A reflection on 1 Corinthians 8:1b-7, 11-13 for Thursday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time.
There is a particular satisfaction in being right.
Not holy satisfaction, necessarily. More the kind where I can quietly assemble all my evidence, rehearse the conversation in my head, and conclude with complete confidence that I am not the problem here.
I know what was said. I know what I meant. I know why I made the decision I made. I can explain the whole thing very reasonably, probably with bullet points if necessary.
And sometimes, of course, I really am right.
That is what makes Paul’s words today so uncomfortable: “Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up.”
He is not saying truth does not matter. He is not saying ignorance is somehow more virtuous than understanding. Paul knows perfectly well that the meat sacrificed to idols is just meat. He knows there is one God. His theology is sound.
But then he asks a harder question.
What is your knowledge doing to the person beside you?
That is where I start feeling a little less triumphant.
Because I can be correct about the substance of something and still be careless with another person. I can have a legitimate frustration and express it in a way that wounds. I can make a perfectly defensible parenting decision and become so invested in proving that I am justified that I stop noticing the child in front of me. I can disagree with someone at church and tell myself I am only “standing on principle,” while enjoying the fact that I have the stronger argument a little too much.
Marriage has a way of exposing this too. There are moments when I can explain, in great detail, why my irritation makes sense. I can trace the sequence of events. I can establish that I did, in fact, mention the thing earlier. I can probably produce supporting documentation.
And yet none of that answers the question of whether I am speaking with love.
Being right does not give me permission to be contemptuous.
Being informed does not give me permission to be impatient.
Having the better argument does not mean I have loved the other person well.
I think I often want Christianity to stop at the question, “Am I allowed to do this?” It feels clean. Manageable. I can look for the rule, make the judgment, and move on.
But Paul pushes beyond that.
Love asks more.
Love asks whether my freedom is helping someone else grow closer to God. Love asks whether my words are building up or merely proving a point. Love asks whether I care more about being vindicated than being charitable.
That does not mean we must spend our lives terrified of upsetting anyone. Love is not the same as keeping everyone comfortable, and sometimes truth itself is uncomfortable. Jesus certainly never avoided hard truths.
But there is a difference between someone being wounded by the truth and someone being wounded by my pride.
I do not always know the difference immediately.
That may be why this reading feels less like a rule and more like an examination of conscience.
What am I trying to accomplish when I speak?
Do I want this person’s good, or do I want to win?
Am I trying to build up, or am I enjoying the feeling of standing above?
Those questions reach much deeper than whether I am technically correct.
I still care about truth. I still want to understand my faith, make wise decisions, and speak clearly when something matters. But I also need the humility to remember that knowledge alone does not make me holy.
Love builds up.
And if my rightness leaves someone crushed beneath it, I may need to ask whether I have understood Paul’s point at all.
Lord, save me from the kind of correctness that feeds my pride. Teach me to love truth without using it as a weapon, and help me care more about building others up than proving that I am right.