Paul speaks in riddles a lot of times. I relish his writing style though.
Reflections from this chapter which I read on Tuesday but never got down to penning down my thoughts.
It is interesting the passage began with " knowledge puffs up but loves build up" . I sort of reflected on my own experience with this, on how sometimes I get so engrossed in sharing about Jesus to people, that I forget their immediate need is to know how much I care about them, not how much I know about God.
People only care about what you think when you show them that you care about them. That is the take home message for me. I praying for God's overflowing love and compassion to be in me for others.
Love is best demonstrated through actions, not thoughts, not talk.
Another lesson that I learnt from this chapter is not to let my right to freedom stumble someone else when this freedom is exercised. It is best summarized by dying to self and living a life that has nothing to prove and nothing to lose.
I think examples would be situations like though I am no longer bound by laws not to drink, do body art (this is subjective), etc.. I do not outwardly declare that it is okay to do so because it could be a stumbling block to both believers and pre-believers especially when the beliefs are not explained properly.
Another situation is not feeling guilt/ shame or condemnation over the wrong things we have done, but announcing to people that we are forgiven no matter what. So knowing a fact doesn't mean we have to shout it out so as to show we have freedom. I think that is an overexercising of my right to freedom.
I guess the bottomline is, ultimately, our walk with God is accountable to Him, but we should take care not to stumble our fellow people.
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