Previously the apostle Paul shared with us that love is the key to Christian discipleship and as Christians we are to live under the law of love. After this, he urged us to awake and go now to live for Jesus. This week, Paul is going to share with us one of the first stumbling blocks to love, and that is when people from many different tribes, tongues and nations come together in the church under Christ, we can bring all of our differences, but we are not to allow those differences to separate us. Instead, we are to continue to love one another as we would love ourselves. Thus, as far as it concerns us, we must do everything we can to live in peace and genuinely care for one another’s needs. Paul would even go as far as to say that if there is something that he knows is lawful and good for him to do but it may hurt another Christian to do it in front of them, such as eating meat sacrificed to idols, he would not eat it, because for him it is more important to care about his brother or sister than it is for him to eat a bit of food. This certainly goes both ways.

The warning that Paul gives us is that we are careful not to turn these secondary differences into things that would divide us or put one Christian lower than another, but that it is Jesus who is our final authority and judge, we are not each other’s judges. And so, we must honour them and love them. Yet, Paul is not saying that we should be people-pleasers – do not let anyone speak evil of what you know to be good. This also means that as much as we would do everything we can to accommodate someone else, we cannot allow them to dictate over us things that are secondary. This is how, as one big community with all its difference, we can continue to walk in love because love is the key. Do not let anything stop us as we awake and go and live a life for Jesus together as a church community.