NOTES for Co1 8:1

A considerable part of the Holy Scriptures, particularly - the Old Testament, is dedicated to "how it should be ". How should one act, how life and relationship with God and men should be built, what is obligatory, what is acceptable, and what is contraindicated to man. However, is connected to this a big problem being in the limelight of the New Testament: we too much like transforming these representations of "how it should be" into pseudoscientific knowledge, and with their help judge others. The Lord Jesus-Christ often speaks about that, and Apostle Paul speaks about it in the First Epistle to Corinthians. With an aphorism very often appropriate to him, he writes: "... Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth ". The verbs of the Greek text are noticeably more illustrious, than in our translation of the King James Version: "... Knowledge inflates, but charity builds".

Indeed, the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures’ precept as a religious system can transform you to a haughty (inflated) type, knowing only how to give lesson to others and show them their errors. The edification of the Church, one of the key notions of Apostle Paul’s theology, requires more than just knowledge of "how it should be ", it requires charity. Behind these words stands a very important and deep representation about the Church as about the Body of Christ. But is also wider: the meaningfulness of the relationship between us, the justification of our being and life itself can be built by us, and only by charity. Righteousness, that is conformity to "how it should be ", is by far not sufficient for that.