1 Corinthians 8:9-13 - But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

‎In Christ we have the freedom to do lots of things. With the context of this passage in view, we know that idols are not alive nor do they have any real power; knowing this, in our freedom, we are then able to eat the food that is sacrificed to idols by others because we know to us it is just meat. Yet, not every Christian brother or sister has come to this knowledge, or it may have been something that they used to wrestle with, so they view doing such things as sin.

‎Knowing this, we should be careful of our liberties in Christ so as to make sure that we are not causing our brothers and sisters to fall into sin or struggle even further because of our actions. While we cannot know everyone’s struggles, if we are made aware of such things, we should take measures to lay aside our Christian liberties so that we don’t cause them to sin.

‎As an example, there are many believers who strongly feel that consuming any amount of alcohol is a sin; that is their biblical conviction and they hold to it. Other believers are aware of the command not to be drunk & take it as such, so they feel it is okay to drink. So, what should the Christian who thinks it’s okay to drink do when he is around the other? If he is obeying this passage of Scripture, he would refrain from consuming alcohol while in the presence of this believer, so as to not offend his brother in Christ.

‎As Paul states here, it is better to abstain than to cause our brother to stumble. This sentiment is also expressed by Jesus (Matt. 18:5, 6), so this is a matter that we should be sure to take to heart.

Matthew 11:17-18 - For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

‎As Christians, we are always going to have our critics. There will be some that hate on us because of the things that we do, and there will be others that criticize the things that we don’t do. It’s a catch 22 because they are going to find some way to find fault with you. Yet, we can take comfort in the fact that as long as we are following intently after the will of the Father we are justified in his sight. If we are walking in his wisdom, we have nothing to fear and can disregard the haters and continue doing the ministry work that the Lord has called us to.

John 13:4-9 - … He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”

In this act of love, Jesus Christ (the Son of God, God in the flesh, and God himself) had lowered himself to the status of servant/slave by washing his disciples’ feet. This wasn’t something that a rabbi or teacher should be doing, let alone God. Yet, Jesus used this act of humility & love to demonstrate to Peter the kind of sacrificial love & humility that he would need to have in his own ministry. Jesus didn’t think anything of it to get down and clean his disciples’ feet because he was being obedient to the Father’s will, and we need to be willing to do the same when the Holy Spirit calls us to do so. So, let’s follow Jesus’ example and be willing to lower ourselves from any status we might think we have, even if it is rightfully ours, and take the role of a servant so as to be pleasing to our Father.

To close, in reading this passage, I was reminded of a line from Stephen the Levite’s song “Commissionary” from The Last Missionary, which I will quote in closing:

So in resemblance to the Son of the Father/ we know that us as the chosen play roles like Prince and the Pauper/ proper it is for us to consider it as an honor/ to follow the greater Master and serve the way that He taught us// modeled for us humility, serving the Father willingly/ still in His Deity, the second person of the Trinity/ so even we, as a royal nation of priests/ gotta see that it’s not beneath his peeps to scrub on some feet//