A Temperate Example by Rev. W. M. Blackburn

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 27, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 13.

A Temperate Example.

By Rev. W. M. Blackburn

THE apostle Paul took the ground of total abstinence from all that is injurious, where improperly used, or that would cause a brother to offend. He maintained this principle not simply because his conscience positively required it, but because his influence required it. With a good conscience he could eat meat offered to idols. But mark you, such eating could not lead to a bad habit of gluttony. It would not make him beastly and brutal. It could not dethrone his reason and ruin his soul. It was not a stimulus, provoking a tyrannical greed and disgusting excesses. If it had been, he would have had an acute conscience about eating it, even moderately. But being innocent in itself and in its effects upon himself, he could teach that eating such meats did not offend his own conscience.

There were others, however, who had a "weak conscience" in this respect. Toward them he must have a "conscience void of offense." They felt that by such eating they were acknowledging the idol to which those meats had been offered before they were sold in the shambles. Their tender convictions must be treated with sacredness. If they saw an apostle innocently indulge, they might plead his example, and not only eat the meat, but go so far as to worship the idol. With an eye upon the white spire of his example, they would strand their souls upon the sand-bars of impiety.

The apostle Paul would not remove to such disputed ground. It would cause contention. He had no good title to it, either from his conscience or his God. The foundations would give way. He would fall into the sin of offending his brethren. Rather would he abide on the sure ground of self-denial, which the Saviour had granted to his disciples. The charter ran: "Deny thyself." Not sin, simply, but self. Hence he said, "If meat make my brother to offend [stumble], I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." His position was that of total abstinence from whatever would give him an injurious influence over his brethren.

He wished the churches at Rome and at Corinth to stand on this ground: "Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. . . . For meat destroy not the work of God. . . . It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth or is offended or is made weak." Romans 14. 14-21. See, also, 1 Cor. 8.—Rev. W. M. Blackburn.