sacrifice to idols is currently not a problem, even though I did get a call on the phone and a person asked me, you guys know who it is, he's rooming with some people that sacrifice, and he asked me, is that a problem for me as a Christian? And I said, read chapter 8 of Corinthians. It's not a problem. So if you eat meat sacrificed to idols, it doesn't make you any worse or any better.

Anyway, so that's, I did get a question about that. I was amazed. I used to get a whole lot. Mike gets all the tough questions. I give them all to him, but I did get that question. Okay. All right. So here's the last part of this verse is pretty cool. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. Boy, there's a lot in that verse. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. So let's look at this. We're going to spend quite a bit of time on this guy right here.

And actually, there's a definite article, The Knowledge, and I believe that's focusing back again on the meat sacrifice to idols. It speaks of one's knowledge, knowing something. And before I can answer the question before I got it up here, it refers back to that meat sacrifice to idols.

And it says it makes arrogant, or it puffs you up, or blows you up, or inflates you. And we had a verse earlier in chapter four, it says, now some of them were arrogant as though I were not coming to you. Remember when they were, Paul was gonna visit them, and some said, well, he's not coming, he must be afraid of us, you know, or something like that. And they got arrogant about that. So that's a usage of that word. It can make you prideful with this knowledge.

But in contrast, but, Love, the love, and agape, that wonderful word in the scriptures that speaks about Christ's love, not only His love to die for us on the cross, but the wonderful things we see in, we'll study later here in chapter 13 of Corinthians, you know, love is patient, love is kind, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. It's a love that only Christ, through the Holy Spirit, that we can access that. That's the only way we can't do it on our own. It's Christ's love edifies, that kind of love edifies. It builds up.

And I have a quote from Merriman on this. Love will teach us how to handle Christian liberty. Christ's love will show us how we handle the issue with our brother and sister that are hung up on some issue in their life. So now, I actually listened to Merriman on this one. I was able to go back. Who was here in 1974 in this body? Anybody here?

Okay. Well, he preached a message on this. And so he had some quotes I thought were just outstanding. So I'm going to share those with you. So this is a flashback to 1974. Okay, and he actually was quoting Charles Hodge, who was a well-known theologian at the time and had some really great understanding of this passage. But he says, the first thing he says, he quotes Hodge saying, love is intelligent and knowledge is emotional. Now you think I wrote that wrong, don't you? You think, well, Roger, you're an engineer. You spent most of your life. Knowledge is emotional? What are you thinking? And love is intelligent?

You can't possibly, that's what. That's all the chick flicks, right? No, no, it's not. No, that's exactly right. What does the verse say? Knowledge makes arrogant, but love puffs us up. Well, the key to this, it's Christ's love. If that wasn't Christ's love, I might have a problem with what Hodge said here. But he says, love is intelligent, and knowledge is emotional.

Boy, that just sounds so contrary. You know, we think, boy, I got knowledge. I'm not emotional. I'm a facts guy, right? Give me the facts. No, knowledge makes you arrogant. Another quote from Hodge, anything that puffs you up is an emotional response. Think about it, I don't know whether you guys have been around people that think they're pretty smart or they are smart but they aren't humble. It's not very much fun to be around them because they, you know, they're just so, you're afraid to open your mouth. They're gonna just slam you to the ground with their wisdom or their knowledge. And it is emotional. It's emotional for them because they have to prove themselves. They have to show themselves that they're, I got this knowledge.

Next point, love keeps on building up. If we weren't talking about Christ's love, we would have a problem. Christ's love does, keeps on building us up. It's just like we saw in Corinthians there. Knowledge that puffs up is not true knowledge. And then the last one, love is to be the catalyst, Christ's love is to be the catalyst in the proper application of knowledge. I mean, I thought, boy, I just got so excited about this little section. Man, this is just incredible. Love is intelligent and knowledge is emotional. Write that down, write that to your buddies, your friends. Don't tell them it's Christ's love.

They'll go off the rails, right? Okay, so as you might guess, other people have thought about this too. Macaulay has an equation. I love equations, right? That's what engineers do. They love equations. That's what they do, okay? Here's Macaulay's equation, but I didn't like his equation because I'm an engineer, so I changed it. So here's his equation with Roger's change. True knowledge equals scriptural facts plus Christ's love plus action. Isn't that cool? Scriptural facts. Christ died for our sins, was buried. Christ's love. Love bears all things, believes all things. Christ's action. He died for us. Or in this context, I'm not gonna eat meat if it offends my brother. I'm just not gonna eat it. I'm not gonna do something to offend my brother.

So that's what true knowledge is. But do we see that in the world place? No, we see knowledge as a hammer, something to hold over somebody. I got this knowledge and you can't, especially today, how about the whole thing with the virus? I mean, people, I got knowledge, this is what we ought to do. And they hold that over us and we have to comply in many cases. So it's very interesting. So I was thinking, what are today's issue?

And one thing that came to mind, I was thinking about our Jewish brothers and sisters, Mike has lived across the street from some, and you know they come out of, if they become believers, they come out of a system that, I mean how do they, I worship God this way, I had all this stuff on, I wore these phylacteries, I have all this, all this garb of the Jewish religion. And they come to Christ and Christ says, you're one. Jew and Gentile are one. We're one in Christ.

So they come out of that. And there's just so many similarities to that. Kind of came to mind about that. So there are many similarities in this meat sacrifice to idols with today's problems. Oh, I actually had one there. This is from J. Vernon McGee. Von and I have been listening to Hebrews, Mike. We're kind of getting ahead of you trying to be smart in your class on Wednesday there.

So actually, McGee has one of his, he says, you know, in the South, mixed bathing is a no-no, but smoking's okay. He went to California, became a pastor in Los Angeles, the Church of the Open Door. He says, well, now in California, smoking's a no-no, but mixed bathing's okay. It depends on where you come from, right?

Anyway, all right, so let's go on, verse two. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he is not yet known as he ought to know. The first part of this is if anyone supposes that he knows anything. So this is actually another, some of these are tough, but it does help to kind of go through. So actually the if is assumed to be true.

Anyone, speaking of a believer, supposes or imagines So we're going to see here that Paul's going to tell us about the danger of knowledge without love. And he knows, and he thinks in the perfect tense, to know completely. So this is from Merriman. I believe, yeah it is, okay.

If anyone imagines, that's another word for supposes, he has fully acquired knowledge, and then we're gonna see the rest of the verse here. So the problem, as Macaulay points out, the problem that Paul was dealing with this chapter is knowledge alone. Knowledge alone without love in the Christian environment is not sufficient to solve problems.

Imagine if a brother or sister comes to you and you say, and they ask you something and you realize from scripture that that probably is a sin. You could beat them over the head with that. You could say, well that's a sin, brother or sister, you know. Or you could say, you could tell them that it's a sin, but you could do it in love.

And there's a huge difference there. Okay. He is not yet known as he ought to know. It's another kind of hard part, hard verse. It's the Aorist tense, so this is like the inception of knowledge. You could translate that he has not yet begun to know as he ought to know.

Now Macaulay did something here that I'm amazed, I'm so thankful for these men that I can look back to. He had this little thing on his message that he gave on the internet. It wasn't in his notes, but he took some literal translations of as, You can translate as in the Greek, to the extent, or in the way. So he took this phrase here, this part of this verse, and translated it this way. He is not yet known to the extent as he ought to know. So man doesn't know everything.

We don't understand all things. Our knowledge many times falls short. Don't we see that sometimes when we suppose we know something about a brother or sister or our family or our children. We suppose we understand, but we really don't. And we start down that path and we realize that maybe I didn't really know what I was talking about. I thought I was gonna help you, but I didn't.

So we don't know everything. God is omniscient. He knows all things, but we certainly don't. Or you could translate it, he is not known in the way that he ought to know. And this is, you know, we cannot fully, I probably said this in different words, he cannot fully understand the motives of another person. We don't know why a person did something. What was his motivation behind what he said?

We really don't know that. Okay, so that's that verse. Kind of a tough verse, kind of, because you could take some of those statements and you say, well, if you don't connect it back to the issue at hand, you can get off the track here, I think. So let's go to verse three. Actually, I haven't finished yet. Okay, I know what I did here. I was thinking, he is not known as he ought to know. I was thinking, well, what's the right mindset? What should we know? What should we understand?

So I decided to put in here things about connecting love up with this and going back to 1 Corinthians 13. If you guys are, are you fans of Christmas Carol? We have like four or five versions, yeah. They actually quote, actually in one of the versions, I forgot which one it is, they quote this verse I'm going to read. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all things, know all mysteries and have all knowledge, If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

So here, this connects up love, but knowledge must be connected with love. And then here's another one. Bonnie really liked this one. She proofreads my stuff. She said, man, this is great. True gnosis, true knowledge, consists not in the accumulation of data, nor even in the correctness of one's theology, but in the fact that one has learned to live in love toward all. That's heavy. That's neat. I'll read it again.

True gnosis, true knowledge consists not in the accumulation of so much data, not even in the correctness of one's theology. You can be absolutely correct in your theology, but if you don't do it in love, I'm afraid it will not get God's results because it's not according to His Spirit and according to Christ's love. But in the fact that one has learned to live in love toward all. We're not talking about gushy-ooshy love, we're talking about love Like in 1 Corinthians 13, bears all things, believes all things.

This isn't a hug. This love isn't a hug. Even though hugs are good, I love hugs. I hug all my grandchildren, you know, corona or no corona, I hug them all, as much as I can. I don't kiss them. They want to kiss you on the lips. I'm like, I don't want to kiss my grandkids on the lips. I don't think I do. They want to, but I don't want to. Because they have colds and sneezes and coughs, and pretty soon, I got colds and sneezes and coughs. And so, hugs I like. Kisses on the lips, not so much. Okay, alright. So this is a cool section. I really like the topic here, as you can tell.

Okay, but if anyone loves God, he is known by God. This is another powerful statement. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. So in contrast to the previous verses, if anyone loves, love is assumed to be true here, speaking of believers, again we have agape love, Christ's love is the source, present tense, Love is only expressed as Christ lives his life through us.

Remember our part? Our part is not to study the manual on love. I mean, you know, it is a study, 1 Corinthians 13, is to know Christ, is to focus on him, and that love will just happen. It will happen as the Holy Spirit lives his life through us. We don't have to try to do it.

We just love, you know, we love as Christ loved. A couple verses here in this context. 419, 1 John 419, we love because He first loved us. 1 John 410, and this is love. This is what love is about. Not that we love God, but that God loves us. but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

I have another little story to tell. I got a question many, many years ago. A person saying, I can't, I can't love God. I just can't love God. And you know when I wasn't wise enough at the time, the answer is pretty straightforward. we have to realize that he loved us first. If we realize that, we won't have a problem with loving him. But we leave that out if we don't see that clearly enough.

I wasn't wise enough to give that person that counsel. But going through that, I remembered that question I got. I did it kind of hemmed and hawed, and I kind of went around the mulberry bush and answered something I thought I was really smart about. Using knowledge, right? No, no, no, I can tell him this.

But I didn't think, well, no, no. It's, you know, He first loved us. That's what these verses, He first loved us. When He loves us, then we can, and we have His life, we can love others. Okay. He is known by, He is known by Him. If anyone loves God, He, the person, is known by Him.

Speaking of believers again, So I actually thought this was kind of cool. Vine, in his expository dictionary, had these three statements describing this love that's described at Gnosko in the original. He says, this particular Greek word frequently indicates the following. A relationship between the person, knowing, and the object, known. So I kind of thought of the person, knowing, is God, and the object is a believer. And secondly, in respect to what is known is of value or importance to the one who knows.

We are of incredible value to God. Christ died in our behalf. He showed how incredibly valuable we are. Hence the establishment of a relationship. So God has established this relationship based on our faith in him between ourselves and the Lord Jesus, ourselves and God. Just amazing. So it talks about this being, it's in the perfect tense.

He, the believer, is known in the past by Him, God, and continues to be known up into the present by Him. God continually knows us. Even though we may forget about Him, we may forsake Him. There's a cool verse that talks about all these things we can do. I've forgotten, I can't quote it, but at the end it says, but he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. So we can do all these, believers can do all these things here, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, but he remains faithful. He will not deny himself, he will continue to love us. So by him, Macaulay says, expresses, no one by him expresses a special, intimate, and favor that we have with him.

Okay, so let's go on, oh yeah, and this is pretty cool. A verse that kind of backs us up, 1 John 4, 7, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. So our part in this whole equation is to know Him, to focus on Him, to trust Him, to understand His Word. That's how we get into this circle of love as we are interfacing with His Word and the Spirit is showing us the things of Christ.

Okay, last verse. Therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and there is no God but one. So I kind of think this is what was happening, that like this verse four, take verse four, and you see a brother or sister struggling with sacrificing meat, or eating the meat sacrificed to idols, and you just say, well, wait a minute, that idol's a nothing.

Why are you worried about that? Well, I spent 30 years of my life doing that, you know. It may mean nothing to you, but to them it was a real struggle. Okay, therefore, see, he's talking, this is the conclusion. So I fell back to my diagramming here. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. It's not a perfect thing, you know. Sometimes I can understand the diagram, sometimes I can't. So it just, these ones, it just really worked out well.

We know as a main verb, the modifier here is concerning. the eating of things sacrificed to idols, and as a compound direct object, there's no such thing as an idol in the world, and there's no God but one. Boy, it just lays it out so clearly. We know it's talking about things sacrificed to idols. Two things come out of that. There's no such thing as an idol in the world, and there's no God but one.

Okay, we'll look at each of those. So a constable kind of shares here with this, we know, Paul is, he kind of, you know, we went off kind of a little bit of a tangent in 2 and 3 and talked about the knowledge and love, he says, concerning the things sacrificed to idols. They could, you know, possibly they could eat them at these sort of restaurants that kind of surrounded the temples. I'm not sure they're called restaurants, that might be a, that's a Rogerism, growing up in a restaurant probably. I'm sorry. Okay.

So now he's gonna give us God's view of idols. And as you might guess, and this I think is where, if it's not done in love, it's amazing. God is incredible. And we're gonna see how incredible he is by the description of the true God. There is no such thing as an idol in the world. An idol is a non-entity in the world. It's nothing, no one. The footnote in the New American Standard is an idol has no real existence.

And from 1 Corinthians 10, 19, what I do mean then, that a thing sacrificed to idol is anything or an idol is anything. They're not anything. And then Galatians has something to say, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those things which by nature are no gods, like idols. And then Macaulay kind of shares here, Paul means that there's no true existence, they are just pieces of wood, stone, nothing more.

That's what an idol truly is. But there is one God. I'm sorry, but there is no God but one. So there's a bunch of verses. This is a big topic. Actually, I borrowed one chart. I did have a whole bunch more, and Bonnie looked at it and said, wow, look at that, Roger. Look at all these charts. This is too much. You're gonna, you know. So I borrowed one chart just on the fact, talking about God and the Trinity.

But as a precursor to that, just some wonderful statements about the oneness of God in Deuteronomy 4.35. To you it was shown that you might know the Lord, He is God, there is no one beside Him. Then in 4.39b, the Lord, He is God, in the heaven above, on earth below, there is no other.

Then in Deuteronomy 6.4, hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.

Okay, but to be complete and, you know, to teach, you know, when we get into the New Testament, we see it in the Old Testament too, but so much clearer in the New Testament. The Scriptures further teach the one true God exists in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We express this truth by the word Trinity. You won't find Trinity in Scripture, but the concept is there. one God and three persons.

So I just borrowed one chart from my, so if you're interested, you can look at major Bible themes. They have a chapter on the Trinity. You can read that. And so I have one chart that just kind of, so here's one way you can look at it. I just borrowed a chart from that class.

God, the Trinity. So here's one thing, if you look at, here's one cool way you can validate the Trinity, the three persons and one God. If you look at what's called the attributes of God, you can look at his holiness, his righteousness, and so on. I have a list of that in just a second. But you can find, if you look carefully in Scripture, you can find that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all have the same attributes. They all do, and they all show up. So you can go through it, and there's a study you can do that, and it's worthwhile.

So I just want to show you one example. So his attributes are his essential qualities, who He is. So here's a list, this is from our brother Hal, this is his, there are some variations in this list, but God's attributes can be described as follows. Like I said, there are others you can add or subtract, but anyway.

This is the best one I've seen. So God is holy, and His holiness is described by His righteousness and His justice. God is infinite. He's omniscient. He knows all things. He's everywhere. He's omnipresent. He's omnipotent. He's all-powerful. He's self-existent. He doesn't need anything. He doesn't need anything. He exists totally within himself. He doesn't need anything else to sustain him.

We can get a handout. There's a handout that Cheryl has back there if you want. Not Cheryl. I'm sorry, Sue. God's love is displayed in His grace and His mercy. And you can see how you can expand some of these, I mean this is just, there's more that can be added.

He's immutable, He's faithful, He's truth, He's spirit, and He's sovereign. So I just took one, just took truth, I highlighted in blue there. So let's look at truth. God is truth. So we're going to look at three verses, and they're kind of slimmed down.

The Father, in John 7, 28, says, He who sent me is true. And so Christ is talking here. He says, the Father who sent me is true. So He's declared to be truth or truth or true. The Son, in Revelation, He who is holy, who is true. So the Son is declared as being truth or true. And then the Spirit, 1 John 5, 7. It is the spirit who bears witness, because the spirit is truth.

So you can do the same thing for all those ‐‐ that list of attributes you can find. And I'm not sure if I have done it totally. So I speak ‐‐ I've done parts. I've looked at ‐‐ I think actually In major Bible themes, I have to double check them. I think you can find verses, he offers verses for each one of those attributes for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So what I'm trying to say is the fact that God is three persons is taught in Scripture and is true. And that's how God has, that's who God is.

And it's beyond our comprehension. There's many ways to try to describe the Trinity, you know, I'm not going to, you know, you see triangles, eggs, and there's all kinds of ways. And they all kind of fall short. But the bottom line is that the three persons are all described the same attributes of God, which is amazing. Okay. So finally, I like Hodge, you know, from Merriman.

So I, here's a closing quote here, and it just talks about our The thing we talked about is terms of love. So he's actually referring back to knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. So these words were connected with that part of the verse. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. So Hodge says here, to love is to know and to be known. So he says, compare the verse here. This is the King James. Compare 1 John 4, 7 and 8. Everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.

This is a precise sentiment in the text. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. Love is essential to knowledge. He that loves knows God. The apostle in this connection interchanges love of the brethren and love of God because the love of the brethren is only one of the forms in which the love of God manifests itself. When he says love edifies, he meant to the brethren.

Without that love, he says, there can be no true knowledge. It's exciting verses. I got a privilege to do it. I'm very thankful that Mike and I get to do this. This is just cool stuff. Okay, let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, for our time, Lord. Thank you for today, for the blessings we have. I ask this in Christ's name, amen.