I was thinking again this morning about my trip to the grocery store the other day, about the requirement of masks and the clerks who were exposed to the coughing and sneezing of those who felt it was their “right” not to wear a mask.
I will not debate the efficacy of masks or the right not to wear one. I leave that to experts, of which, I am not. I will, however, remind us that sometimes in the simplest of things we find divine principles.
In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul deals with food sacrificed to idols, is it okay to eat meat that had been sacrificed to an idol. He begins with an interesting contrast between knowledge and love in verse 1. “About food offered to idols: We know that ‘we all have knowledge.’ Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up.”
After debating the issue about meat sacrificed to idols, Paul makes two statements which should give us pause. The first is a principle that is to be applied to much more than eating meat. “But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.” [vs 9 HCSB]
The second is even more profound. “Now when you sin (putting a stumbling block in the path of others) like this against the brothers and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ.” [vs 12 HCSB]
As Christians, it does not matter if it is meat, alcohol, masks, or anything else. It is the principle that while we may have the right to do something, and the knowledge about that right, to promote our right in the face of another is to cause them harm … and God regards that wounding of another the same as “sinning against Christ.”
Love does no harm.