bear one another’s burdens

The book of I Corinthians is a letter, written by the Apostle Paul back to the new Christian church he had started in the city of Corinth. In much of it, Paul is responding to questions the new Christians of Corinth had written to him: “OK, Paul, you’ve moved on, and now certain situations have come up here that we’re not sure how to handle; how do we deal with these things?” So Paul writes back and advises them. One of the questions they have asked has to do with the large number of temples to other gods in the city of Corinth. The new Christians knew, of course, that there’s only one true God, and that they’re not to participate in the worship of any other, false gods. Their question was: If you to the market and buy and eat meat that came from an animal that had been offered as a sacrifice to one of those false gods at one of those other temples, does that count as “participating in the worship” of that false god? Because that animal meat had been associated with false worship, should it be avoided by a faithful Christian? […]