“Puffed Up”

BIBLE READING:1 Corinthians 8

The words Paul uses here are seemingly benign, but they may be the central issue of the Corinthian letters.  Being puffed up was the sin that led Satan to separate from God's government.  He became puffed up about himself.  Likewise, the Corinthians were puffed up about how much they knew.  This was generally the feeling of all Greeks.  It cannot be taken away from them because their history has been full of great thinkers, but having immense knowledge is of no help if someone doesn’t know what God wants them to do to be saved.

Satan thought so much of himself that he became twisted in his thinking, and he attacked God. We do not attack God directly—this book shows us that we instead attack each other! Therein lies the problem. We attack each other through gossip, rumors, accusations, etc.

We may accuse those around us of committing all sorts of sins against us.  We may withdraw from them.  We say to ourselves, "they were mean to me", "they aren't smart enough", "they don't dress like I do", and so on.  This is not saying that these things are right, that one should be able to do his own thing at anytime, anywhere, and that others should be tolerant of it.  Nevertheless, Satan can, if he is given the opportunity, lead our minds to find reasons to not associate with others—reasons that have nothing to do with sin. Satan is at work.  If these feelings continue, we may eventually alienate ourselves.  We may stop going to worship services.  In this way, Satan is slowly but surely moving us toward self-indulgence rather than love.